A sudden tiredness overcame him as he walked away from the marketplace. Switching from the near-perfect Farsi he had been speaking, he spoke two words in faultless Arabic, “Insh’ Allah.” Then muttering in English, “as God wills.” Especially for what happens to a loose cannon in Iran, by necessity undirected and uncontrolled.
CHAPTER 1
The two compass-gray F-15 Eagles punched out of the top of the broken cloud deck scudding over the Arizona desert. The flight lead’s voice came over the UHF radio, “Fence check.”
His wingman, Colonel Rupert Stansell, did not acknowledge the call as his fingers flicked the switches that would arm the fighter for combat. Without looking, his left hand flashed over the IFF, Identification Friend or Foe, panel just behind the throttles, touching the toggle switches that would turn the four modes on the radar transponder to standby and deny an enemy the capability of interrogating the F-1 5’s radar beacon. Automatically, he reached forward with his left hand and moved the Master Arm switch up on the armament control panel. “IFF standby. Master Arm on,” he told the instructor pilot riding in the back seat of his D model Eagle. Stansell had simulated the exact actions he would have taken if they had just penetrated into hostile territory.
“Contact, bogies, on the nose at fifty-five miles,” the flight lead, Snake Houserman, radioed. Stansell suppressed a grunt and pressed the center button on the left throttle in an upward motion, increasing the range of his radar display to eighty miles. Two blips flashed on the Vertical Situation Display, the VSD, at fifty miles. He had made a basic mistake — it was hard to see targets at fifty miles using a forty-mile scope.
“Rog,” Stansell replied, “contact bogies.” The radar contacts were their “adversaries,” two other F-15s from Luke AFB. The colonel was vaguely aware that he was breathing very rapidly.
“Just do it as briefed, sir,” Captain Greg Donaldson, the instructor pilot in his back seat pit, cautioned. Donaldson was worried about the colonel. He hadn’t been doing well in Air Combat Tactics.
“Toro, Lobo One and Two entering air-to-air now, North Point, ready.” Snake Houserman called over the UHF radio, checking them into the area on the flight frequency. Snake was Lobo One and Stansell was Lobo Two. They were flying straight and level at 500 knots Calibrated Air Speed. Snake was at 15,000 feet and Stansell at 19,000.
Snake was a very young captain who was showing promise of being an outstanding fighter jock. Stansell was envious of the young man’s potential, already more than anything he had.
The bogies checked in, “Lobo, Toro One and Two entering air-to-air now, South Point, ready.”
“Roger, Toro,” Snake answered, “fight’s on, tape’s on.” Stansell tried to control his rate of breathing, knowing he could hyperventilate. They still had over two minutes before they came together in the merge, lots of time. His fingers played the piccolo, those series of switches and buttons on the throttles and stick that gave the pilot control of everything he needed in combat. He blipped the range button down, decreasing his radar range to forty miles. He moved the Target Designation Control switch on the left throttle and drove the acquisition bars on the Vertical Situation Display over the left target. He mashed the TDC button and immediately released it. The radar system did as it was commanded and locked on.
“Too early, Colonel,” Donaldson told him. Stansell grunted, conceding the instructor pilot was right. In combat the radar-warning gear in the enemy’s cockpit would be screaming “lock on” at the pilot, giving him ample time to react and avoid a head-on medium-range missile shot. Stansell broke the lock on, losing the capability for the launch of an AIM-7M Sparrow missile. “Sort the formation and don’t take your final lock until the range is about fifteen nautical miles,” Donaldson said.
Stansell waited, working to control his breathing for the seventy seconds it took for the range to decrease from thirty-five to fifteen miles. He selected a twenty-nautical-mile scope and drove the acquisition bars with the TDC to the left target and mashed it. But this time the radar wouldn’t lock on and stayed in the scan mode. Either the system was malfunctioning or Toro was jamming him.
“Go for a Fox Two,” Donaldson commanded, hoping the AIM-9L Sidewinder could acquire a heat signature off the approaching F-15’s intakes for a short-range, front-aspect missile shot.
The colonel broke his attempted lock and used his left thumb to toggle the weapon switch on the side of the right throttle to the middle detent, calling up the Sidewinders. The characteristic growl of the Sidewinder filled their earphones, masking all other communications. Stansell had made another mistake. He reached for the volume control knob and turned the tone down just as he visually acquired the on-coming F-15s. Once a visual contact was established, they were free to maneuver and engage the bogies in a turning engagement.
“Tally two, left ten o’clock, seven miles, slightly high!” Snake radioed. At least his eyeballs were no better than Stansell’s.
At the same time, another voice broke into the radio transmission. “Toro One. Fox One on the west F-15 at nineteen thousand.” The interceptor symbol on Stansell’s Tactical Electronic Warfare System scope was flashing at him, warning him that the pilot in the approaching F-15, Toro One, had just taken a simulated AIM-7M shot at him. How had he missed the audio warning on his own TEWS? The Sidewinder’s growl must’ve overridden it. Another mistake. In action a Sparrow with a sixty-six pound high explosive warhead would’ve been streaking toward Stansell. The smoke trail that “The Great White Hope” left behind it would get any pilot’s attention and force a violent evasive maneuver, anything to break the radar lock-on guiding the Sparrow.
Almost immediately, the same cool voice announced, “Toro One, Fox Two on the west F-15 at nineteen thousand.” Now Stansell had a Sparrow and a Sidewinder coming at him.
“Break right!” Donaldson shouted. “Honor the goddamn threat, Colonel!”
Stansell didn’t hesitate and for the first time, he reacted quickly. Burying his right foot in the rudder pedal, he pushed the stick forward and to the right, starting a Split-S maneuver toward the ground and reversing course. “Put your nose on him, colonel. You’re solving the goddamn problem for him,” Donaldson bellowed, the strain of grunting against the six Gs they were pulling laboring his voice. Stansell pulled the nose of the F-15 up and reversed course to meet his pursuer head-on, but he was too heavy-handed and snatched over eight Gs on the F-15, causing the Over Load Warning System to activate. He was so engrossed that he did not hear the double rate beeper and then the computer-activated female voice saying, “Over-G, Over-G, Over-G,” to warn him of the excessive forces he was loading on the jet.
Stansell grunted hard to fight the Gs, exactly the way most people fight constipation. While not very elegant, it did work. Stansell could feel a granddaddy slip out, making its presence known in the cockpit.
It was too much for Donaldson. He keyed his mike and transmitted for the other aircraft to hear. “Lobo Two, knock it off, knock it off,” while he toggled his oxygen regulator to one hundred percent oxygen, cutting off all cockpit air to his mask. The four Eagles immediately flew wings level and checked in with their call signs. “God, Colonel,” Donaldson muttered over the intercom. “You overG’d the jet with that last maneuver. Call an over-G and head for home.”