Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 09 (80 page)

 
          
“Time
to impact, three minutes.”

 
          
The
bridge crew looked over at their captain in horror. They were positioned
correctly to defend against the first missile, but not against more fired from
a different angle. If the other bombers launched, the
Besstrashny
's
defenses could be quickly overwhelmed.

 
          
“Black
Sea Alliance, or whoever you are,” Boriskov radioed. “this is the
Besstrashny.
We will exit your waters without further incident. Abort your attack!” Seconds
later, they saw a flash of light in the sky, and the CIC reported they had lost
contact with the first sea-skimmer.

 
          
"Yibis
ana v rot!"
Boriskov swore loudly. “Comm, Bridge, notify Destroyer
Group in
Novorossiysk
—tell them we came under attack by some
group calling itself the Black Sea Alliance. Give position, include details of
the weapon they fired at us, notify them that we are being directed on where to
go from here under threat of massive aerial attack, and ask for instructions.”

 
          
Rather
than make it better, the oxygen just seemed to be making Stoica’s headache
worse. He tried to gulp down some water to keep his mouth and throat moistened,
but his liver was sucking all the moisture out of his body to try to digest all
that rotgut wine. and he was losing that battle.

 
          
Yegorov
wasn’t making it any better He was continuing a steady stream of chatter on the
intercom, repeating every message over and over. “Six bombers! Did you hear
that? This Black Sea Alliance has surrounded the
Besstrashny
with six
bombers! This Black Sea Alliance has got balls. I’ll admit that.”

 
          
“Can
you please shut up and just find the one closest to the destroyer. Gennadi?”
Stoica asked.

 
          
“I’m
not sure which one without activating the radar.”

           
“Then just pick one. and let’s let
him lead us to the others,” Stoica said impatiently. “This is not rocket
science.”

 
          
“The
nearest one is at our
eleven o’clock
, range approximately fifty kilometers,”
Yegorov said. “Just outside maximum missile range.”

 
          
“I
know w hat the maximum range of our missiles is, damn you. I know,” Stoica
moaned. Along with the four emergency R-60 missiles in their wing launchers,
the Mt-179 Tyenee carried an AKU-58 external weapon pylon on each wing with one
radar-guided R-27P missile on the bottom of the pylon and one R-60 heat-seeking
missile on each side of the pylon, plus two Kh-29TF TV-guided missiles in the
bomb bay, with its receiver pod bolted onto the aft external centerline weapon
station behind the bomb bay. The R-27P was one of
Russia
’s newest air- to-air missiles, developed by
Metyor Aerospace, that was designed to home in on enemy radar signals—it did
not need any guidance signals from its launch aircraft.

 
          
“You’re
lucky if that old hag didn’t mix some kerosene in with that wine. Ion,” Yegorov
said, and chuckled.

 
          
“Idi
na-huy, Gennadi ”

           
“Forty kilometers. Coming within
R-27 range. Ready to commit weapons.”

 
          
“Where
are the other bombers?”

 
          
“I’m
detecting two more aircraft at our two and
three o’clock
positions, range unknown, so they must he
farther than fifty kilometers away. Surface search radar only—no fire control
or uplink signals. I think they’re the bombers that are covering the
Besstrashny

 
          
“Any
sign of those fighters?”

 
          
“None.”

 
          
Stoica
ripped off his oxygen mask in frustration. The one- hundred percent oxygen he
was breathing to try' to recover from his hangover was drying out his mouth and
throat even faster. He knew, but didn’t want to concede, that pure oxygen
really did nothing: only time was effective in recovering from the effects of
too much alcohol. He had already drained both of his canteens of water on this
flight, and they had been airborne less than an hour. His skin was starting to
crawl, his hands were shaking, and if he moved his eyes too fast, all the
gauges would start to pinwheel around the cockpit on him. He would never make
it through an entire four-hour patrol. If he didn’t get down out of this plane
and into bed in the next hour, he was going to pass out.

 
          
“Warm
up the R-27s and give me a hot button,” Stoica ordered.

 
          
“Roger,”
Yegorov said. A moment later: “R-27s ready. What’s your plan. Ion?”

           
“Simple—take them all out,” Stoica
said. He got a lock-on tone in his headset and pressed the launch button. The
first R-27 leapt off the starboard rail and disappeared into the night sky on a
yellow line of fire. The sudden burst of light sent slivers of pain shooting
through Stoica’s head. Seconds later, they saw a large, bright explosion off in
the distance—the missile had found its target. “Splash one bomber. Line up the
next one, Gennadi.”

 
          
“Radars
are down. Ion,” Yegorov said. “All the other bombers shut down their search
radars." Without an enemy radar indication, the bombers assumed that their
attacker had a home-on-radar guided missile—all they had to do was turn off
their radars to take that capability away. That meant that the Tyenee had to
turn on its radar to lock on to the bombers.

 
          
“Then
fire up ours," Stoica ordered He turned slightly to the right. “We know
he’s off our nose right now—radiate for five seconds and let’s go get him.”

 
          
“It’s
too dangerous. Ion,” Yegorov said. “There’s still at least five enemy aircraft
out there, and we don’t know where the fighters are. Let them reveal
themselves. Don’t worry— we’ve got lots of fuel.”

 
          
Stoica
bent his head down so his mouth was pointing directly down on the floor and so
nothing in his stomach would hit his instruments, but it was only dry heaves.
Those were definitely the worst. “I said, go to radiate on the radar and let’s
nail those bombers,” Stoica ordered again. “We don’t have time to waste. They
can begin their attack on the destroyer at any second."

 
          
“But
they’re not—”

 
          
“I
said,
turn the damned radar on
, and do it
now!”
Stoica shouted,
tasting and nearly retching again on bile in his throat.

 
          
“Radar
on,” Yegorov finally reported. “Bandits at twelve and
one o’clock
, forty-five and sixty kilometers.”

 
          
“Got
him,” Stoica said. “Keep the radar on.” He locked up the first bomber and shot
their second R-27 missile.

 
          
“Enemy
aircraft inbound!” Yegorov shouted. “
Five o’clock
, fifty kilometers and closing fast! Enemy
fighters, probably F-16s!” Stoica started hard S turns around the axis of
attack on his quarry, not willing to break radar lock and trying to confuse the
inbound fighters. “Still closing, forty kilometers, intermediate lock growing
to a solid lock. Ion, let's get out of here!”

           
The two Metyor pilots could see
beads of decoy flares ejecting into the night sky, their magnesium spheres
bright enough to be seen for a hundred kilometers. They knew that the second
bomber had detected the missile-steering uplink signal, which meant a missile
was in the air, and it began ejecting chaff bundles to decoy the radar. Sure
enough, Stoica could see his radar lock-on box remaining stationary, not
following the string of decoy flares, then suddenly following, only to be
decoyed off its target again.

 
          
“It
missed, Ion!” Yegorov shouted. He realized they had stayed on virtually the
same heading for too long, allowing the pursuing fighters to deploy in a wide
spread-out pattern—no matter which way they turned, one of the fighters could
begin a high-speed tail-chase on them. “Bandits at thirty kilometers! Let's get
out of here! Radar down!” The lock-on box disappeared, meaning Yegorov had shut
off the attack radar. “Solid lock on us, Ion! They've got us!”

 
          
“Then
we fight our way out,” Stoica said. “Radar to transmit. Warm up the R-60s.”
Just then, they heard a
DEE- DLEDEEDLEDEEDLE!
warning tone in their
helmet headsets. “Missile launch radar!
Chaff! Flares
/” Yegorov ejected
decoys while Stoica threw the Mt-179 into a hard right turn. “I said, radar to
transmit!” he shouted.

 
          
Yegorov
had to fight through the rapidly building g forces to turn on the attack radar
and pre-arm all of the remaining R-60 missiles. “Your button is hot. Ion, R-60s
external and internal in sequence are ready.”

 
          
The
nearest enemy fighter was just starting a hard climbing right turn, apparently
after firing a radar-guided missile. Stoica quickly reversed direction, shoved
in full afterburner power, and climbed after him. He saw and then felt a hard
SLAM!
underneath and just behind him—one of the enemy missiles had just missed by
less than fifty meters. Seconds later, he got a “Lock” indication on his
heads-up display and fired one R-60 heat-seeker. He knew he shouldn’t turn away
from an enemy fighter above him—he had plenty of energy to turn back and
pursue—but he was one versus at least four, and he had to keep moving. Besides,
the guy above him was either defensive now, or he was dead.

 
          
Stoica
immediately executed a hard-right diving turn to aim his radar back to where he
thought the enemy fighters were. The fighter farthest to the west was turning
after him. but another was still flying straight, crossing under and behind to
cover his leader’s tail. Stoica tightened his turn even more to go after the
wingman—but he received a stall warning buffet and felt his wings rumble in
protest. “Airspeed!” Yegorov warned.

 
          
“Screw
airspeed—this bastard’s mine!” Stoica growled. He kept the turn in. The turn
bled off lots of speed, but the dive helped, and he was able to keep it just
above stall speed. When he rolled out, the enemy fighter was almost in front of
him, starting a turn to the east to cover, and Stoica fired an R-60 at him.

 
          
Another
warning warble. “Missile launch!” Yegorov cried out.
“Break left!”

 
          
Stoica
threw the stealth fighter into a tight left turn. But that was a mistake, They
had been just above stall speed for the past several moments, and the level
break he had just made pushed him into a full stall'—and with one wing down,
the Mt- 179 entered a snapping left spin. Stoica heard a loud
WHACK!
and
a yelp, then a moan, then silence. “You all right, Gennadi'?” No response, just
another moan. What in hell happened? But Stoica had no time to check him out
further—if he didn’t stop this spin quickly, they’d both be hurling.

 
          
Because
of its forward swept-wing technology, the aerodynamic characteristics of the
Metyor-179 stealth fighter were unlike those of any other aircraft. A
stall-spin in an aircraft designed to be super-maneuverable was usually fatal,
and stall recovery was not like any other aircraft. Rather than trying to
counteract the spin with rudder, lower the nose, and level the wings as in a
normal airplane, Stoica had to pull power, use flaps, the speed brake, and
ailerons to slow down as much as possible, turn off the automatic flight-controls,
match the control stick and rudder controls to the aircraft attitude, then
reset the automatic flight control system. He had to do that as fast and as
many times as necessary until the plane recovered itself.

           
Sometimes it happened on the first
try and the stall-spin lasted one or two turns; other times it lasted longer
and he could lose a frightening amount of altitude in a hurry.

 
          
It
took four complete turns and almost a thousand meters’ altitude before Stoica
could regain control. The threat scope still showed three enemy fighters out
there—he had tagged only one. The spin recovery routine had sapped almost all
his airspeed, so he had no choice but to stay straight and level until airspeed
built back up.