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-2 °C 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.
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
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.
Lawrence and Badir had jumped a flight of Kfirs and destroyed two. The fight now was dispersed over an area measuring thirty to fifty miles on a side, and the intensity of combat was diminishing. Black Lead's flight reformed and trolled the perimeter of the arena, looking for additional bogeys.
During a momentary pause in the jamming, Lawrence heard a call from Ahnas Menaf with Green Squadron: 'Bogeys pulling away northward. Am pursuing. Out.'
There was also a short transmission from Orange, though the call sign was garbled. Lawrence figured that Rajid was patrolling the nearby fields.
Aaron Hali knew that things had turned to hash around him.
Orbiting north of Ha'il, waiting to provide withdrawal support for part of the strike force, he knew there had been heavy losses on both sides and doubted that more than two flights would reach the target, still more than a hundred miles away. He checked his fuel state-ample but getting low-and looked around for his wingman. The boy was right there, spread out to two miles.
Hali's nomex flight suit was soaked in sweat and his arms felt heavy. He had been through the toughest fight of his life: two engagements with F-20s. He out-turned one, which he caught at a depleted energy state, and was going for a Sidewinder shot when two more dropped out of nowhere and forced him to break tracking. There had followed the damnedest set-to he had ever experienced.
In the confusion Hali surprised another Tigershark and killed it with a 'winder.
Never had he seen Arab aircraft flown so competently and aggressively.
He called on mission frequency and ordered the withdrawal northward. He would remain on station with his flight a few more minutes to provide a rear guard.
Major Abdullah Ben Nir was frustrated. He had gained visual sightings on several Israeli aircraft and had a good shot at a Phantom. But he had fired too soon and the F-4 had evaded the missile. To make matters worse, the McDonnell Douglas fighter-bomber-essentially a generation older than its Eagle relative-had disappeared in the shadow of a ridgeline.
Ben Nir realized he had stretched the limit of his orders and then some. He was farther north than he should have been in the first place, and it was time to think about returning to base. He began a turn into the sun, wondering how the 'wall of missiles' tactic had worked against the Israelis.
