Grimly, Tahliani gripped the throttle with his right hand, the controls mat vectored his four engine nozzles with the other. He waited, watching. . . .
The Tomcat exploded into view, a blur of motion felt more than seen. Tahliani’s glimpse of the muzzle flash stuttering on
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Keith Douglass
the left side of the nose beneath the cockpit was so brief it was almost subliminal.
He yanked the vectoring throttles back. . . .
0759 hours, 26 March Tomcat 216
Batman squeezed the trigger and felt the shudder of 20-mm Vulcan cannon shells spewing toward the target. . . .
Only the target wasn’t there! With a curse, Batman yanked back on the stick. The enemy plane had just performed a maneuver Batman had never encountered before in training or in combat. A maneuver that was impossible , . .
0759 hours, 26 March Sea Harrier 101
The maneuver was called viffing, a word derived by the Sea Harrier’s British designers from the acronym for Vectoring In Forward Flight. By swinging the engine nozzles around, he had abruptly chopped his forward speed. The Sea Harrier hovered, then skittishly drifted backwards, rising. From the American pilot’s perspective it must have appeared that he’d stopped in midair and started to fly backward and up.
Cannon shells slashed into the wave tops a hundred feet in front of him, where the Sea Harrier was supposed to be if it had been an ordinary aircraft. The F-J4 pulled up and thundered overhead, its shadow momentarily blotting the morning sun astern.
Then Tahliani rammed the vectoring controls forward again, returning to forward flight. He’d lost a few seconds in his pursuit but gained many seconds more on his target’s wing-man. It would take a long time, long by the standards of modern aerial combat, for the wingman to swing around and come at him from behind.
ARMAGEDDON MODE
215
WW hours, 26 March Tomcat 201
Army squeezed the trigger and his M61 Al Vulcan Catling gun stuttered, sending a stream of 20-mm shells toward the target. He could see the missile now, a tiny black speck less than half a mile ahead.
“Batman, where are you?” he called. “This guy’s still on my six!”
“Damn, Army! I missed him! Airplanes can’t do that!”
Army shook his head, not sure what Batman was talking about Gently, he squeezed the trigger for another burst. Gouts of water exploded on the ocean beneath the hurtling missile.
“Tomcat Two-oh-one, this is Victor Tango One-one. Break $ff pursuit! You are entering Homeplate’s point defense zone!”
“Copy, Victor Tango! I’m out of there!”
He pulled up. Jefferson’s point Phalanx cannons would be