“Our mission is to test the weapons-delivery systems,” the pilot replied testily, “not test our enemy-avoidance techniques. Besides, what do we have to fear from antiaircraft defenses? No radar can see us; and the Americans do not have significant air-defense weapons anyway.
“You don’t train for the best-case situation, you train for the worst.”
“Are you suggesting we break the weapon-delivery parameters, Doctor Ozerov?”
“You can re-establish the weapon-release parameters immediately before delivery,” Luger replied. “All other times you should be avoiding the enemy. Don’t give him an opportunity to see you.”
“The enemy cannot see us,” the crew engineer said. “Machulishche Airport, south of Minsk, is only ninety kilometers away, and the detection-energy threshold is almost too low to be measured. That is the most powerful radar in the western Commonwealth. We do not need to descend and expose ourselves to ground hazards.”
No use arguing with these guys, Luger thought. He checked his chart and the navigation displays on the right side of the cockpit and saw they still had almost one hundred kilometers to go until they reached the first missile-launch point. At only six hundred kilometers per hour, it would take another ten minutes to reach the IP. The assigned flight corridor, surveyed to avoid major towns and industrial areas, was twenty kilometers wide, which left them a lot of room to maneuver. “Push the airspeed up to seven hundred kph,” Luger said, “and let’s try some steep turns.”
“That is not in the test-flight itinerary.”
“No, but this is the twentieth test flight, the tenth low-level flight, and the fourth with weapons aboard,” Luger snapped, not mentioning that it was also his sixth flight and by far the most boring, “and we’ve done nothing but fly straight and level. Let’s crank this baby up.”
To the three Russian crew members, Ozerov had a peculiar and annoying habit of lapsing into English when excited. Words like “crank” and “unwind,” although they knew each word’s meaning, did not make sense a lot of times. They often wondered about Ozerov’s use of jargon, but they had the good sense not to ask — Ozerov was very close to the chief of security, General Gabovich. They also had the good sense not to deviate from the set program. Still …
… Perhaps Ozerov might get himself kicked off the program if he broke the rules. That would certainly make everyone’s life more bearable.
“You are qualified to fly in the right seat, Doctor,” the pilot said, smiling behind his oxygen mask. “If you would like to take command of this aircraft, you are most welcome.” The pilot said that for the benefit of the continually running cockpit voice recorder, which was carefully reviewed after each flight. If control of the aircraft was not positively transferred, blame for a mishap could be misplaced. Surely, the pilot thought, not even the unorthodox Ozerov would want to disrupt this test flight, only minutes from the first bomb run.
“Climb up to mm safe altitude and climb out of there, Strike,” Luger said. The pile had no choice — he directed the copilot to switch seats with Ozerov In less than a minute Ozerov was strapped in.
“All right, let’s not wait until the bomb run to run the weapon checklist,” he said. Without prompting from the pilot, Ozerov accomplished every step of the “Before Weapons Release” checklist, from memory, not missing a step — although no one but the ground crew examining the recordings would know after post-mission analysis, because the pilot, engineer, and instructor could hardly keep up. Ozerov had the pilot activate his switches when prompted. Minutes later the checklist was done. Ozerov used nonsensical little rhymes and ditties, mostly in English, to run the checklists: “Bomb-cursor-man, as fast as you can; aim-cursor-auto, don’t get into trouble … Turn-time-track-tweak-tune-trackbreakers-triple … checklist complete.
“Okay, we’re ready to go. I just need to hit the BOMB button, recheck switches, and we’re done. From now on we jink and jive until we reach the weapon-release point.”
The turnpoint at the bomb run initial point came, but Ozerov did not turn. “Turnpoint five kilometers ago, Strike…”
“Too early,” Ozerov said. “The autopilot only turns at fifteen degrees bank. The turn radius is too large — we wake too many bad guys up that way. Tight turns IP inbound.” He grabbed the throttles in the middle of the center console and pushed them all the way up to military thrust. “And we go balls-to-the-wall, too — none of this ten-klicks-per-minute shit.” Ozerov waited until nearly ten kilometers past the turnpoint, then threw the huge bomber into a 40-degree bank turn to the right. As the plane went into its steep turn, its supercritical wings lost lift, and the aircraft edged downwards. But that was exactly what Ozerov had in mind. As he rolled out on the new heading, he leveled off only one hundred meters above ground.
“High terrain, one o’clock, twelve kilometers,” Ozerov reported. “Now, terrain calls mean something.” Both Soviet pilots were frantically scanning outside the cockpit windscreen, trying to spot terrain, buildings, transmission towers, tall antennae — why, Ozerov couldn’t figure, since it was pitch-black outside…
Well, not totally dark. Just then they caught a glimpse of a few trucks in a convoy rolling down a highway — the M7, the main east-west high-way running between Baranovichi, the town of Slutsk, and the city of Bobruysk. Their track crossed the M7 at a steep angle. Unconsciously, Ozerov altered course so he was flying right down the highway, heading west, and dipped the bomber to only eighty meters above the ground. The headlights of the trucks heading east were getting brighter and brighter- it seemed they were close enough to see their occupants …
“You are at eighty meters altitude, Ozerov,” the pilot warned nervously, placing his objection on the cockpit voice recorder. “And you are heading right for those trucks.”
“No, I’m at least a hundred meters north of the highway,” Ozerov said. Well, maybe not that far, but what’s a few dozen meters between friends? “Let’s give those sleepy truck drivers something to remember.” Ozerov glanced around the cockpit. The pilot’s eyes were riveted outside the cockpit again, but the copilot turned and nodded his approval at Ozerov. He was getting a real kick out of this!
Just like IR-300…
The thought came in a flash, unbidden.
Yes, this looks a lot like IR -300, a low-level training route that snaked through Oregon, northern California, and terminated near Wilder, Idaho. Part of the route was only five miles away from a major interstate highway going toward Boise, and although the highway was outside the four-mile corridor on IR training routes, some crews liked to sneak over, drop down to very low altitude, and put the fear of God into a few truckers. IR -300 was ‘an often-used training route for bomber crews out of Ford Air Force…
“Ozerov? You are drifting toward the edge of the corridor.”
Ozerov restored a little altitude and made a tight 30-degree bank turn toward the first target area. “Sorry. I was thinking … about the next bomb run.”
“Did you see that truck swerve off the road?” the copilot asked gleefully, forgetting about the cockpit voice recorder. “He’ll have to switch drivers so he can change his pants!”
“Search radar, two o’clock,” the engineer reported. “Nesvizh tracking station. No lock-on at this altitude. We should activate our beacon if he is to track us.”