A similar setup had been used to control the RPV F-4s with the addition of the video relay.
Maal reached forward and flipped off the autopilot. Using the sticks, he kept the RPV in its turn.
“Where do we want to go, Neil?”
Formsby glanced at the aircraft positions on the radar screen. “I think about oh-five-oh should do it, Dennis.”
Maal eased out of his turn as the heading came up. “Five-zero, right on.”
Formsby checked the tanker’s altitude. Twenty-five thousand feet.
“Then, I’d like to see you put it in a slightly nose-down altitude.”
“We want speed, right?”
“Exactly.”
“I think I can get about four hundred knots out of her,” Maal said.
He eased the nose down until the rate-of-climb indicator showed a negative twenty-five-feet-per-minute. Then he pushed the left stick full forward.
“We’re not getting the same revs out of each engine,” he said. “She’s probably shaking pretty good.”
Formsby looked at the tachometer readouts and found them differing by as much as a couple of hundred revolutions.
“If it gets to be a problem,” he said, “go ahead and back off.”
The five men standing in the compartment behind the console operators remained quiet staring at the readouts and the radar screen.
“What’s it look like, Sam?” Demion asked from his pilot’s station.
“Denny’s got her up to three-nine-zero knots,” Vrdla said. “I’m showing her six miles away, closing fast. She’s ten thousand below us.”
“And the MiG?”
“One-seven.”
“From my reading of the combat action,” Formsby said “I believe the MiG will only have Aphids left. He’s got to position himself within five miles of us.”
“I think he can do that,” Kriswell said.
“Tanker’s three miles away,” Vrdla said.
“I’m going now,” Demion said. “Grab onto something solid.”
The men standing in the compartment reached for grab bars. Formsby gripped the back of Maal’s seat, which was bolted to the deck.
Abruptly, Demion put the nose down and began a steep dive.
“He saw that,” Vrdla reported. “And I don’t think he liked it. He’s coming on a little faster. I read him at Mach one-point-five. One-two out.”
“Lucas, you ready?” Demion asked.
“Ready, boss,” Littlefield said.
He held a cable with a handgrip and two thumb switches on the end of it. The switches controlled the chaff and flare dispensers on the countermeasures pods.
“I do not think he has radar-guided missiles,” Formsby said, “but it wouldn’t hint to be cautious.”
“Jam him,” Demion said.
Vrdla clicked on the radar-jamming transmitters in both countermeasures pods.
“The tanker just went under us, Jim,” Vrdla said. “We had about a two-thousand-foot clearance.”
“Glad to hear it,” Demion said.
“I’ve got the tanker up to four-hundred-and-six knots,” Maal said. “But the jamming is interfering with my control.”
“Let’s not worry about control at this very minute,” Formsby said.
“Four-oh-six knots? Hell,” Demion said, “I can beat that.”
He did not pull out of his dive.
Ibrahim Ramad had picked up the second blip on his radar screen a few minutes before. Again, he was amazed. The raiders had at least eight aircraft. Ghazi’s information had been entirely incorrect.
The newest aircraft was also a slow mover, and he estimated it for a transport.
They would not actually attempt to land troops at Marada Air Base and attempt to capture it intact, would they?
Then again, he was landing troops in Ethiopia.
Anything was possible.
Distance to target: twenty kilometres.
His target was running, but slowly. It was also losing altitude.
The new target was advancing on him at a much lower altitude.
The blips merged as they passed each other, and the newest target kept coming.
A foolish, foolish pilot, he thought.
Altitude seventy-five hundred meters.
The target was now ten kilometres away.
He began easing off the throttles.
The primary target continued to dive.
The second target continued toward him.
A verifiable idiot.
He would take his original target first, then come back for the second.
Speed down to Mach 1.1. He needed to be much slower to make his turn back.
Distance to target eight kilometres.
Back on the throttles.
A burble as he passed down through the sonic barrier.
Seven kilometres. The second target had now passed below him and was behind.
His primary target began to level off at three thousand meters of altitude, then to zigzag. He knew what was coming.
Ramad grinned his pleasure.
Six kilometres.
Soon.
Airspeed six hundred knots.
Five kilometres.
Ahead, against the desert floor, he saw it. A bright and shiny C-130, banking left and right as it attempted to foil his shot.
He held the MiG steady, and when the transport slipped through his sight, triggered off two AA-8s.
He knew, deep in his heart and soul, that it was a perfect shot against an unarmed C-130. The commanders of this treacherous incursion against Ramad’s personal empire would pay dearly. They would bum in hell forever.
And he would collect the evidence which would prove their treachery, and it would exonerate him with those in Tripoli.
Exonerate?
He required no exoneration.
His duties were performed only in the advancement of his native land.
For the first time, however, he allowed the possibility that there had been some damage at Marada Air Base. Perhaps even at the chemical plant. He did not think it would be extensive, and when he showed the Leader that he had saved the day, had destroyed the commanders, he would be received in honour.
Ramad rolled to the right and pulled the control stick hard toward his crotch.
The MiG responded aggressively, turning hard back to the north.
He concentrated on finding the other transport on his radar screen.
There.
It also was diving, but at a shallow rate. It was twenty-five kilometres ahead of him, to the north, but he would catch it easily.
He glanced up at his rear-view mirror in time to catch the twin white-yellow flashes as his missiles disintegrated the C-130.
The sheer pleasure of it coursed through his veins and made him proud, a true warrior supporting the cause of Allah.
Fifteen kilometres.
Checking the armaments panel, he made certain that his final AA-8 was selected.
His thumb caressed the firing stud without setting it off.
It was most sensual.
WHOOF!
The MiG jumped slightly sideways.
The shudder in the airframe brought him out of his reverie. His head jerked back and forth as he sought the explanation from his instruments.
The left turbojet had ceased to operate. The RPMs were spinning quickly down.
WHOOF!
The right turbojet flamed out.
Ramad’s eyes darted to the fuel state indicator.
It read: 0 KILOGRAMS.
Impossible! He could not be out of fuel!
But he was.
He had utilized the afterburners for most of, too much of, his flight.
Quickly, he looked at the screen.
The target was pulling ahead, sixteen kilometres from him.
Furious, he thumbed-off the missile.
It screamed from its rail, but it was mindless, and it swirled the skies ahead of him, seeking a target, but not finding one, detonating itself harmlessly.