on the opposite side.
Saudi radar had tracked both flights over Jordan before they crossed the border. Reaction time had been calculated by the Israeli planners, who estimated the Saudis could not intercept before the photos were obtained and the mission was egressing back into Jordan. But from the moment of radar warning, Tiger Force had sprung into action.
A call to Black Base had Ed Lawrence's squadron airborne less than two minutes after the alert sounded.
Lawrence flung his second section out to his left at a range of six miles and sharply banked his own fighter to the northwest. Streaking across the barren desert at 2,000 feet, his wingman was in right-hand loose deuce at a mile and a half. Up to his left at 4,000 was his second flight. Lawrence had decided to keep his planes low even though the F-15 had a good lookdown-shootdown capability.
He gambled the Eagles would rely on ground-based radar in this limited-war scenario, hoping to surprise any Saudi pilots searching for airborne emitters-because 'That's what I'd do in their shoes.'
Lawrence pumped his control stick slightly, inducing an up-and-down motion of his nose, and four pairs of hands activated armament switches. Lawrence armed his left-hand Sidewinder and moved his gun selector to CHARGE. A reassuring hard
Ed Lawrence still had twenty-fifteen vision, and at twenty-five miles he saw the flicker of sunlight from a canopy. Moments later he made out the distinctive smoke trails of the closest Phantom's twin engines with the range down to ten miles. Briefly he wished he had been able to deploy his other two flights to circle behind the Israelis and cut them off. But there was too much sky to cover all the possibilities. He put the idea out of mind and prepared to engage.
Black Lead made a slight right turn to offset and, at five miles, pulled hard in a climbing left turn. Belatedly, the Israelis visually acquired the second section and started a nose-down hard left turn. Lawrence keyed his mike, partly from long habit from hundreds of mock combats, partly to give the familiar call for morale's sake:
'Fight's on!'
The exec put his gunsight reticle on the lead Eagle. Tiger Force had adopted a West German non-radar sight, capable of switching from the standard 30-mil circle-and-center pipper to the funnel-shaped sight he now used. Both were gyro-stabilized to provide lead computation, and Lawrence selected the latter, wide at the top for minimum range and narrow at the bottom of the funnel to indicate maximum range on a standard-sized tactical aircraft.
When the Eagle's forty-three-foot wingspan filled the narrow portion of the reticle, Lawrence fired his port Sidewinder. The AIM-9 streaked off the rail and headed for the big McDonnell Douglas fighter from the one o'clock position. Lawrence's minor angle advantage from his first turn was not decisive, but it was a start.
The Eagle, already in afterburner, pulled up abruptly to defeat the missile. Lawrence used the seconds thus gained to pitch up, roll almost 180 degrees, and follow the maneuver from his opponent's belly side. Invisible to the Israeli pilot, Lawrence allowed himself to drop back slightly in a lag pursuit. When the Eagle pulled over the top, the Tigershark was 1,500 feet astern at five o'clock.
Lawrence heard his wingman, Badir Qurat, call, 'You're clear,' and accepted the estimate as a matter of faith. He rolled out, momentarily at normal G with wings nearly level, and pressed the trigger.
'Guns!'
The big shells, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, hammered into the twin-tailed fighter from almost directly astern. Pieces flew off the wing and fuselage as the Israeli rolled inverted and pulled into a six-G split-S. Lawrence was right behind, hearing the voice of his wingman under heavy G, almost unintelligible. Lawrence estimated that the young Saudi was engaged with an Eagle himself.
He came off the throttle and pulled up briefly, then pitched back down to regain his spacing. Sure enough, the F-15's huge speed brake behind the cockpit was deployed and the orange-white glow of the afterburners was gone. The Israeli had tried to force an overshoot. But now, with reduced energy the Eagle could not shake the F-20 locked firmly at its six o'clock. Lawrence placed his gunsight carefully and, in the minimum time available, triggered another burst.
Mortally hit, the Eagle rolled violently and the canopy came off.
Out came the seat as the pilot ejected.
Lawrence took no time to savor his victory-he had done this before. Instead, he blinked the sweat from his eyes, checked his tail, and selected afterburner. In the F404 engine's tailpipe raw fuel was sprayed into the red-hot exhaust gases from the main engine and reignited. The normal 2,300 pounds per hour fuel flow which produced 450 knots airspeed rocketed to 60,000 pounds per hour-enough to propel the jet at Mach 1.3. But Lawrence wanted acceleration more than pure speed; he remained nose-level long enough to regain his energy state, then pulled up to rejoin his wingman.
The redheaded flier called, 'Black Two, I'm free.' Craning his neck hard to the left, he discerned two small dots at his seven o'clock, slightly high. In seconds he was through a vertical reversal, accelerating back into the fight.
The radios came alive with pilots' excited voices as missiles trailed smoky fingers through the clear air. Lawrence's wingman was turning with an F-l5, neither gaining nor losing. It was no place to be in a multi bogey fight-it left a pilot vulnerable to the unseen bandit outside one's periphery. And remaining in a level turn would bleed off airspeed.
As Lawrence crossed over the engaged fighters, Black Two saw him. Badir pitched up, calling, 'You have it, Lead.'
Lawrence cut across the circle, arcing downward to initiate a low yo-yo. But the Eagle driver was sharp; he recognized the setup, lit his burners, and rocketed upward. Caught nose-low, Lawrence could not match the climb in time to engage. He called his wingman to rejoin and they turned in place back toward the initial contact, accelerating rapidly.
Abruptly Lawrence heard, 'Black Lead! Break hard right, now!' Without thinking, Lawrence wracked the little Northrop into a seven-and-one-half-G starboard turn, climbing slightly. His vision grayed, he lost the color of the outside world, and a fuzzy narrowing of his sight accompanied the abrupt draining of most of the blood from his head. He caught just a glimpse of the nose of a cannon-firing F-IS attacking from three o'clock, now dangerously close.
'Where'd
The exec intended to pitch up, covering his wingman who would engage the F-15 in a level turn, but there was no chance. With ungodly speed the Eagle continued straight ahead, accelerating through the speed of sound. Lawrence heard a garbled transmission from Black Five, his second flight leader; something about the Israelis disengaging.
Checking his fuel state, Lawrence decided he could remain in the area several minutes longer. He reformed his flight, gratified they were all present, and turned northward, hoping to head off any bogeys which had been delayed near the airfields in that quadrant.
Moments later Lawrence caught a fast-moving shadow on the ground, moving from right to left. He identified it as an RF -4. Calling, 'You have it,' he went high to allow Black Two to engage. But Lawrence was cautious; he knew the Israeli fighters never would knowingly leave a recon plane unescorted. He deployed his second section, Black Three and Four, then upsun to watch for the Eagles which must still be around.
In Black Two, Badir dropped behind the Phantom, tickling the Mach to keep pace, and settled down at about two miles range. Lawrence glanced down from his perch, mentally urging the kid to shoot. The Phantom was booming along in burner, offering a beautiful heat source from the two big engines cooking away. Lawrence depressed his mike button to speak when Two's first 'winder flashed off the rail. The RF -4 began a break turn just as the missile exploded.
The Phantom kept flying. Apparently the AIM-9 had detonated just outside lethal range-fusing problems, Lawrence surmised.
Seconds later Black Two fired again, this time remembering to call 'Snake!' His starboard missile flew to the target and exploded against the white-hot heat source from the RF-4's 179 engines. The Phantom emerged from a dirty black cloud, nosed down, and hit the desert floor. Lawrence had not witnessed the ejection but he saw at least
