the MiG or was it going to begin one of its famous solar attacks,
veering off in the atmosphere toward the rising sun until it ran out of
fuel? There was no way to tell, not with the angle as it was between
the two aircraft. He would either have to let the MiG proceed up a bit
farther and gain some separation from the sun, or take a chance on
losing the missile.
What the hell he had two. In fact, in relative terms, he had more
missiles than gas. Tombstone toggled off a Sidewinder, crying “Fox
Three, Fox Three” into the ICS.
0724 Local (+5 GMT) Fulcrum 101
Santana glared suspiciously at the Tomcat loitering above him, inverted
in the air. When it nosed down to point at him, still inverted, he
slewed the MiG around to put the Tomcat directly on his nose. Too far
away for guns, but the Tomcat pilot might not know that. At any rate,
seeing the tracers might distract him. He fired off two quick
bursts.
A missile leaped off the Tomcat’s rails, headed almost directly for
him. Almost Santana watched with something that approached amusement
as the missile vectored determinedly away from his aircraft and toward
the rising sun.
His confidence slowly returned. Perhaps he’d overestimated the
Americans even he knew better than to take an eastern shot at the
sunrise with the Sidewinder. He glanced down at the airspeed
indicator, saw the MiG was still struggling to ascend. He swore
quietly. Soon he’d have to either pull out of the climb or resign
himself to ambling through the sky like a wounded turkey. At any lower
speed, he’d be too easy a target for the Tomcat. He’d lose
maneuverability, and his low speed vector would be no problem for the
Tomcat to overcome.
He reached a decision, dropped nose down, and plummeted one thousand
feet within seconds. His airspeed picked up satisfyingly, and he
quickly rolled back around to face the Tomcat.
He was on the Tomcat’s six now, with a beautiful view of the Tomcat’s
glowing tailpipes. He toggled off his own missile, another
heat-seeker, satisfied that the angle might be almost sufficient to
distinguish between the aircraft and the sun. Had the American made
that same assumption, he wondered, studying the Tomcat’s
undercarriage.
Three more Sidewinders hung there, more than enough to waste one shot
as the pilot had done earlier. Suddenly, he wasn’t quite so certain
that the Tomcat pilot had been foolish.
0725 Local (+5 GMT) Tomcat202
Tombstone heard the shriek of the missile indicator before Tomboy’s
voice cut through the ICS, warning of it. He swore, slewed the Tomcat
around to virtually pivot in midair, and pointed nose down at the
MiG.
The heat-seeker came on, clearly fixed on the Tomcat rather than the
sun.
The Cuban pilot had taken the same chance he had, with better
results.
Fortunately, he hadn’t touched his countermeasures so far.
The Tomcat shook lightly as three packets of flares were ejected from
the undercarriage. They burst into brilliant white phosphorescent
fire, easily outshining both the sun and the heat signature of
Tombstone’s exhaust. Later generation heat-seekers were trained to
ignore targets that were too good, thus correcting for the tendency to
vector on a flare rather than an exhaust and reducing the probability
of its racing off toward the sun. Tombstone was betting that the
Cubans used an earlier version of the missile, given to them by their
Soviet master or their new friends, the Libyans.
“Got it acquiring the flare,” Tomboy said. ‘Tombstone, he’s coming
around.”
“I’ve got him. I’ve still got altitude on himhe’s not going to like
this.”
9726 Local (+5 GMT) Fulcrum 101
Santana was already setting up for his next shot as his first
heat-seeking missile exploded harmlessly into a flare. He hardly
spared it a thought-he was too busy trying to coax the Tomcat into
descending into an angles fight. He could understand the other pilot’s
refusal to take the bait, but he was determined not to fight it out in
a wild yo-yo of shifting altitudes that would inevitably provide the
Tomcat with a marked advantage.
Now what the he watched as the Tomcat nosed over and headed down toward