Warriors by Barrett Tillman (40 page)

       The next few minutes were aerial bedlam. Even in the clear air it was difficult to spot the missiles in sustainer stage, lancing upward at twice the speed of sound. But there were so many--no Israeli flier had ever had to deal with such an intense concentration of SAMs.

       The orderly, spaced formations became ragged as pilots opened out to loose deuce, flying the "SAM box" which allowed two planes to maneuver independently without drawing a missile toward either one. But with each wrapped-up, mind-blurring turn, with each diving countermove to defeat a missile, the formations began to disperse. Sections became separated from flight leaders, wingmen from section leads. Air discipline--a hallmark of the
Heyl Ha'Avir--
was sorely tested. Some pilots had to take their planes down below 3,000 feet to escape the missile barrage. Then, climbing back to altitude with heavy bomb loads still on board, they bled off energy and became more vulnerable.

       Aaron Hali spotted a SAM streaking toward him from almost dead ahead. From long experience, he turned twenty degrees port, to better gauge the threat's closure. At the moment his professional instincts told him it was now or never, he wrapped his Eagle into a hard barrel roll, defeating the SAM's tracking in two planes. He snapped his head to the right, watching the smoke trail flash past him and continue to its inevitable end.

       The mission leader also sensed something else. The Saudi fighters would be approaching at this very moment. He knew because that is how he would time it if he were running their show. With his pilots concentrating on evading the SAMs, their mutual support degraded by violent evasive breaks and altitude loss, this would be the perfect time to commit interceptors.

       Hali glanced at his radar screen. It showed the tentative traces of Arab jamming, but he could discern blips with the fifty-mile grid.

       He hoped most of his other F-15s also acquired long-range targets before both sides' ECM wiped out the radar option. The radio channels were clogged with warning cries; not much chance of alerting his Sparrow shooters. But then he relaxed a bit. They were professionals; they'd take action on their own.

       The Israeli strike groups passed through the ninety-mile SAM belt in less than ten minutes. There were dirty gray tendrils in the clear blue sky, and dissipating SAM trails. There also were parachutes, and smoking wrecks on the ground. With the superb visibility from his F-15 cockpit, Hali took in the situation. It would be a few minutes before his squadrons reformed, but he estimated four to six planes had gone down. It was a small loss rate considering some 135 missiles had been launched, but any loss was irreplaceable. Hali looked again to his screen, hit the auto-acquisition switch, and locked up one of the radar blips. Then he pressed the trigger, sending an AIM-7 off the number one station at ten miles.

0613 Hours

      
Major Abdullah Ben Nir glanced to either side, admiring the excellent view from his F-15. He keyed his microphone, uttered a terse order, and returned his attention to his radar scope. The Israeli jamming was taking effect; his two flights would have to shoot fast. The Saudi squadron commander designated his target and pressed the trigger, firing his first Sparrow at twelve miles. He anticipated the built-in delay but the AIM-7 never appeared. Its rocket motor had failed to ignite.

        Cursing to himself, Ben Nir double-checked his switchology, confirmed lock-on, and pressed the trigger again. This time his weapon functioned properly. The radar-equipped F-20s also fired their two sparrows, then prepared for the coming "knife fight."

       Airpower historians later would describe it as the largest radar missile shootout ever. Nobody would ever know for certain, but it was reliably estimated in staff studies-in Riyadh, Tel Aviv, London, Washington, and Moscow-that over the next few minutes some eighty Sparrows were fired, slightly more by the Saudis than Israelis. Since ECM efforts already were in progress, many of the missiles were decoyed or diverted. Others were evaded by hard maneuvering which further split up leaders and wingmen. Four Israeli aircraft were knocked out of the air or too badly damaged to continue. Seven Saudi planes were lost in the exchange. Major Ben Nir knew his orders were to disengage as soon as he'd expended his AIM-7s, but he found the opportunity too much to pass up. Rocking his wings, he led his wingman and second section into the fringes of the fight he knew would be developing.

0614 Hours

      
In the second flight of Black Squadron, Lieutenant Mohammad Assad caught sight of the white smoke trail headed for his F -20. Hurtling toward him with an inhuman intelligence at nearly Mach 4, the big Raytheon missile seemed to eat up the miles. With pounding heart, Assad executed the barrel roll maneuver he had been taught for such cases. He loaded six Gs on the wings of his Tigershark, completing the maneuver three seconds too early.

       Timing is crucial to defeating an airborne missile. Too late a countermove allows no latitude at all. Too early, and the missile has time for a mid-course correction. Assad had a glimpse of the Sparrow compensating for his turn out of plane, and yanked the stick hard over. He knew as he initiated the maneuver that it was too late.

       The AIM- 7 smashed into the Northrop just behind the port wing. A violent explosion blew the fighter inverted at 200 feet over the rocky terrain. Instinctively, Assad pushed the stick full over in an attempt to right the aircraft.
Never quit trying.
From inverted, he looked through the top of his canopy in the last seconds of his life and watched his homeland rush up to greet his stricken aircraft. Like a canister of napalm, a large fireball scarred the desert landscape, marking the end of Mohammad Assad, citizen of Saudi Arabia, fighter pilot, and martyr at age twenty-one.

       ED LAWRENCE CAUGHT THE ORANGE-BLACK FIREBALL in his peripheral vision, then led his anvil force into the Israelis. He saw the F-l5s, having expended most of their Sparrows, close to visual range, lowering their noses and meeting his three squadrons head-on. There were bogeys all around the clock, and what remained of the formations moments before was shredded as the opposing forces swept through one another at 1,100 knots closure. They each pulled into abrupt, mind-blurring climbing turns to bring weapons to bear. But two Saudi flights kept going.

       Devil flashed through the initial line of Israeli fighters, passing up the option for a head-on Sidewinder shot. The percentages were too low at that rate of closure. Instead, at high speed he raced on west. He knew the second line of Israeli jets would be about five miles behind the Sparrow shooters. From 500 feet above the terrain, his four sections pulled up to attack the second group as the first line of Israelis desperately reversed to assist. But most were too closely engaged with the pilots of Black, Orange, and Green Squadrons. Lawrence knew, having occupied the Israelis on his anvil, that Geoff Hampton's hammer would be swinging downward just about now.

       Twenty-five miles southeast of the main combat, orbiting behind Orange Base, were two Tornadoes. Both were specially fitted for electronic warfare, the ECM pods on the hardpoints under their variable-sweep wings. Both also carried electronic counter-counter-measure avionics attempting to neutralize the Israeli jamming, but this met with limited success. The radar portion of the combat was limited to the early phase, and now it was eyeball to eyeball.

0615 Hours

      
Geoff Hampton looked down at the "furball" of milling fighters 4,500 feet below him. He deployed his two squadrons, sending Brad Williamson's Red around to the north to hook in behind the main Israeli force, while leading White straight into the fight.

       Hampton had never been in aerial combat. His twenty-two years of flying had included twelve on active duty with the RAF and four as a contracted Jaguar pilot in Oman. The remainder of his career had been spent in clandestine activities in Africa and the Middle East, affording a wide variety of experience. Now he moistened his lips beneath his oxygen mask, anticipating the ultimate test of his life.

       Rolling over, Hampton called, "White Lead is in."

       He began stalking a lone Eagle on the fringe of the furball.
It
was sound doctrine--avoid the center of the fight, where an opponent may appear at any quarter and surprise you. Don't go "tits up" if you can help it--far better to avoid inverted attitudes and retain better orientation. Hampton accepted this tenet, despite the fact that his extensive aerobatics background had made him as comfortable inverted as upright. But above all, he wanted to maintain what the Yanks call "situational awareness." Know what the hell is happening in the three miles of airspace around you.

       Hampton pressed his attack on the Eagle from its nine o'clock position. The Israeli saw him at two miles and made a hard left turn into the attack. Hampton leveled his wings, pulling the F-20 into eighty-degree climb and passed the lead to his wingman, Lieutenant Quabis Mendat. With the nose well up, Hampton kicked rudder and brought the Northrop around to a nose-low attitude in position to support Mendat. But it was not necessary.

       Few things are as terrifying for a fighter pilot as to turn as hard as his aircraft will sustain, the airframe at its structural limits under heavy buffet, and see behind him an opponent who cannot be pushed out of his radius of turn. The Israeli captain watched in awe as the F-20C out-turned him, its nose beginning to pull inside his own turn radius. When he saw the underside of the Northrop's fuselage, an icy hand clutched his stomach-a terrible certainty that the pilot behind him was able to track him in the gunsight. The Israeli's turn into Hampton had set him up for a six o'clock pass by the wingman, whom he had not seen.

       With his neck twisted to scan behind him, the twenty-seven-year-old Israeli's head weighed nearly a hundred pounds. His neck muscles strained to sustain the five-G load which his entry airspeed allowed in a maximum-banked turn. Momentarily he thought of reversing the turn, but he knew that would gain a few seconds respite at best. At worst it would get him killed sooner.

       He thought of the other option. He could pull the yellow-and-black-striped handle between his knees and catapult himself out of the fight, into the Arabian desert. He could live to see his family again.

       Or he could sustain his turn, knowing that if the Saudi behind him didn't shoot in another few seconds, the Eagle's surprising maneuverability would begin to stabilize the combat.

       He decided to fight.

       In that instant he saw the bright flashes from the F-20's nose, and his life ended as 12 of the nearly 200 rounds in the burst raked the top of his aircraft, smashing the canopy, cockpit, and seat.

0617 Hours

      
Brad Williamson took his flight into the combat from the north-northeast, gaining a favorable initial position on four F-16s. The Falcons were covering some Phantoms, which boldly dived to the deck and proceeded to their target at 200 feet. Williamson sent his second flight after the bombers and locked horns with the nearest F-16.

       The Israeli saw him coming and pitched up into a climbing turn.

       Brad was willing to play that game. He admitted to himself that he was not as comfortable turning with a 16--he had 2,000 hours in Falcons-but he would play the vertical game willingly. After two upward-rolling scissors he was gaining the advantage and knew the third evolution would be decisive. The trick was energy management. The former Thunderbird knew the F-16 could not fly as slowly as his own airplane in the pure vertical. When the Israeli reached minimum controllable airspeed, he would have to nose over. The Tigershark, however, could go to zero airspeed and hammerhead-turn back on top of him.

       With his neck craned back, Williamson carefully watched the dancing F-16, suspended in infinity through the top of his canopy. There was no up or down, left or right; only motion relative to one another. Then the American saw the movement he needed. The F-16 abruptly pitched over and nosed down to regain airspeed:

       Instantly Williamson stomped right rudder, forcing the nose to slice down and around, emerging from a sixty-degree dive above and behind the brown-and-tan-camouflaged Falcon. Williamson got a good missile tone, closed to less than one mile, and pressed the trigger.

       The port Sidewinder flashed off the rail and corkscrewed slightly as it sensed its target. The F-16 had gained enough momentum to begin an evasive turn but it was not enough. The AIM-9 sliced off the Falcon's tail and the pilot ejected.

       Williamson let out a howl of exultation. Briefly he pondered the chance of buying that Israeli driver a drink this evening. What a kick to hear it from that guy's viewpoint! He glanced down again, taking bearings on where his opponent would land, and began to circle the likely spot.

       "Red Lead! Break right! Break ... "

       Williamson's instincts began to take over. In automatic response to his wingman's call, he slammed the stick hard over to begin evading whatever Red Two had seen. He felt a heavy lurch, heard an impossibly loud
bang,
and vaguely felt the onset of searing heat. Then Brad Williamson died.

       Red Two looked down at the aerial debris. He could hardly believe what he had just witnessed. The F-16 he had been fighting zoom-climbed from Brad's bellyside in a turn and collided. In an instant both aircraft were windblown smoke and shards of metal. The Saudi shook himself, glancing around the clock, and detected friendlies out at three o'clock. He bent the throttle to join them.

       AT THIS POINT THE FIGHT HAD BEEN IN PROGRESS FOR six minutes. Since most jet combats seldom last more than two minutes, it was several eternities in duration. But Ed Lawrence knew that time was almost impossible to measure in combat. He recalled an F-4 pilot who dueled with a MiG-17 over Vietnam and returned swearing the fight had lasted four to five minutes: The mission tape proved it was barely forty seconds.