scaffolding. “The ’Vark is pretty torn up or I’d take you for a look inside.”
“No worries—I’ve seen plenty of ’Varks in my day, sir,” Cuthbert said. “Are you sticking that mission-adaptive wing on that one?”
“Actually, we’re not,” Patrick said, “although we certainly can.” The mission-adaptive wing technology, pioneered by Sky Masters Inc., used tiny computer-controlled actuators on the fuselage and wings, in essence making every surface on the aircraft either a lift or drag device and greatly improving both high- and low-speed performance. They had successfully put mission-adaptive technology in a variety of aircraft, vessels, and even race cars. “But that one is still a swing-wing. We’re putting in a few electronic displays, the active electronically scanned array radar, upgraded engines, and the pilot-optional stuff, but it’s pretty much stock.”
“Nice looking Tomcat, too,” Cuthbert commented as they walked down the flight line toward one of the main hangars, referring to an F-14A Tomcat carrier-based fighter parked beside the F-111. “What did you do to it?”
“Again, not much,” Patrick said. “We put the General Electric–Rolls-Royce F136 engines in this particular bird because we got such a good deal for a quantity of them.”
“I’ll bet you did,” Cuthbert said. “Canceling the alternate engine for the F-35 fighter back in 2011 could have been a disaster for the company.” The F136 engine was a dual-source alternative for the F135 primary engine on the F-35-series fighter-bomber, proposed in order to make engines available in case of a major conflict. When the F136 engine was canceled, thousands of workers on two continents lost their jobs virtually overnight. There was talk of the whole branch of the company going down because of it . . .
. . . until one Patrick McLanahan in an obscure little airport in northern Nevada put in a purchase order for several of them.
“They gave us a sweet deal for top-of-the-line power plants—it was a win-win scenario all around,” Patrick said. “Turns out they are real superstars—we get some excellent performance numbers. We have a couple other refurbished planes where we kept the General Electric F110 engines, and they work well, but not as good as the F- 35 Lightnings or F/A-18 Super Hornets. We beefed up the structure, put in AESA, a few more electronic displays, the pilot-optional stuff, of course—that’s about it. We can go take her for a spin if you’d like.”
“I like, sir,” Cuthbert said, “but I’m short on time. If you didn’t live way the hell out in the boonies, I’d have more time to play. So, the proposal submitted to the Air Force said this project is in support of the AirSea Battle concept. You should know, sir, that AirSea Battle hasn’t been implemented because we don’t have a large enough air component—there aren’t enough long-range platforms to support a carrier battle group.”
As commander of the First Expeditionary Bomb Wing at Andersen Air Force Base, Cuthbert was responsible for organizing, training, and supporting the Continuous Bomber Presence for Pacific Air Force, a program that rotated the Air Force’s few remaining long-range bombers to Guam for six-month stints. The few B-52H Stratofortresses, B-1B Lancers, and B-2A Spirit bombers at Guam formed a quick-reaction long-range conventional strike force that could reach very quickly throughout the Pacific, as well as provide aircrews a chance to train with the Navy and with foreign air forces. But since the American long-range bomber force had been so badly decimated during the American Holocaust, the bombers and their crews were becoming exhausted, and replacements were needed. Cuthbert had been assigned the task of coming up with solutions to the widening bomber gap from industry.
“I’m well aware of that, Cutlass,” Patrick said.
“And you said you can build a fleet of long-range strike aircraft in less than two years for hardly any money at all? How are you going to do that, sir—pixie dust?”
“They’re already built and battle proven,” Patrick replied. “They aren’t flying, but it’s not because they’re incapable or obsolescent. There are trade-offs. They are not stealthy, at least not twenty-first-century-version stealthy. They don’t have antiradar coatings or radar-absorbent materials built into their structures—Sky Masters can add those things, but the cost will skyrocket, and that’s not what we want. We want a capable long-range bomber for low cost that can be fielded very quickly.”
“So where is this magical aircraft?”
“It’s on its way,” Patrick said. He glanced at his watch, smiled, then said, “Cutlass, allow me to reintroduce you to the weapons system that we at Sky Masters believe will be the affordable interim ingredient to fulfilling the promise of the AirSea Battle concept: the XB-1F Excalibur.”
He could not have timed it better. Just as Patrick announced the name, Cuthbert’s attention was grabbed by a sinister-sounding rushing noise, like an oncoming race car, that steadily got louder and louder . . . and then it flew overhead from behind, and the roar of the XB-1’s four turbofan engines in full afterburner rolled over them. The sleek gray-green swept-wing bomber flew two thousand feet aboveground, but the immense size of the aircraft made it seem as if it was brushing their heads.
“Holy shit!” Cuthbert exclaimed. “A B-1 Lancer! She’s a beauty!”
As the bomber made a steep bank about a half mile away, Patrick began his carefully rehearsed sales pitch: “Not a Lancer, Cutlass. The XB-1 Excalibur looks like the standard B-1B Lancer bomber because on the outside it
“What’s the ALQ-293?”
“The ALQ-293 SPEAR was developed by Sky Masters years ago in a competitive bid for the F-35 Lightning’s radar,” Patrick explained. “Our system was designed to not only send out a signal and then listen for the same returned signal for processing, but to listen for signals and then transmit other signals in response at that same frequency. SPEAR can alter the timing of the returned signal to make the enemy’s radar think we are farther away or even invisible. We also found that we can transmit just about any other kind of signal to enemy radar, even computer code.”
“Computer code?” Cutlass exclaimed. “You mean, like inserting a virus into a computer?”
“Exactly,” Patrick said. “We called it ‘netrusion,’ and it worked like a charm when we sent the Vampires over Iran during the civil war—we were able to spoof radars and even issue shutdown commands to computers and electronics. We installed SPEAR into all the special EB-1D Vampire bombers, but they were all taken out and replaced with APG-77. Sky Masters put them back into production right before Jon was killed, and I decided to put them on the refurbished B-1s.”
“Excellent, as long as it doesn’t break the bank,” Cuthbert said. “But putting that kind of system on a forty- year-old airframe must really crank up the refurbishment time, right?”
“The total time to do a conversion is just a few months—most of that time is airframe inspections,” Patrick replied. “But it’s also notable for what we did
“Sky Masters recently purchased all the B-1B conversion tooling, plans, and equipment from the Air Force, and we hired many of the workers and engineers who were laid off at Palmdale when the conversion program was canceled due to budget cuts, so now we’re doing the conversion work ourselves,” Patrick said. “We can create the Vampire again if the Pentagon wants them. We also have plans to convert a number of F-111 bombers for an even lower cost, and we are planning other conversions such as the F-14 Tomcat fighter. But we think the XB-1 Excalibur has the best combination of range, payload, and speed, and it’s the best value as well.”
“It’s an interesting idea, General,” Cuthbert said. “But you don’t expect the Air Force to train B-1 crewdogs, do you? Who’s going to fly the thing?”
“Our plan is not just to refurbish planes, but to provide everything needed to deploy the force,” Patrick said. “We anticipated that the Air Force was not going to want to train active-duty or Reserve crewmembers for a weapons system that might only be around for five or ten years, so we plan on providing all the personnel on a contract basis. We recruit and train the aircrews, maintainers, ground support personnel, and administration; and
