CARRIER 6: COUNTDOWN By Keith Douglass

a couple of F-15s during Navy-Air Force “Red Flag” maneuvers. Standing

on his port-side wing, he watched sea and sky wheel past his canopy

until the two tiny, distant shapes swung past his left shoulder and

dropped behind his HUD.

One of the MiGs had turned smartly and was coming down Lowe’s path

virtually in his footsteps, too close and too far to the right for Lowe

to engage. The other had had trouble with the hard left turn and

drifted away from his wingman. As he pulled out of his turn, he was a

mile beyond his companion and almost directly in the center of Lowe’s

HUD.

This would be the time for a heat-seeker shot, but he didn’t have any.

“Going to guns!” he called, and he flipped the selector. His HUD showed

the drifting circle of his aiming reticle, as well as the rectangle

marking the target. Just beneath the vertical airspeed indicator on the

left side of his HUD was a discrete reading: ARM 675, showing his gun

ready, with a full load of 675 rounds of 20mm ammo. Pulling up

slightly, he dragged the reticle across the rectangle, squeezing the

trigger when the one encompassed the other.

The F-14 mounted the M61A1 Vulcan, a six-barreled, high-speed cannon

recessed into the left side of the fuselage, just below the cockpit.

That gun screamed now, hurling 20mm shells toward the MiG as it angled

toward him almost nose-on.

The other MiG flashed past him on the left. He ignored it and kept

holding down the trigger. Firing six thousand rounds per minute, the

Vulcan would eat 675 rounds in less than seven seconds. He held the

trigger down for two full seconds, watching the flicker of yellow

tracers as they whipped off his Tomcat’s nose, then slowed in accordance

with the laws of perspective, floating, nearly stopping as they

converged on the MiG. He imagined he saw debris breaking off the target

but couldn’t be sure.

Yes! The MiG was trailing smoke. There was a puff of smoke, and

something separated from the aircraft, now less than half a mile away.

The Russian pilot had just ejected.

Bringing his stick back to the right and kicking his rudder over, Low

Down rolled to starboard, cutting away from the oncoming aircraft.

Burning now, it held its long, straight descent toward the sea.

“Splash one Fulcrum!” he called over the tactical channel.

“Low Down!” Bouncer warned. “The other MiG’s reversed. He’s coming in

on our five again!”

Twisting in his seat, he picked up the enemy aircraft over his right

shoulder. Damn, this guy was good! His wingman must have been a rookie

to let himself get pulled out of formation like that, but this man was

matching Lowe turn for turn, and then some, getting full value out of

the Fulcrum’s superior turning and maneuverability.

While he was looking at the MiG, he saw a yellow spark ignite beneath

its wing. Missile! With no radar warning, it would be an IR homer,

probably one of the Russians’ AA-8 Aphids.

“Missile launch!” Bouncer called. “Incoming!”

“Flares!” he snapped. He rolled hard to the right, turning into the

attacker, hoping to break inside the missile’s turn radius. He could

already tell, though, that he was too late.

Next choice. He throttled back, way back, pulling the Tomcat’s engines

nearly to idle. More hot-burning magnesium flares scattered into the

sky behind his aircraft. With the engine throttled back, the IR homer

might choose the flares instead of his exhaust.

A second missile was in the air now, and the first was hurtling toward

his six with appalling speed. He let the F-14’s nose fall way off. The

ocean spun across the front of his canopy, filling his view forward in a

spinning blur of ultramarine …

The first missile slammed into his starboard engine and exploded,

sending white-hot fragments ripping through avionics, combustion

chambers, turbine blades, and fuel tanks. In that same instant, Low

Down knew that the aircraft was doomed. He could feel the plane tearing

itself to pieces around him.

“Punch out, Bouncer!” he yelled. “Eject! Eject!”

He grabbed his own red-and-white-striped ejection ring and pulled, hard.

The canopy exploded away from the falling aircraft, and a second later,

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *