Air Battle Force

“The guinea pigs are in place,” Rebecca responded. “I mean, AC is up.”

“MC is up,” Patrick said. “The guinea pigs here resent that.”

“VE ready,” replied Jon Masters from the seat beside Patrick, reporting in as the “virtual engineer.” Dr. Jon Masters, a boyish-looking man in his mid-thirties who had several hundred patents to his name long before most kids his age had graduated from high school, was the chief engineer and CEO of Sky Masters Inc., a small high-tech engineering firm that developed state-of-the-art communications, weapons, and satellite technology, including the virtual cockpit. Patrick McLanahan had known Jon Masters for many years and had been a vice president of Sky Masters Inc. after he had been involuntarily separated from the Air Force.

“Okay, folks, here we go,” Daren said. “VAC, you have the aircraft.”

“Oh, shit, here we go,” Zane muttered. In a shaky but loud voice, he commanded, “Vampire, battery power on.” Instantly the lights inside the EB-1C Vampire’s cockpit came on. He tuned in several radios and got permission to start the plane’s APU, or auxiliary power unit; then: “Vampire, before-APU-start checklist.”

In the cockpit, Rebecca barely noticed the response. All the checklist items — eleven steps, which normally took about a minute to perform — were done with a rapid flicker of warning and caution lights. Within three seconds the computer responded, “Vampire ready for APU start.”

“Wow” was all Rebecca could say.

“Shit-hot,” Zane exclaimed. “Vampire, get me a double cheeseburger, no pickles.”

“Would you like fries with that?” the computer responded.

“What?”

“You youngsters are so predictable. That was one of the first responses I programmed into the voice- recognition software,” Jon Masters said gleefully. Jon was only a few years older than the “youngsters,” so he knew them very well.

“Can we get on with it?” Rebecca asked. “This thing is giving me the creeps.”

“Roger,” Zane said happily. “Vampire, APU start.”

The checklists ran quickly and smoothly, and in a fraction of the time it normally took to get ready for engine start, the Vampire bomber was ready. They had to wait for Long and Pogue to finish their checklists, done in a more conventional manner. The bombers were then towed to an elevator and hoisted to the second level, where they started the engines and performed a before-takeoff check; shortly thereafter the two bombers were raised to the surface.

“So how do I taxi this thing, boss?” Zane asked.

“You don’t. The computer does,” Daren replied.

“O-kay. Vampire, taxi for takeoff,” Zane spoke.

“Laser radar is on and radiating, very low power, short range,” Patrick reported. Just then the Vampire bomber’s throttles slowly advanced, and the plane crept forward.

It was slow going, but eventually the Vampire taxied itself out of the hammerhead and onto the end of the runway. “Vampire in takeoff position, eleven thousand four hundred feet remaining,” the computer reported. “Partial power takeoff performance okay.”

“The LADAR maps out the edges of the runway and automatically puts you on the centerline, then measures the distance to the first set of obstacles — in this case, the edge of the overrun,” Jon Masters explained. “The laser radar also measures nearby terrain and samples the atmosphere and plugs the information into the air-data computer for takeoff-performance computations.”

“So what the heck do I do?” Zane asked.

“You get to choose the type of takeoff,” Patrick McLanahan said.

“Can’t I make my own takeoff?”

“The computer can make about a dozen different takeoffs: max performance, minimum interval, unimproved field, max altitude, partial power, noise abatement — you name it,” Masters said. “You just tell it which one and it’ll do it.”

“So can I, Doc, so can I,” Zane said. “How do I work this thing?”

“Rest your arm on the armrest,” Daren said. Grey did. “Vampire, cockpit adjust,” Daren spoke. In an instant the cockpit flight controls rearranged themselves to fit Grey’s hands. “In the virtual cockpit, the controls come to you—not the other way around.”

“I love it!” Zane exclaimed happily. The rudder pedals did the same, and when it came time to flip a switch or punch a button, all he had to do was extend a finger. The control panel came to his finger, then moved again so he could clearly see the display, then moved out of the way so he could “look” out the window or “see” other instruments. Zane experimentally “stirred the pot”—moved the control stick in a wide circle to check the flight- control surfaces — and watched the control-surface indicators move.

“Not so hard,” Rebecca said. “You’re banging the control surfaces around too much.”

“Keep in mind that you don’t have any control-stick feel,” Daren pointed out. “You have to use the indicators and the flight instruments to tell you how you’re doing — no ‘seat of the pants’ flying. Use your cameras on the takeoff roll, but if you go into the clouds, transition quickly to your instruments.” Daren got takeoff clearance from the air base’s robot “control tower”: “You’re cleared for takeoff, VAC.”

“Here we go, boys and girls,” Zane said. He put his hands on the “throttles” and slowly pushed them forward — too fast. He moved them more slowly, stopping just as he advanced into zone-one afterburner, then released brakes as he slowly advanced them further into zone five.

He felt as if nothing were happening — and then, before he realized it, the computer said, “Vampire, rotate speed, ready, ready, now.” Zane wasn’t ready for it. He pulled back on the stick — nothing happened. He pulled back more… still nothing — and then suddenly the nose shot skyward.

“Get the nose down, Lieutenant,” Rebecca warned. “You overrotated.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Zane said. He released some of the back pressure.

“Too much!” Rebecca shouted. “Nose up!” They were less than fifty feet aboveground. Zane pulled back on the stick — and started another PIO, or “pilot-induced oscillation.” Rebecca cried out, “I’ve got it!”

“Let Zane fix it, Rebecca,” Daren said calmly. “Nice and easy with the controls, Zane,” he said softly. “There’s a slight delay in the datalink — be ready for it. Put in a control movement, then keep an eye on it. Everything you see is delayed slightly from what the plane’s doing. Use your instruments, but be aware of the delay.”

“Vampire, configuration warning,” the computer announced.

“You wanted to do the takeoff, Zane. You’re the one who has to remember to clean up the plane,” Daren said.

“Shit, yeah,” Zane muttered. “Vampire, after-takeoff checklist.” Immediately the landing gear started retracting, lights turned themselves off, the air-traffic-control transponder activated, and the mission-adaptive flight controls changed from takeoff to en route climb configuration.

“After-takeoff check complete,” the computer reported seconds later.

“This is totally cool,” Zane said. He experimentally turned the plane side to side. “Once you get used to the delay, it’s not bad at all.”

“Speak for yourself,” Rebecca said nervously as she watched her bomber do its random gyrations. “It figures you young kids would enjoy it — it’s like playing a big video game, right, Zane?”

“Yes, ma’am. How about we see if it’ll do a roll?”

“You do and I’ll court-martial you — and then I’ll kill you.”

“Enough fun. Let’s fly this thing like it was meant to be flown,” Daren said. “Vampire, activate flight plan one, standard en route climb.”

“Vampire, flight plan one activated,” the computer responded.

Zane released his grip on the stick, and the autopilot took over, immediately reducing the throttles out of afterburner, reducing the climb rate, and turning to the first waypoint.

“Two’s airborne, tied on radar,” John Long reported.

Daren watched in utter amazement. “I simply can’t believe this,” Daren said incredulously. “I’m sitting here flying a three-hundred-thousand-pound supersonic attack bomber from a trailer on the ground in the middle of nowhere in northern Nevada. It’s unbelievable.”

“It’s totally cool from here,” Jon Masters said. “It’s better than a video game. It’s hard to believe that’s a real