Leadership Material

'Abbass Control, this is Lechtvar,' the Iranian Blackjack pilot called. 'We copied your emergency evacuation messages. Give us vectors to the enemy aircraft and we will respond immediately.'

'Lechtvar, this is Abbass Control, negative!' the confused controller replied after a few moments. 'We detected some unidentified aircraft, and then a flare was set off over the Strait. But there are no Iranian installations under attack and no one has implemented any evacuation procedures. Clear this channel immediately!'

The Blackjack crew finally realized they had been tricked. The crew was stunned into embarrassed silence. The Russian crew members cursed loud enough in Russian to be heard without the interphones- they realized that their chances of surviving this mission suddenly went from very good to very poor. The bombardier directed the transfer-alignment maneuver, a forty-five-degree left turn followed by two more turns back to course-all missiles were fully functional and…

'Hey, Blackjack. We know you're up here listening to us. We'll have you on our radar any second now. You'll never finish your attack. Why not forget about the carrier and come get us? We're waiting for you.'

It was impossible! The mystery plane was back-and they knew all about their mission! How was that possible? How could they…?

Suddenly, the radar-warning indicators blared a warning-an enemy airborne radar had swept across them. Seconds later, with sixty seconds to launch, the radar-warning receiver indicated a radar lock. They had been found! The Blackjack's radar jammers were functioning perfectly, but they were unable to keep the enemy tracking radar from completely breaking lock-it changed frequencies too fast and changed in such a broad range that the Blackjack's trackbreakers could not quite keep up.

'Got ya, Blackjack,' the American said. 'You're not as stealthy tonight as last time. You must be carrying some heavy iron tonight. Got some more air-to-air missiles loaded up tonight? Maybe a few big an-tiship missiles? Why don't you just jettison all that deadweight and come on up here and let's you and me finish this thing, once and for all?'

'We must break off the attack,' the Iranian defensive-systems officer shouted. 'If they have us on radar, they can vector in the other fighters. We'll be surrounded in seconds.'

'Process the launch!' the Russian mission commander shouted. 'Ignore this American bastard! He did not attack us before-perhaps he cannot stop us.'

As if they could hear their interphone conversation, the American said, 'Hey, Blackjack, you better bug out now. I just relayed your position to my little buddies, the F/A-18 Hornets from the Midway. They're not very happy that you've come to try to blow up their ship. In about two minutes you'll have an entire squadron of Hornets on your ass.'

The Iranian pilot could no longer contain his anger. He opened the channel to the GUARD frequency and mashed his mike button: 'You cowardly pig-bastard! If you want us, come and get us!'

'Hey, there you are, Blackjack,' the American said happily. 'Nice to talk to you again.'

'You know who I am-who are you?'

'I'm the pig-bastard at your two o'clock position and closing fast,' the American replied. 'I'll bet my interceptor missiles are faster and have longer range than your attack missiles-I'll reach my firing point in about ten seconds. You don't want to die flying straight and level, do you? C'mon up here and let's get it on.'

'You will never stop us!' the Iranian shouted.

'Oops-I think I overestimated our firing point. Here they come.' And just then, the radar-warning receiver blared a shrill MISSILE LAUNCH warning-the Americans had fired radar-guided missiles!

The Russian pilot reacted instinctively. He immediately started a shallow climb and a steep right bank into the oncoming missiles. 'Chaff! Chaff!' he shouted; then: 'Launch the Kh-29s! Now!'

'We are not in range!' the bombardier shouted.

'Launch anyway!' the Russian ordered. 'We will not get another chance! Launch!' The bombardier immediately commanded the Kh-29 missiles to launch. The missiles all had solid lock-ons, and with the slightly greater altitude, the Kh-29s had a little greater range… it might be enough to score a hit.

'They launched missiles!' Patrick shouted. The Megafortress's attack radar, a derivative of the APG-71 radar from the F-15E Eagle, immediately detected the big Kh-29 missiles speeding toward the Midway. 'I got four big missiles, very low altitude, going supersonic. Wendy…?'

'I got 'em,' Wendy Tork reported. The APG-71 weapon system had immediately passed targeting information to Wendy's defensive system, and all Wendy had to do was launch-commit her AIM-120 Scorpion missiles. 'We're at extreme range-I'm going to have to ripple off all our Scorpions. Give me forty right and full military power.'

As Brad Elliott followed Wendy's orders, the fire-control computers went to work. Within twenty seconds, eight Scorpions fired off into space. At first they used the Megafortress's attack radar for guidance, but soon they activated their own active radars and tracked the Russian missiles with ease. All four Kh-29 missiles were shot down long before they reached the Midway.

'Splash four missiles,' Wendy reported. 'But we're in trouble now-we used up all our defensive missiles.' And, as if the Blackjack crew heard them, Wendy saw that the Iranian attack plane was turning very, very quickly- heading right for them. 'We got a big, big bandit at fifteen miles, low. He…' Just then, the EB-52C's threat-warning receiver issued a RADAR WARNING, a MISSILE WARNING, and a MISSILE LAUNCH warning in rapid succession. 'Break right!' Wendy shouted. 'Stingers coming on-line! Chaff!'

The Soviet-made R-40 missiles were well within their maximum range, and the Blackjack's big fire-control radar had a solid lock-on. The Megafortress's rear-defense fire-control radar locked on to the incoming missiles and started firing Stinger airmine rockets, but this time they couldn't score a hit. One R-40 missile was decoyed enough for a near miss, but a second R-40 scored a hit, blowing off the left V-tail stabilator on the Megafortress and shelling out two engines on the left side.

The force of the explosion and the sudden loss of the two left engines threw the Megafortress into a jaw- snapping left swerve so violent that the big bomber almost succeeded in swapping nose for tail. Only Brad Elliott's and John Ormack's superior airmanship and familiarity with the EB-52C Megafortress saved the crew. They knew enough not to automatically jam on full power on all the operating engines, which would have certainly sent them into a violent, unrecoverable flat Frisbee-like spin-instead, they had to pull power on the right side back to match the left, trade precious altitude so they could gain some even more precious flying airspeed, recover control, and only then start feeding in power slowly and carefully. The automatic fire-suppression systems on the Megafortress shut down the engines and cut off fuel, preventing a fatal fire and explosion. They lost two hundred knots and five thousand feet of altitude before the bomber was actually flying in some semblance of coordinated flight and was not on the verge of spi-raling into the Persian Gulf.

But the Megafortress was a sitting duck for the speedy Blackjack bomber. 'His airspeed has dropped off to less than five hundred kilometers per hour,' the defensive-systems officer reported as he studied his fire-control radar display. 'He has dropped to one thousand meters, twelve o'clock, ten miles. He is straight and level-not maneuvering. I think he's hit!'

'Then finish him off,' the Iranian pilot shouted happily. 'Finish him, and let's get out of here!'

'Stand by for missile launch!' the defensive-systems officer said. 'Two missiles locked on… ready… ready… launchl Missiles…'

He never got to finish that sentence. A fraction of a second before the two R-40 missiles left their rails, three pairs of AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles from three pursuing F/A-18 Hornet fighters from the USS Midway plowed into the Blackjack-E bomber, fired from less than five miles away. They had used guidance information from the as-yet-unknown but friendly aircraft, so were able to conduct the intercept and lock on to the enemy attack plane without having to use their telltale airborne radars. The Sidewinders turned the Blackjack's four huge turbofan engines into four massive clouds of fire that completely engulfed, then devoured the big jet. The pieces of Blackjack bomber not incinerated in the blast were scattered across over thirty square miles of the Persian Gulf and disappeared from sight forever.

'Hey, buddy, this is Dragon Four-Zero-Zero,' the lead F/A-18 Hornet pilot radioed on the UHF GUARD channel. 'You still up?'

'Roger,' Brad Elliott replied. 'We saw that bandit coming in to finish us off. I take it we're still alive because you nailed his ass.'

'That's affirmative,' the Hornet pilot replied happily. 'We saw the hit you took. You need an escort back to King Khalid Military City?'