She relaxed the G. “Okay, let’s go back to base, shoot an instrument approach. Remember, in combat you must let the computer help you. The computer is your edge. The computer will keep you alive.”
She wiped the sweat from her face and grunted.
“The computer is the brain of the plane. You’re just the loose nut on the stick.”
“Yeah.”
When the session was over and she was standing on the floor under the simulator, Joe Malan replayed her mission on a videotape. He had just started the tape when Bob Cassidy came in, stood behind Dixie, and watched silently.
“He came in so fast from the front I couldn’t get a missile shot.”
“He was inside the envelope,” Malan said. “Did you try to switch to the gun?”
“Never occurred to me,” she admitted.
“I don’t think you could have gotten the nose over quickly enough for a shot. You had only about three- quarters of a second, maybe a second. You must ensure you don’t cross his nose, give him a shot at you. That is critical.”
“Yes, sir,” Dixie Elitch said.
“Even in a no-radar environment, this guy is making a lot of heat. Your IR sensors will pick him up; the computer will identify him, track him, show you his position at all times. Don’t go lollygagging, cranking your head around to try to track him visually. Keep focused on those displays, keep flying, and take a shot when you get one. While you’re engaged with this guy, somebody else might be sneaking up to put a knife into you, so kill him as quickly as possible.”
“Okay.”
“Go get some rest. See you back here at eleven tonight. Tonight, we’ll do two bogeys at a time.”
“Terrific.”
As Dixie went through the classroom area, Aaron Hudek passed her on his way to the simulator. “Stick around, babe,” he said, “and see how it’s done.”
“Watching people get zapped in that thing nauseates me,” she shot back.
At the instructor’s console of the simulator, Bob Cassidy asked Joe Malan, “How is she doing?”
“Pretty good. Picks it up quick. All these kids do. The speed with which they absorb this stuff amazes me.”
“Video games. A lifetime of video games.”
“All life is a video game to this generation. Hudek is next, then you.”
Aaron Hudek was standing beside them. “Make yourself comfortable, Colonel. I’ll show you how it’s done.” The humble one grinned. Cassidy snorted. “I can talk it and walk it, Colonel.”
“I hope.”
“Just watch.” Hudek went up the ladder toward the cockpit, which stood almost ten feet off the floor on massive hydraulically actuated arms. “I like Fur Ball’s brass,” Malan muttered. “I’ll like it too, if he can fly.”
Hudek could. Malan started with in-flight emergencies and Hudek handled them expeditiously, by the book. Interceptions were no problem, nor were dogfights where he bounced his opponent. After three of those, he was bounced by a single opponent. He quickly went from defensive to offensive and shot the opponent down. The second opponent was wiser, more wily, but Hudek was patient, working his plane, taking what the opponent gave him, waiting for his enemy to make a mistake. “He’s damned good,” Malan told Bob Cassidy, who was watching Hudek’s cockpit displays on the control panel in front of Malan. “Maybe the best we have.”
A simulator was not a real airplane, nor were the scenarios very realistic. They were merely designed to sharpen the pilots” skills. “The problem,” Cassidy told Malan, “is going to be getting close enough to the Zero to have a chance at it. In close, with smart skin and infrared sensors, the F-22 has the edge. Getting there is going to be the trick.”
“I thought you said the F-22’s electronic countermeasures would allow us to detect the Zero before it could see us on radar?”
“Theoretically, yes. Say it works — you know the enemy is there, but his Athena protects him from your radar. You can’t shoot an AMRAAM— it won’t guide. How do you get in to Sidewinder range?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’d better figure that out or we’ll be ducks in a shooting gallery.”
The following day was even more frustrating for Yan Chernov than the previous one. Everything that could go wrong did. Electricity to the base was off; fueling had to be done by hand; only three airplanes were flyable — three out of thirty-six. The others had mechanical problems that the men were trying to fix, or had been scavenged for parts to keep the other planes flying. One of the three was fueled and armed. Chernov intended to use it to give the Japanese some grief. The 30-mm cartridges for the cannon were so old that some of them had swelled; these defective cartridges would jam the gun when they were chambered, so all the cartridges had to be checked by hand with a micrometer, the defective ones thrown away, then the good ones loaded by hand into the linkages that made them into a belt. At last, the belt went into Chernov’s plane. After all that, four AA-10 missiles were loaded onto the missile racks. Chernov suited up, strapped in, then tried to start the engines. The left engine wouldn’t crank. Another hour was wasted while mechanics changed the starter drive. Chernov went back to the dispersal shack and tried once again to call regional military headquarters. At least the telephones worked. But no one answered the ringing phone at regional HQ. The phone just refused to ring at the GCI site in this sector. Maybe the lines were down somewhere…, or perhaps the Japanese had fired a beam-rider antiradiation missile at the radar to knock it off the air.
Chernov went out onto the concrete ramp and sat down in the shade of a wing so he could watch the mechanics work. He had a lot of things on his mind: antiradiation missiles, telephones that didn’t work, Japanese soldiers, and a dead pilot. To resist a Japanese attack on the base with a few dozen men would be suicidal. He had ordered the base personnel to leave, taking all the military families with them. In the absence of orders from higher authority, the responsibility was his. Oh well, he would probably be dead in about an hour, so what did it matter what the Moscow bureaucrats thought when they got around to wondering why the antiaircraft guns at the Zeya Air Base were not manned. He was nervous. Maybe a little scared. He had never been in combat before yesterday. The action then hadn’t taken the edge off. His stomach was nervous, his hands sweaty. He was having trouble sitting still. Today, he knew, there would be Zeros. There should have been Zeros yesterday. He could do it, though. He told himself that over and over. He was a professional. He had a good airplane; he knew how to use it. The odds were against him. One plane against…, how many? An air force. Their ECM gear would pick up his radar … He would leave it off, he decided. Eyeball-to-eyeball would be his best chance. Maybe his only chance. “Major, what if the Japanese attack?”
One of the mechanics was standing in front of him, holding a wrench, examining his face with searching eyes. “You’re sitting under the biggest target on the base, the only armed fighter.”
“All these planes look good from the air,” he replied, gesturing toward rows of Sukhois and Migs parked in revetments. The mechanic rejoined the others. Chernov stretched out, using his survival vest for a pillow, and watched the sky. The sun was shining through a high cirrus layer. There were scattered clouds at the middle altitudes. The clouds subdued the light, made the sky look soft, gauzy. Yan Chernov took a deep breath, tried to force himself to relax. Finally the mechanics came to him. “We’re finished, sir.”
“Good. Very good.”
“It should work.”
“Yes,” he said. “What do you want to do, Major?” the crew chief asked.
“Help me strap in. Have the men work on getting another plane fueled. Arm it. Check the ammo, load four missiles. If there is time this evening, I will take it up.” If he was alive this evening, that is. “Some of the other pilots want to fly.”
Chernov had no orders to launch strikes on the Japanese. He had already lost one man. Russia might need these men later. No sense wasting them. This time the left engine started, as did the right. When the ordnance men and mechanics were satisfied, Chernov gave the signal for the linesmen to pull the chocks. They did so, and he taxied. He made no radio calls. He didn’t turn on the radar or the radio. The ECM panel received careful attention, however, and he tuned the volume so he could hear the sound of any enemy radar the black boxes detected. He taxied onto the runway, stopped, and quickly ran through his preflight checks. Satisfied, he released the brakes as he smoothly advanced the throttles to the stops, then lit the afterburners. The heavy Sukhoi accelerated quickly.
