"Okay, starter on number two is in FLIGHT position generator on number two is on," Ormack asked. "Takeoff data. "McLanahan gave it over the interphone. "We roll until just before we run out of runway, then I pull back on the stick. If we fly, we fly. If we don't, we eject.
Next.
"Arming lever safety pins."
"All right, everyone," McLanahan told them, "get your seats ready for ejection. And don't hesitate. If you see the red bailout warning light, eject. Immediately."
"Couldn't have made a better takeoff briefing myself, McLanahan," Ormack said, trying to smile. "Takeoff checklist. Steering ratio selector lever. "McLanahan took a deep breath and tried not to think of Luger. Concentrate, he told himself. Get the job done.
Everybody was counting on him… including himself. He moved a lever on the center console. "TAKE-OFF LAND.
Set.
"Air conditioning master switch."
"RAM.
"Throttles.
"Here we go. "McLanahan took hold of the seven active throttles and moved them slowly forward to full military power. Because of the dead number-one engine the Old Dog slid to the left on the snow-covered runway. McLanahan stomped on the right stabilator pedal to correct, then, realizing the dual rudders had been destroyed, slowly pulled back the number-eight engine throttle until he was able to straighten out the Old Dog along the runway, then slowly pushed it back almost to full power.
"Good. "Ormack strained to be heard over the roar of the engine. "No stabilators… do whatever you need to do to keep her on the runway. "He put his hands on the yoke but could not help. "Keep an eye on the distance-remaining markers if you can… they'll be labeled in hundreds of meters. Lift off with about a thousand meters remaining-" "I can't see them," McLanahan shouted. "They're going by too damn fast-wait… sixteen, fifteen, fourteen.. ' " The wild rumbling and vibrations made it tough to refocus his eyes on the instruments.
When McLanahan swung the control yoke to the right to correct the violent left skid, it seemed the Old Dog was sliding sideways down the runway. He scanned the instruments. A caution light was lit but he couldn't make out which one.
"Hold it steady, Patrick-" "I can't, it's skidding too hard-" Easy.
.
you can do it. Easy McLanahan realized with a surge of fear that the one-thousand-meter sign had just whizzed by. At the nine-hundred meter he pulled back on the control yoke, wrestled it back, back, back until it was touching his chest. Still the Old Dog's nose refused to leave the ground.
"C'mon, baby, lift off, dammit."
"Add some nose-up trim," Ormack yelled. "The big wheel by your knee.
Gent@v- Keep the back pressure in but get re to release it when the nose comes up."
"It's not lifting off… " The shaking, the turbule almost maae him lose his grip on the wheel… Now could see the end of the runway, a tall wall of drifting snow ice…
"Four… three… two… oh God, there's a snow drift out there, we're not-" With its nose still pointing downward the Old Dog left ground less than three feet above the peak of ice at the end of the runway. Buoyed then by "ground effect," the swirl of snow generated by the wings that bounced off the ground and back up at the plane, the Old Dog skittered only twenty feet on the snowy surface, the air pounding on the bomber's wings adding to the turbulence.
Like a blessing, the pounding began to decrease, and as airspeed slowly increased, the Old Dog's nose lifted skywa McLanahan at times swinging the control yoke all the way its limit to control the swaying as the huge bomber lifted in the Siberian sky.
Carefully now, McLanahan reached down to the gear-control lever and moved it up, also checking the main-gear indicate lights. "Gear up, Colonel, keep an eye on the-" He was interrupted by a blur of motion outside the cockpit window. Ormack spotted it first but was too shocked to speak. All he could do was point as the light gray MiG-29
Fulcrt, fighter flew just ahead and above the Old Dog, then banked erratically to the left and out of sight, its twin afterburners lighting up the sky.
It was impossible.
Yuri Papendreyov had been busy with landing checklist configuring his MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter for the penetration a, descent into Anadyr and following the navigation beacon and instrument-land-system beam. He had been taught not to rely on visual cues for landing until very close to the runway especially during long winter twilight conditions.
The young fighter pilot was less than two miles from touchdown when he finally had his Fulcrum configured and ready. It was then that he studied the runway. Since the first pass was going to be a visual inspection and flyover, he was moving almost twice as fast as usual.
The landing gear was up, but he had flaps and leading-edge slats deployed to make the relatively slow, low-altitude pass safer. He was flying his advanced fighter at a high angle-of-attack, which meant keeping the fighter's nose higher than normal during the pass.
In the dusky conditions Papendreyov didn't see the massive billows of smoke rising from the airfield and the sudden huge" black shape against the white snow-covered runway. When he did look out the cockpit windscreen, the huge ebony aircraft had left the runway, blending in with the rugged terrain and dark horizon.
Yuri made his pass, looking right toward the tower, the base operation building and aircraft-parking ramp. All empty. He was thinking he might be forced to pump his own gas, when he shifted his attention forward. His windscreen was filled with dark smoke. He jammed the throttles forward, igniting the twin Turmansky afterburners as a wave of turbulence shook his Fulcrum fighter.
And then, he saw it. He was close enough to touch it, close enough to see the pilot straining to lift his aircraft skyward.
The American B-52-lifting off from Anadyr!Yuri reacted instinctively, flicked the arming switch to his GSh-23 twin twenty-three-millimeter nose cannon, and fired.
The shots went wide as another giant wave of turbulence from the B-52 swatted at his Fulcrum fighter, and Yuri was forced to roll hard left to keep from plowing into the bomber's tail. As he passed to its left, he noticed with satisfaction that the huge gun on its tail did not follow him…
Marveling at his good fortune, he continued his left turn, retracting flaps and slats and selecting two AA-8 heat-seeking missiles… The initial shock of seeing the elusive American bomber here, of all the possible places to find him, dissolved back into the hard concentration of the hunt.
He had searched eleven thousand square kilometers, risked everything to hunt it down.
Now he had found it, The radar altimeter showed only a few hundred feet above ground, but he couldn't wait… McLanahan reached do and began to raise the flaps.
"Flaps coming up, Colonel. SST nose retracting. I don't believe it, but a Russian fighter just went past us… do you see him?"
Ormack looked out the right cockpit windows. "No."
"Keep watching for him. "McLanahan watched the fl indicator as the huge wing high-lift panels rose out of slipstream. With the flaps retracting, the Old Dog's lift be to erode and she began to sink.
McLanahan took the number eight throttle and jammed it to full military thrust, then fought the control yoke like it was a bucking horse as the differen thrust threatened to flip the bomber over and send it crashin the mountain below. Using what was left of the lateral controls, he struggled to keep the bomber level…
"Flaps up," he called out. Suddenly a blinking yellow light on the upper — eyebrow instrument panel caught his attention-the number two engine.
Its oil pressure had dropped below minimum. He pulled the number-two throttle to CUTC shutting down the engine before the lack of oil pressure caused it to seize and explode. Now, because of the two missing engines on the left side, McLanahan again had no choice but to decrease power on the number-eight engine-without rudder he couldn't hold the nose straight with such a difference in thrust.