count!”
Bird Dog popped the speed brakes, losing fifty knots of airspeed almost
immediately. The Chinese fighter quickly overshot them. “Fox three!”
Another Sidewinder darted forward off the wing.
“You’re inside minimum range!” Gator said.
“By the book, I am. Wanna bet that the firing doctrine has a safety
factor built into it?”
“You can’t count on-” The explosion two miles in front of him cut him
off. “-that every time,” Gator finished. “Damn it, Bird Dog, those safety
factors are there for a reason. See?”
Bird Dog stared at the fireball in front of him. The missile had
detonated beyond the enemy fighter. The aircraft turned to meet him, putting
him within gun range.
“All we got is one Phoenix and one Sparrow. No more knife fights, Bird
Dog.”
“And guns. Don’t forget the guns.”
Bird Dog slewed the Tomcat to the left, turning head-on to the other
fighter, and pointed the Tomcat’s nose slightly ahead of the other aircraft’s
course. He carefully led the enemy fighter’s maneuver and squeezed off his
gun. Six thousand rounds per minute streamed out of the six-barrel Vulcan
20-mm gatling-gun, stitching a ragged line down the side of the other
aircraft. Bird Dog came close enough to see the windscreen shatter and chunks
of the hardened Plexiglas spray out away from the airframe.
Smoke streamed from the right side of the aircraft, which was rapidly
losing altitude. A punctured fuel tank, probably, he thought. At any rate,
he was hurt badly enough to be out of the air battle raging above him.
Bird Dog turned the Tomcat back toward the aerial fur ball behind him.
“Where’s Batman?” he demanded.
“Nine o’clock, six miles. He took out one Flanker, but he can’t shake
the one on their tail.”
“Think they’d like a little help?”
“Might come in handy. Course, Tomboy’ll swear later that she could
handle it alone.” The RIO grinned. “It’d be nice to pull her tail out of the
fire for a change.”
“Tallyho!” Bird Dog said a few minutes later. “Looks like she’s in
trouble to me!”
Batman’s Tomcat was heading for the deck, just finishing off a high
altitude maneuver designed to give him tactical height and position on his
opponent. It hadn’t worked. The smaller, more maneuverable Flanker had cut
inside his turn. The JAST Tomcat was jinking like crazy, trying to screw up
the shot. The maneuvers bled off airspeed and reduced the speed advantage the
JAST Tomcat had over the Flanker.
“Batman, pull up and break right!” Bird Dog ordered. Without waiting for
a reply, he screamed in on the pursuing Flanker and toggled the stick back to
select a Sidewinder. As soon as the Sidewinder growled its acquisition signal
and Batman had cleared the field of fire, Bird Dog shouted, “Fox three!” and
shot his last close-range missile.
Seconds later, the Chinese Flanker exploded into a fireball. Shards of
metal pinged sharply off the skin of the Tomcat.
Bird Dog got a quick acknowledgment of no damage from Tomboy and then
grabbed for altitude, heading for the next engagement.
“You only got the Phoenix, Bird Dog,” Gator reminded him. “Too close
quarters for another shot.”
“Still got the guns.”
“But not much ammo. Face it, Bird Dog, it’s time for us to be out of
here. Let’s get up high, look down, and see if there’s anything we can do
from there.”
Bird Dog reluctantly acknowledged the wisdom of Gator’s advice. Two
minutes later, Batman and Tomboy joined them, the wings of their Tomcat clean
and vulnerable. At fifteen thousand feet, they circled for the next ten
minutes, listening to the tactical chatter, calls for assistance, and victory
screams gradually subside. Finally, the last of the adversary air had either
fled or fallen into the ocean.
The rest of the Tomcat squadron joined them at altitude. Most still had
Phoenixes hanging under their wings. The Tomcats turned back toward the
carrier while the Hornets lined up behind the two KA-6 refueling birds, eager
to replenish their tanks before attempting a landing.
1920 local (Zulu -7)
Chinese Strike Force
Less than half an hour after they’d met the American fighters, the
remaining Chinese fighters turned west to head back to their base in Vietnam.