“I have one,” Franklin said aloud to himself. “What happens to our formations after we do these things?”
“Good,” Mother said. “Raptor 20; you are now ten miles from the main formation. Maintain your position. You are not to churn and burn until I tell you to. Do you copy?”
Franklin heard the acknowledgment. He wriggled his fingers, visually checked his harness to make sure everything was tight and shipshape. Shipshape! “Tell me I did not think shipshape,” he mumbled. “I have got to get off this floating island and back to the real Air Force before I have to go through rehab.”
“Black Leader, Raptor Leader, and Raptor 10; for the next few minutes you three are known as Main Formation. Copy?” Tyler-Cole, Johnson, and Crawford acknowledged the AIC. “Okay, Main Formation; sharp turn to the right, ninety degrees…”
Franklin whipped his Raptor to the right, turning the wings vertical with the ground. He could look down and see through the sparse twelve-thousand-foot cloud level to the sea. He thought he saw the wake of a ship.
“… now. Sharp turn now; then immediately level off.”
He felt a slight drop in his stomach. He had turned too soon. Franklin looked at the heads-up display and saw good separation with Black Leader. Raptor-10 Formation was way off to the right. He couldn’t see Crawford and his wingman, but they were far enough away from Franklin that he knew there was little opportunity for a mishap with them.
Johnson, on the other hand, was a different story. She was somewhere nearby. He looked at his heading. “Whoops!” he said aloud. Mother said a ninety-degree turn. Ninety plus 240 equaled 330. He still had the fighter in a turn and it had passed 330 degrees and was approaching 000. He eased back on the throttle and shifted the flaps slightly to bring the aircraft around to 330. He was dead on course when Mother came back on the circuit.
“Main Formation; level off. Level turn to course two-five-zero, afterburners on for one minute.”
Franklin eased the Raptor into a left-hand turn, his attention flipping between the heads-up display and the compass. He pushed the throttle forward, shifting to afterburner. He checked his altitude: 18,500 feet. He had gained five hundred feet. He started a slight descent to his assigned angels eighteen. As his nose dropped, Raptor Leader shot up from below, filling his view for a fraction of a second. His heart reached a new speed. Franklin shoved the Raptor into a dive, pulling up sharply a thousand feet later. Above him and separating to the right was Johnson’s fighter.
“Wow!” she said over the formation circuit. “That was close.”
“Close!” Franklin broadcast. “Too close for comfort, ma’am.” His breath was coming in short, rapid gulps.
“Okay, Main Formation. Take a second to check your position with your fellow fighters.”
Franklin looked at his display.
“Okay, we look okay from my position,” the AIC said. “On my command this time, sharp sixty-degree turn to the left and when we come out, we will be turning to the right.”
Franklin glanced quickly around the cockpit. His right hand was on the stick and the left on the throttle.
“For you Yanks, in churns and burns, if you overshoot your turn radius or fail to achieve it, you run the risk of a midair bump with your wingman.”
“Now he tells us,” Franklin griped. He’d nearly got both of them killed.
“Sharp turn now!”
Franklin flipped the Raptor on its side. Once again, the undercarriage of the stealth fighter was pointed toward the Chinese mainland. His sensors were useless in this position. While in the turn, there was no way to tell if radar was painting him or not. He assumed it was. This tactic was something he and the others would have to take back with them. He thought of how close he and Johnson had come to colliding. It would take lots of practice so they didn’t destroy a squadron learning it.
He looked at his gyrocompass. He was nearing 270 degrees. Franklin eased back on the stick. He glanced down again, wondering where the wake of the ship he saw earlier had gone. He looked up, searching west of him, hoping to catch a glimpse of Raptor-20 Formation. Still flying with his belly exposed, Franklin leveled the aircraft on 270-degrees heading. He hoped Johnson, wherever she was, had done the same. He looked down at his feet, thinking that somewhere beneath the undercarriage or nearby was Pickles. He hoped the last thing he saw wasn’t the nose of her aircraft coming up through the cockpit floor.
“Main Formation; level off, level turn to the right; steady up on course three-zero-zero true.”
For the next sixty seconds, Mother brought the formation closer together, almost back to the original disposition. Franklin’s heart beat rapidly. The tactic was both exhilarating and dangerous. He wondered how this “here we are; here we aren’t” tactic was being interpreted by the Chinese.
What he didn’t like was not knowing how close they were to the approaching fighters. It had been nearly three minutes since the AIC had given them tactical information. He looked at the radio, considered calling Mother himself, but Air Force training overrode the professional urge.
“Main Formation, be advised the Chinese formation is doing maneuvers of their own. Separation remains nearly the same.”
Franklin frowned. How did the Brit know my curiosity about the range?
“Okay, Main Formation; let’s do it again. Raptor 20; it is your turn to join the maneuvering. Please join along.”
Franklin went through the same sequence of events as the last time. Checking his position, checking his handholds on the stick and throttle, and waiting for the “now.” He gained confidence with the third churn and burn. The fourth was in the same direction and when they came out, they were heading on course 240 again — right where they’d started. The display had them scattered across the battle space.
He thought of the approaching fighters and wondered what happened to them. They should have been here by now. What if he had to engage? It would be a single-fighter battle against the incredible odds of a coordinated sixteen-fighter formation.
“Main Formation; be advised the approaching bandits went into a racetrack orbit thirty miles from your position on the third churn and burn.”
“Thirty miles?” Franklin asked on the formation circuit. “We were twenty-five miles from them a few minutes ago.” “Mother has been using speed and turns to increase separation while creating the illusion for the bandits that we were approaching them,” Tyler-Cole answered. “Nothing really fancy about it, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah, yeah. I understand completely,” Franklin answered, not understanding at all these Royal Navy maneuvers, but knowing he’d figure them out once he had an opportunity to think them through. He looked at his GPS reader and saw the Royal Navy commander was right. How did they do that? One moment they’re driving right toward a massive engagement, and the next they’re dodging the engagement without the enemy being aware of it. He bit his lower lip. If you used this tactic correctly, you could suck an enemy’s fuel dry before they realized it. He smiled. He was enjoying this. He wriggled his fingers ready to do it again. Then he frowned. Wait a minute, it sucks our fuel dry also. He looked at his fuel gauge, but the Air Intercept Controller interrupted his attempt to contact Johnson.
“Main Formation and Raptor 20; I am going to reform the Main Formation and integrate Raptor 20 into it. Should take about five minutes. Main formation, come to course…” Minutes later, Franklin eased into the left wingman position, two aircraft lengths back from Johnson, with five-hundred-feet altitude separation. He slowed his speed to match hers. Mother had them in a racetrack orbit, matching the Chinese fighters thirty-five miles away. Franklin looked constantly for the opposing force hoping for a flicker of sunlight off a fuselage or a contrail — then, he looked over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t leaving a contrail.