deicers on longer in case we got some ice restricting airflow for the three minutes, then try one more restart. We might have time for another restart if the second one doesn’t work, if the battery doesn’t run out with all the starter activations. We—”
“Petropavlovsk — the fighter patrols,” Luger said. “They’ve got fighters everywhere. Hopefully they’re looking out over the ocean and not up the peninsula. We should be—”
“How about we give that engine restart a try now, Dave?” Hal Briggs suggested nervously.
“I think that’s close enough to three minutes,” Dave said warily. “Starter on, igniters—”
“C’mon, baby,
Control, Yupka-Three-three flight has radar contact on unidentified air target, five-zero kilometers, low,” the lead Mikoyan-23B pilot reported.
“That’s your target, Three-three,” the ground-intercept controller said. “No other targets detected. Begin your intercept.”
“Acknowledged. Wing, take the high CAP, I am turning to intercept.”
“Two,” the pilot of the second MiG-23B responded simply. His job was to stay with his leader and provide support, not chat on the radios.
Based out of Anadyr, the easternmost military air base in Russia, the MiG-23B Bombardirovshchiks were single-seat, swing-wing, dual-purpose fighter-bombers, capable of both medium-range attack and air-interceptor missions. All interceptor-tasked MiG-23s based at Anadyr were armed with twin twenty-three-millimeter cannons in the nose with two hundred rounds of ammunition, two R-23R radar-guided missiles on fuselage hardpoints, two R- 60 heat-seeking missiles on wing pylons, and one eight-hundred-liter external fuel tank.
The thirty-eight bomber-tasked planes at Anadyr had different weapon loads: three external fuel tanks on the fuselage hardpoints for extra-long range — plus two RN-40 tactical nuclear gravity bombs on the wing stations, each with a one-hundred-kiloton yield. If the United States tried to attack Russia, their orders were to launch and destroy military targets throughout Alaska and Canada. The fighter-equipped MiGs were there to hold off an attack by either American planes or cruise missiles long enough for the bombers to launch and get safely away from the base.
This unidentified radar contact may have been a prelude to such an attack, which was why nerves were on edge all over the district. The first counterattack by the United States had to be blunted at all costs, and the MiG- 23s at Anadyr and the MiG-29s at Petropavlovsk were the first lines of defense against the expected American attack.
The lead MiG pilot kept his PrNK-23N Sokol attack radar on long enough to get a firm idea of the unknown aircraft’s position in his mind, flicked it to STANDBY so his radar wouldn’t give away his position, then rolled right and started a descent into firing position. The target was moving slowly, far more slowly than a jet-powered aircraft. It was also flying at extremely low altitude, barely two hundred meters above the coastal mountain range. It was too dark to be able to see it, so a visual identification was not going to happen.
It was far too late for that anyway — this guy was already well inside Russia’s borders and was not squawking any identification codes. An intruder, no doubt about it. He was going down in flames.
The MiG-23 pilot rolled out and continued his descent. He wished for night-vision goggles so he could see the rugged terrain below, but those were luxuries left for the MiG-29 pilots and the bombers, not the old fighter guys. The pilot had already checked his minimum terrain-clearance altitude, which would keep him safe within a fifty-by- fifty-kilometer box — plus, he added a few dozen meters’ altitude as an extra safety measure “for the wife and kids,” as he and his fellow fighter pilots liked to say. He would be low enough to lock on to and engage this target and still clear the terrain.
As he continued in on his intercept run, the MiG pilot activated his ship’s TM-23 electro-optical sensor, and a blip appeared right away, exactly where he thought it would. The sensor did not display an image of the target, just a simple dot on a screen when a bright or hot object was detected; once locked on, the system fed target bearing and altitude to his fire-control computer, allowing him to give his air-to-air missiles almost all the data they needed to attack.
Using his skill and situational awareness, he kept the dot on the lower edge of the screen and mentally calculated when he would be in firing range. A few seconds later, he flipped on his Sokol attack radar, which was also slaved to the enemy aircraft’s azimuth by the TM-23 sensor. The radar locked on instantly. As soon as he selected an R-23 missile, he received an IN RANGE indication. He flipped open the red cover to the arming switch and then—
At that instant his Sirena-3 radar-warning receiver blared and a red LAUNCH light snapped on — his threat- warning receiver had picked up the uplink signals transmitted to steer surface-to-air missiles, meaning that a missile was in flight and aimed at his plane! His reaction had to be instantaneous: He immediately punched out several bundles of radar-decoying chaff, chopped the throttle, and threw the fighter in a hard right break. In ninety degrees of bank, he pulled on the control stick until he heard the stall-warning horn, leveled out, punched out more chaff, and then hit his afterburner to speed up again. When the radar-warning receiver blared again, he did another break, again to the right, hoping to turn around far enough to lay his radar on his attacker. The stall-warning horn screamed quicker this time, so when he leveled out, he dipped the nose to help speed up.
The second time, he saw it — an explosion, just a few meters away. A missile had missed him by a fraction of a second! Another moment’s hesitation and he could be dead right now.
He had no choice but to bug out; he had received no warnings from his ground controller, and his radar had not locked on to anything — he was completely blind. He pulled the throttle back to full military power to help conserve fuel, then started a turn to the north and a fast climb away from the terrain. His only choice was to disengage, hope the newcomer would follow him up to altitude so the ground radar could see him, then try to reengage.
“Three-three, Control, we do not show a second aircraft, only your target at your seven o’clock position, twenty-eight K.”
“I tell you, Control, I was under attack!” He tried but failed to get his head back into the fight. His brain was hopelessly jumbled — he had a wingman up there to worry about, one known enemy target, and another completely unseen foe that had just attacked him. “Three-three wing, I’ve lost the attack picture, so you engage the target. I’ll take the high CAP.”
“Acknowledged, Lead,” his wingman radioed. “Control, give me a vector.”
“Three-three wing, steer forty right, your target will be at your one o’clock, forty-three K, low, lead will be at your two o’clock, eighteen K. Clear to descend to your minimum vector altitude. Three-three lead, come twenty right, continue climb to your patrol altitude, your wingman will be at your three o’clock, eighteen K, in a descending turn.”
“Wing acknowledges. Turning right.”
“Lead acknowledges.” The lead MiG-23 pilot was quickly regaining his mental picture of the battle space — minus the newcomer, of course. Or did he just imagine that “attack”? Maybe it was some spurious signal from the radar site on the ground or from his wingman, perhaps checking his weapon stores or briefly firing up his radar? Just forget about it, he told himself. Concentrate on getting the one
Suddenly he saw a flash of light and a short trail of fire off in the darkness — and he knew he hadn’t been imagining anything. “Oleg!” he shouted on the command radio. “Attacker at your six o’clock position!
“I’m not picking up any—” And at that instant the threat-warning receiver blared. Unlike the MiG-23, this
