Red Phoenix

CHAPTER 5 Night Flyers

Captain Tony Christopher, USAF, stood outside the squadron building watching the sun set beyond the flight line. One hand held his gray helmet and oxygen mask. The other held a thick stack of papers — flight plans, bomb range restrictions, maps, and divert fields — all the stuff that training missions are made of. He wished again that the F-16 had a bigger cockpit. He always had a tough time squeezing his six-foot frame plus assorted paperwork into the plane.

He squinted into the bright, orangish-red light thrown off by sun as it dipped toward the Yellow Sea. Where in God’s name was his wingman?

Suddenly hands landed heavily on either shoulder. Tony started a bit but kept his voice calm. “Hi, Hooter.”

“Shit, Saint, you’re no fun. I did that to you yesterday and you jumped three feet.” His wingman, First Lieutenant John “Hooter” Gresham, came around to stand beside him.

“Yeah, well my nerves are all worn-out and I need what’s left for this mission. You’ve got four ninety-four.”

“I know.” Hooter looked smug. ‘As your friendly training records officer, I make it a point to keep fully informed.” Every pilot in the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron did more than just play fighter jock full-time. Each also wore another “hat,” doing all the other administrative work needed to keep the squadron flying and combat-ready. Hooter’s second hat kept him busy making sure that every pilot complied with the rigorous training schedule set down by Air Force regulations.

Hooter snapped his fingers. “Say, that reminds me. Speaking in my official capacity, I need to know when you want to schedule your next chemical warfare flight.”

Tony groaned. “C’mon, Hooter. Cut me some slack. I just did it a couple of months ago!”

Hooter grinned. “Nice try, revered boss and flight leader. But you and I both know that a new period started July first. And you’ve gotta fill in the square once every six months.”

Every pilot Tony knew hated chemical warfare training. Trying to fly a plane while wearing the special protective gear it required was like wrestling a giant octopus in a Turkish steam bath.

“Okay, okay. But can I at least wait till it cools off some? That rubber suit is hell. Just let me worry about this hop for right now.”

“You got it.”

This was going to be a night ground-attack training mission, and although the F-16 can fly and fight at night, it does not have sophisticated sensors like the Air Force’s dedicated attack aircraft. To see their target, Tony and Hooter were going to have to coordinate their efforts: one plane would drop flares while the other made the attack run. Simple, until you remembered that each pilot would be flying at four hundred knots, so close to the ground that an unintentional twitch could turn both F-16s and their highly educated pilots into a short-lived fireball and a shallow crater.

They needed teamwork to fly and teamwork to fight. Tony studied his sandy-haired wingman out of the corner of his eye. When you wear the same clothes, have the same job, and talk about the same things, you do not lose your individuality. Differences become more apparent, not less. And there were differences. It was as if somebody in the Air Force personnel office had decided to try teaming opposites as an experiment.

Tony was the quieter of the two. There is no such thing as an introverted fighter pilot, but his unhurried movements and restrained speech contrasted sharply with Hooter’s ebullient manner. Anyone watching the two of them together would notice the wingman in almost constant motion, his boundless energy seemingly uncontainable.

Tony was vastly more experienced than Hooter, which may have explained some of the difference. After the Air Force Academy, Tony had moved directly into the F-16 and had been with the aircraft from the beginning. After his initial tour he had attended Fighter Weapons School, at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Unlike Red Flag, which teaches air combat, Fighter Weapons School teaches how to employ effectively all types of ordnance. Only the best pilots qualify for admission.

The men who graduate from that difficult course teach the rest of their squadrons what they know, which is how to best apply the Falcon’s impressive firepower against any kind of target. Additionally, it was an important ticket to be punched on the way to higher rank and more important assignments.

After the school, Tony had continued to assimilate everything he could find, not only to stay current, but because he knew it might make the difference someday. He was definitely the squadron’s, and maybe the wing’s, best expert on how to blow up things with airplanes. He had been in Korea for over half a year.

Hooter, in contrast, was still in his first tour, fresh from ROTC, and had only been in Korea a few months. He was still discovering the Falcon’s good and bad points. Every flight was an adventure, an experience to be remembered.

Tony welcomed Hooter’s almost constant stream of jokes and tricks, knowing that he applied the same energy to his ground duties and his flying.

Also to his after-hours activities. They were only a few years apart in age, but Tony had to work hard to keep up with his younger companion.

Though he’d never have admitted it out loud, Tony knew he couldn’t consider himself the best flier God had ever made. He was good, damned good, but he wasn’t the best. Instead, he’d found his edge in air-to-air combat with an ingrained ability to look at an adversary’s maneuvers, plan a step ahead, and force the other guy all over the sky. He’d overheard Hooter talking about him in the O-Club one night.

“Now the Saint doesn’t fly the best plane in the sky,” his monumentally inebriated wingman had said, “but he does fly confounded tactical.”

Hooter, on the other hand, was a natural shot and a demon flier, but he lacked experience and sometimes he lacked good judgment. His abilities and aggressiveness could usually get him out of the tight spots he landed in. In Tony’s book, though, “usually” wasn’t good enough. He’d been working Hooter hard to get him to understand the difference between “acceptable risk” and “frigging stupid.” Still, they’d been flying together for months now, and Tony had to admit that they made a damned good team. Their very different personalities and flying styles made a winning combination in the air.

There were differences on the physical side, too. Hooter was shorter by four inches, which meant a lot more room in the cockpit. That was just as well because Tony knew that his wingman had trouble keeping still anywhere. He smiled to himself. Even now he could see Hooter shifting from foot to foot while they waited to get a jeep ride out to the aircraft shelters.

He came out of his thoughts as the jeep they’d been waiting for came careening around the squadron building and slowed down to a crawl in front of them.

Hooter was already in motion. “Hey, Saint! Shake a leg. Daddy’s come to take us to the prom!”

Tony grinned and clambered aboard. They sped off across the tarmac toward the aircraft shelters.

Their planes for the night’s mission, side numbers 492 and 494, were parked in shelters G and H. These were reinforced concrete arches, strong enough to take anything up to a one-thousand pound bomb hit and protect the airplane inside. The armored blast doors in front and back were massive, but perfectly balanced, so that if the power drive for the door failed, they could be pushed open by hand. They could also be sealed against poison gas.

Crew chief Baines was already in shelter G waiting for him. Sergeant Baines was assigned to tail number 492 full-time. The same pilot did not fly this plane all the time, but Baines was always its crew chief. As far as he was concerned, it really belonged to him, and the pilots just “rented” it for occasional hops.

The shelter was big enough to hold a twin-engine F-15 or a larger aircraft, so the single-engine F-16 “Electric Jet” looked small, almost lost. It was surrounded by the paraphernalia needed to get a Falcon in the air: a ladder, starting cart, and fire extinguisher.

Tony started his preflight. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the crew chief, but Baines was human. You were only allowed one error in a jet aircraft, and Tony hadn’t made it yet. There were pilots who made such a great show of trusting the crew chief that the only thing they checked was the side number, to make sure they were getting in the right aircraft. Tony remembered the time that Crew Chief Baines and his cohorts had pulled a fast one and parked a plane without an engine in the arch. The hapless aviator assigned to fly it hadn’t caught on until he hit the starter for the third time.

Okay, then. The load: first a cigar-shaped centerline drop tank, carrying an extra three hundred gallons of fuel. The Sidewinders on the wingtips were mandatory. This was an air-to-ground mission, but you always had to be ready for air-to-air. Besides, the rails wouldn’t carry anything but the missiles. The plane’s port inboard rack held a flare dispenser and the starboard held a cluster of practice bombs. Each bomb weighed about twenty-five pounds and had a small gunpowder charge. Just large enough to make a satisfying bang and a mark large enough to judge exactly where it had landed. Pretty harmless stuff compared to the one-ton monsters filled with Minol that the F-16 would carry on a real ground-attack mission. Finally, the cannon was “hot.” The drum held 20-millimeter ammo for the strafing runs they would practice later.

Next he checked to make sure all the arming tags were removed from the ordnance and the racks. If the pins weren’t taken out, the practice bombs and flares wouldn’t drop when he pressed the release. Tony walked all the way around the plane, looking at the skin, the fueling points, the exhaust, following a mental routine he had performed almost a thousand times. He ended up by the ladder and signed the form Baines offered. It was now “his” airplane, at least until it was wheels down again.

He climbed in and strapped himself to the seat. If he had to eject, the straps would ensure that he stayed with the ejection seat as it pulled him from the plane. Connect oxygen, g-suit umbilical, microphone lead. Tony looked at his watch: 1955. Not bad, five minutes to engine start and all he had to do was light off the INS.

He turned on the Falcon’s master power and started the inertial navigation system. It took the gyros three minutes to spin up, more time than it took to start the engine. While it did, he performed the rest of his cockpit checks. When he finished, he called his wingman on the ground frequency. “Hooter, you ready?”

“Rog, Saint, on your call.”

From this point on they would use their nickname call signs exclusively. They were easier to remember than “Echo Zulu three,” and less confusing than “John” or “Tony.” There might be more than one pilot named John on a frequency, but the Wing’s call sign committee made sure there was only one Hooter and one Saint.

Tony looked at his watch again. It was exactly 2000 hours. He said, “Go.”

He signaled Baines, who hit the button to open the shelter’s blast doors. Tony simultaneously hit the starter and listened as the F-16’s engine spooled up. First a whine, a sound like a vacuum cleaner, then the teeth-rattling roar as he throttled to sixty-five percent power. Enough to start the ship moving.

Tony called on the ground frequency, “Bluejay flight on the North Loop ready to taxi.”

A disembodied voice answered in his helmet, “Bluejays, you are clear.”

Time to release the wheel brakes. He started rolling and came out into the night.

He looked to the left and saw Hooter leaving his arch. Tony switched to the tower frequency. “Bluejay flight rolling.”

“Roger, Bluejay, you are number three for takeoff. Wind is one five zero at ten.”

Rolling side by side, they reached the North Loop taxiway and turned right. The 35th had its shelters dispersed around a circular asphalt taxiway as wide as a two-lane road called the North Loop. The 80th had a similar “South Loop.”

As they approached the runway, they heard a two-ship formation of fighters like them take off. They rounded the last corner and saw a C-141 cargo plane lining up for its run. He heard the tower give it clearance and it started rolling. Tony called the controllers again: “Tower, Bluejay flight ‘number one’ for the active.”

“Roger, Bluejays. Stand by, you’re next.”

The Starlifter cleared the runway, lumbering into the night sky. His earphones crackled with another transmission fromthetower: “Bluejay cleared for takeoff.”

Tony called, “Request permission for combat departure.”

A short silence. “Granted.”

Hooter had been monitoring the circuit, and as soon as they had permission, they rolled the planes onto the end of the runway and lined up.

Tony glanced over at his wingman and called, “Go.”

They both hit the throttle, first going to one hundred percent normal power and then to afterburner, which pushed them into their seats and threw the planes down the runway.

Both F-16s quickly reached flying speed, about 100 knots. Tony held it on the runway for a few more seconds and it built up to 150. Okay. “Rotate.”

He pulled up into the sky and looked over to see Hooter’s nose coming up at the same time. They raised their landing gear and flaps, and by this time they were at five hundred feet and clearing the end of the runway.

Tony said, “Now,” and chopped the throttle back to military power, killing the afterburner. The noise level dropped and he banked the aircraft hard left. He also thumbed a button on the stick, sending a string of small flares trailing out behind him. Hooter followed his movements.

Turning, killing the afterburner, and dropping flares would confuse any heat-seeking missiles launched by an enemy. Combat departure takeoffs were supposed to be practiced frequently because the “simulated” enemy could turn out to be very real: North Korean commandos landed by sea with shoulder-fired SA-7 missiles.

Having successfully gotten away from the airfield without being shot at, they climbed to five thousand feet and turned to the southeast. The range was about fifteen minutes away — not worth climbing to a higher, more fuel-efficient altitude. The sun had set, allowing the ground to cool and reducing the turbulence.

Tony started to relax. Unlike the States or Europe, there were few restrictions on where or how to fly. Few complaints were received about supersonic flight at treetop level. The bad guys were too close.

As they approached the bombing range, Tony rocked his wings to signal Hooter and changed his Heads-Up Display — the HUD — to air-to-ground mode. He armed his practice ordnance, then descended to five hundred feet. This was the minimum peacetime altitude allowed for nighttime flight. In wartime they would fly as low as the light and terrain allowed, one hundred feet or even less. From here on, they would use wartime procedures.

The target range was in a small plain, with several north-south valleys leading down to it. The two F-16s dropped into one of them, relying on the valley walls to mask their approach from enemy radars that weren’t there now, but that would be if this were the real thing.

They had arranged for Hooter to make the first attack. Tony rocked his wings again and they accelerated, changing formation. Hooter held back, allowing Tony to take the lead. He selected “Flare” on his weapons panel.

The two jets screamed out onto the plain at four hundred knots. As they cleared the valley, Tony pulled up and hit the weapons release. Behind him a million-candlepower flare lit up the plain with white magnesium light. Tony imagined all the attention he would be getting right now and practiced evasive maneuvering, popping chaff and flares to decoy any missiles that might have been fired at him. The wild maneuvering alternately pushed him into his seat, then pulled him out of it. If he hadn’t been strapped in, his head would have been thrown against the canopy.

Hooter pulled up behind Tony, too, but only until he could see the target — a ten-meter-wide paint mark on the ground. Then he nosed over into a shallow dive. He steadied up and pressed his stick’s “pickle switch,” locking the F-16’s weapons computer onto the target’s location. The HUD changed, showing lines leading to the target and the range. As soon as he was happy with the lock, he increased throttle to full military power and closed on the aim point at over five hundred knots.

The light from the flare was starting to fade, and shadows flickered on and off the target. The landscape streamed by, flashing past almost too fast to consciously see, and Hooter concentrated on lining his nose up exactly with the target line on the HUD. The word RELEASE flashed in the corner and he pressed the release button on the stick, simultaneously twisting it hard to the right. He grunted hard, tensing his muscles as his weight suddenly quintupled. The practice bomb flew off the rack, literally thrown toward the target as the plane turned away.

They both turned south and headed out on a prearranged bearing. Hooter called, “Good timing on the flare, Saint. Any earlier and I wouldn’t have locked on in time.”

Tony looked over to pinpoint his wingman’s plane against the dark night sky. “Your run looked good, Hooter. My turn now, watch the interval on approach.”

They reversed roles and prepared for another run on the target. In wartime, making a second run on a now-alerted enemy was a good way to suddenly lose an airplane. But this was training, and each aircraft had enough bombs for three attack runs.

Tony’s first run on the target was good, but Hooter’s evasive maneuvers were pretty limp. They switched again and Tony told John to keep one eye on him as he threw the ship around. On the next attack run, Hooter’s flare didn’t ignite so they bugged out of the target area and reformed. As they turned back south for Hooter’s final go at the much-abused paint spot, Tony shifted in his seat. He was starting to get tired and he had a few runs left to go. He frowned and settled in to concentrate on the oncoming target.

As Tony pulled up and hit the flare release, he heard a beep-beep-beep sound in his earphones. He spared one glance at his threat display, then pushed the ship over into a six-g turn to the left. At the same time he called, “Hooter! Scrub the run and join on me! Inbounds.”

His mask pressed into his face, and he tensed his body to fight the g forces.

Hooter’s voice was excited. “Roger, you have the lead. I’ll come up on your right.”

As he heard his wingman’s voice in his helmet, Tony thumbed a button on his throttle. The radar display changed to air mode, the pattern on the HUD display shifted, and the word CANNON appeared in the lower left corner. Although the bombs and Sidewinders were practice versions, the 20-millimeter ammo in his M61 gun was live. The weapons computer automatically selected cannon when he pressed the dogfight button.

As his nose swung around, the radar picked up two contacts about twenty miles out. Both showed positive IFF. They were friendlies. Whew. He turned the radar off, to avoid revealing his position.

Easing up on the turn so that Hooter could join up quicker, he looked over his right shoulder. His wingman was on burner, pulling into position about a mile to the right and back. “Hooter, they’re friendlies. Safety out your ordnance and we’ll play.”

“Arming phasers, Kyptin.”

Tony was unimpressed. “I’m going for a nine-lima slew, then we’re going vertical.” As he said this, he put the aircraft in a gentle dive since a lower altitude made them harder to spot or lock on to. Hooter followed him down automatically.

“Rog. It’s showtime.”

The range had closed to about ten miles. Still nothing visible in the night sky ahead. Tony turned the radar back on and put it in SLEW mode. A new circle appeared on his HUD marking the spot where the radar “saw” the lead bogey closing at five hundred knots. Tony used a small control to move it over to the left, well off his line of flight. This was going to be a difficult shot, but he was the squadron’s weapons officer. He had to teach it to everybody else.

Suddenly a small box appeared around the circle — he was locked on. He selected the AIM-9L Sidewinder on the left wingtip and was rewarded with a growl in his headphones. The IR seeker on the missile had its target in view and was telling him with an audible signal. SHOOT appeared on the HUD and he pulled the trigger.

The missiles were practice rounds without propellant or warheads, so nothing left the rail. But if it had been real, his target would be dead. Tony grinned under his oxygen mask. The video recorder would display all the data on the HUD as proof back at debrief.

The two oncoming planes were just visible now, rushing toward him out of the starlit darkness. They were F-16s.

Tony came up on the wing frequency. “Lead Falcon heading south over Range Alpha, this is Bluejay One. Gotcha.” The missile’s growl was audible on the circuit.

There was no answer, but their two opponents broke hard left, turning toward them. Tony saw it and called, “Burner.” He shoved his throttle all the way forward. As the engine responded with a satisfying roar, he pulled back sharply on the stick.

The F-16 Falcon is one of the most agile aircraft in the world. Among its other sterling qualities is an engine that puts out more thrust than the aircraft weighs. This means that it can do very interesting things, like accelerate while going straight up.

They climbed, quickly passing the altitude where their two opponents were still turning left. Tony did a rapid calculation in his head and rolled the aircraft to the right, still climbing, so that he was “facing” their adversaries, who were now behind and beneath him. Hooter kept with him, hanging on to his wing as if he were glued there.

Still pulling on the stick, Tony passed over the top and saw a dark horizon, the ground, climb up the back of his canopy. He searched quickly “over” his head and was rewarded with two bright points of light — the two “enemy” F-16s had also gone to burner, but it was too late. They were still turning left.

Diving on full burner, he pressed the cannon select button on his stick. As the radar shifted he called, “Hooter, I’m going for a gun on the aft ship.” He heard Hooter click his mike switch twice in answer.

The radar locked up immediately and he adjusted his dive slightly to put the “death dot” aiming reticle over the target. He forced himself to count “one potato, two potato” so the gyros could catch up with all his hard maneuvering. The SHOOT prompt came on again and he pulled the trigger. “Aft ship, this is Bluejay One. You’re a mort.”

Hooter’s excited voice came over his phones. “Beautiful, Saint. I wonder if we can frame a videotape?”

Without a word the two “enemy” planes pulled up and rocketed off for points unknown, and the Bluejays turned for base. Two blasts of afterburner had significantly reduced their fuel.

“Saint, who were they? I didn’t see any other Falcons scheduled in our area tonight.”

“Probably some Juvets from the 80th ordered to surprise us. I heard a rumor the wing commander was going to try something like this.”

Hooter chuckled, “Well, they can surprise us like that anytime they want.”

“I’ll pass. They might have been real gomers. Thank God we dropped enough ordnance to mark off the box. If they had interrupted us sooner, we’d have had to repeat the mission.”

“Yeah, then you wouldn’t have safetied out the cannon.”

Ten minutes later they were back at base, and it took just five minutes more to taxi to the arch. Tony climbed out of his cockpit feeling like he’d been there for a year. Pulling five to seven g’s wears you out. It was 2130 and he and Hooter still had an hour of debrief left before they could sleep. But there were two poor bastards in the 80th who’d be up late, too, and they wouldn’t have much fun watching their after-action videotape.