There was a slight pause; then: “All right, Rinc. If you don’t have a visual on us by three, scram east, I’ll go west. Don’t screw this up, Seaver!”
“Penetrate, decimate, dominate,” Seaver said. “Kick ass, Beck!”
“Steering’s good, Rodeo,” Long said, after quickly entering several commands into his nav computer.
“What’s the plan, guys?” Patrick asked. “What’s an airshow?”
“You’ll see, General,” Rinc replied. “Just keep the bad guys off our butts, Ollie. Here we go.” Seaver pushed the throttles into full military power, moved the wing sweep handle forward to thirty-six degrees, then started a steep climb and a fast turn toward the new destination coordinates.
Patrick had had the Nellis range crews set up a difficult nest of several antiaircraft artillery emplacements near the last planned gravity bomb target. He put so many ZSU-23s and dual 57-millimeter radar-guided guns near the target that even a B-1 going supersonic couldn’t survive overflying the target. That was the purpose: to see if the crew would alter their tactics, and if so, what they would do next. Patrick could see that Rinc had offset them far to the east of their planned track, well away from the last target. They were passing twenty thousand feet and going higher.
“We’re getting kinda high for some of the big threats out here, aren’t we?” Patrick asked. If they stayed up this high for much longer, some of the long-range strategic surface-to-air missiles could “kill” them with ease, and at this speed and angle-of-attack, they couldn’t maneuver very well. They were flying up high, obviously, to stay away from the triple-A threats that could kill them if they stayed low — but this was getting ridiculous. They were off course, off time, off altitude…
“SA-3 in search, twelve o’clock, forty-five miles,” Ollie reported. “SA-10, three o’clock, fifty miles.”
“We need to get the nose down, pilot,” Patrick warned him. “We’re naked up here. Airspeed’s dropped below four hundred, AOA is eight. What’s the plan?”
“Bandits twelve o’clock, forty miles and closing…”
“You got it, General,” Rinc said happily — and then he pulled the wing sweep handle back to sixty-seven point five degrees, rolled the Bone
“
“Passing thirty for six,” Long said calmly. Checklist pages and tiny bits of dirt and dust were floating around them. As they accelerated earthward, Patrick started to feel the pressure squeeze him into his seat as the G-forces built up. They had reversed their direction of flight and had rolled back upright, speeding toward the second target complex in the
“Hey, our track will put us nose-to-nose with our wingman,” Patrick pointed out.
“We know that,” Rinc answered. “He should be off our nose at sixteen DME, low.” The crew kept the air-to- air TACAN system dialed in so they could tell exactly how far they were from each other. “Where are those threats, D?” he asked.
“SA-3 down, SA-10 four o’clock, search only… triple-A at twelve o’clock, fast-scan search. He’s getting ready to range on us. We’ve got bandits now at six o’clock, thirty miles and closing fast, coming down the ramp at us.”
“Wingman at fifteen… fourteen…” Patrick couldn’t believe how fast the air-to-air DME was winding down.
“A little hot, Rodeo,” Long said. “Give me a few seconds. Two should do it.” Seaver responded by honking the Bone into two very steep, tight turns, one to the left and another to the right, to lose a little time without pulling off any power, still with the nose aimed earthward. “That should do it. Ten DME… passing ten for six… looking good… pop when ready, Rodeo!”
“Boards!” Rinc shouted. Patrick hit the OVERRIDE switch and deployed all four spoilers up into full speed- brake position. They all slammed forward against their shoulder straps as they quickly decelerated. As the speed decreased, Rinc swept the wings forward to fifty-four degrees to slow down even more.
“Triple-A locked on!” Warren shouted.
“Five DME!” Rinc announced over interphone. “Got them yet, General?”
“Raise the nose a little,” Patrick replied, his head spinning. “A little more… contact, contact! Eleven-thirty, low!”
“Got ’em,” Rinc said calmly. They were head-to-head with their wingman, the other B-1 bomber! Aces Two- One was screaming earthward from above while Rebecca Furness in the lead Bone was racing supersonic across the high desert. Their flight paths intersected directly over the second target complex.
“Bandit six o’clock, twenty miles!” Warren shouted. “Triple-A lock,
“Get your nose up a little, pilot,” Long said. “Twenty TG to bomb release. We level at one thousand!”
But the call was too late. Out the cockpit window, they could see Aces Two-Zero laying down a string of five-hundred-pound bombs. Bright flashes of yellow light quickly made way for an immense cloud of smoke and exploding metal. The desert erupted and boiled as if it had suddenly turned to sand-colored lava.
The second B-1 passed within one mile of Furness’s bomber, just three hundred feet underneath. Rinc was watching the first B-1 and was not paying attention to his altitude until the RADAR ALT LOW warning light and buzzer came on at eight hundred feet.
“Pull up!” Patrick shouted. Seaver pulled back on the control stick to level off, but not before the bomber careened through five hundred feet above ground — aimed right at the center of the detonation pattern. The crew felt a sharp jolt and a bouncing, pinging pebbly sound underneath the plane, like a car driving across a rough gravel road.
“Ten TG!” Patrick shouted. “We’re too low!
Long ignored him. At that same moment, the bomb doors swung open, and Aces Two-One released their own Mk82 bomb load on their own target two complex. Again, the desert rippled and undulated as the bombs ripped apart the enemy vehicles set up below.
The B-1 was in a steep climb and escaped most of the effects of the Ballute-retarded bomb attack. The F-15 pilot chasing Aces Two-One was not quite as lucky. He stopped his descent and turned away as he saw the second B-1 bomber heading right for him, but he turned directly into the path of the first Bone’s bomb fragmentation pattern.
“Avalanche, this is Bullrider One on GUARD,” they heard on the GUARD emergency channel. “Bullrider One is declaring an emergency for a right engine fire and right wing structural damage.”
“Roger, Bullrider One,” the AWACS controller responded on GUARD. “All Bullrider and Aces playmates, knock it off, knock it off, knock it off. Bullrider One, you’re radar contact, climb and maintain one six thousand, turn right heading one-five-three, vectors for the visual approach at Nellis, squawk normal. Bullrider Two, you are radar contact, squawk normal, say intentions.”
“Bullrider Two will rejoin on Bullrider One for a formation visual approach to Nellis.”
“Roger, Bullrider Two. Climb and maintain one five thousand, fly heading one-seven-zero, vectors for a rejoin, advise when holding hands with Bullrider One. Bullrider flight, push Red Five.”
“Bullrider flight, Red Five, go.”
“Two.”
That was not the last word: the bomber crews heard a curt “Aces, Falcon five-oh-one,” then the frequency was clear. No one in either bomber had to look up that “Falcon” code in their unofficial checklist pages — it was well known to most fliers. It decodes as “Kiss my ass.”
“You can kiss
Patrick wasn’t so sure — they were a couple of hundred feet low on their bomb release and could easily have fragged themselves with their own bombs.
“You’ve got steering to the anchor,” Long said.
Rinc rejoined with Furness a few minutes later, and they made their way to the refueling area, where Pioneer Seventeen, the tanker that had participated in their low-level penetration charade, was waiting for them. They topped off their tanks, the tanker departed safely, and the two bombers settled into their orbits to wait for targets of opportunity.
