Tiger's Claw

TWO

NORTHERN NEVADA INDUSTRIAL AIRPORT, BATTLE MOUNTAIN, NEVADA

SEVERAL DAYS LATER

“Looks like you’re starting an air museum out here, sir,” U.S. Air Force Colonel Warner “Cutlass” Cuthbert remarked. The former B-1B Lancer and B-2A Spirit pilot and bomber wing commander was a short, balding, barrel-chested man, with bright green eyes and a quick smile that Patrick McLanahan knew could turn into a scowl or a bark in the blink of an eye. Cuthbert was commander of the First Expeditionary Bomber Wing at Andersen Air Force Base on the island of Guam, so the hot summertime air in the high desert of north-central Nevada didn’t bother him in the least. “They’re beauties.”

“Thank you, Cutlass,” Patrick said. He nodded toward an F-111G Aardvark supersonic bomber, surrounded by scaffolding. “The ’Vark is pretty torn up or I’d take you for a look inside.”

“No worries—I’ve seen plenty of ’Varks in my day, sir,” Cuthbert said. “Are you sticking that mission-adaptive wing on that one?”

“Actually, we’re not,” Patrick said, “although we certainly can.” The mission-adaptive wing technology, pioneered by Sky Masters Inc., used tiny computer-controlled actuators on the fuselage and wings, in essence making every surface on the aircraft either a lift or drag device and greatly improving both high- and low-speed performance. They had successfully put mission-adaptive technology in a variety of aircraft, vessels, and even race cars. “But that one is still a swing-wing. We’re putting in a few electronic displays, the active electronically scanned array radar, upgraded engines, and the pilot-optional stuff, but it’s pretty much stock.”

“Nice looking Tomcat, too,” Cuthbert commented as they walked down the flight line toward one of the main hangars, referring to an F-14A Tomcat carrier-based fighter parked beside the F-111. “What did you do to it?”

“Again, not much,” Patrick said. “We put the General Electric–Rolls-Royce F136 engines in this particular bird because we got such a good deal for a quantity of them.”

“I’ll bet you did,” Cuthbert said. “Canceling the alternate engine for the F-35 fighter back in 2011 could have been a disaster for the company.” The F136 engine was a dual-source alternative for the F135 primary engine on the F-35-series fighter-bomber, proposed in order to make engines available in case of a major conflict. When the F136 engine was canceled, thousands of workers on two continents lost their jobs virtually overnight. There was talk of the whole branch of the company going down because of it . . .

. . . until one Patrick McLanahan in an obscure little airport in northern Nevada put in a purchase order for several of them.

“They gave us a sweet deal for top-of-the-line power plants—it was a win-win scenario all around,” Patrick said. “Turns out they are real superstars—we get some excellent performance numbers. We have a couple other refurbished planes where we kept the General Electric F110 engines, and they work well, but not as good as the F-35 Lightnings or F/A-18 Super Hornets. We beefed up the structure, put in AESA, a few more electronic displays, the pilot-optional stuff, of course—that’s about it. We can go take her for a spin if you’d like.”

“I like, sir,” Cuthbert said, “but I’m short on time. If you didn’t live way the hell out in the boonies, I’d have more time to play. So, the proposal submitted to the Air Force said this project is in support of the AirSea Battle concept. You should know, sir, that AirSea Battle hasn’t been implemented because we don’t have a large enough air component—there aren’t enough long-range platforms to support a carrier battle group.”

As commander of the First Expeditionary Bomb Wing at Andersen Air Force Base, Cuthbert was responsible for organizing, training, and supporting the Continuous Bomber Presence for Pacific Air Force, a program that rotated the Air Force’s few remaining long-range bombers to Guam for six-month stints. The few B-52H Stratofortresses, B-1B Lancers, and B-2A Spirit bombers at Guam formed a quick-reaction long-range conventional strike force that could reach very quickly throughout the Pacific, as well as provide aircrews a chance to train with the Navy and with foreign air forces. But since the American long-range bomber force had been so badly decimated during the American Holocaust, the bombers and their crews were becoming exhausted, and replacements were needed. Cuthbert had been assigned the task of coming up with solutions to the widening bomber gap from industry.

“I’m well aware of that, Cutlass,” Patrick said.

“And you said you can build a fleet of long-range strike aircraft in less than two years for hardly any money at all? How are you going to do that, sir—pixie dust?”

“They’re already built and battle proven,” Patrick replied. “They aren’t flying, but it’s not because they’re incapable or obsolescent. There are trade-offs. They are not stealthy, at least not twenty-first-century-version stealthy. They don’t have antiradar coatings or radar-absorbent materials built into their structures—Sky Masters can add those things, but the cost will skyrocket, and that’s not what we want. We want a capable long-range bomber for low cost that can be fielded very quickly.”

“So where is this magical aircraft?”

“It’s on its way,” Patrick said. He glanced at his watch, smiled, then said, “Cutlass, allow me to reintroduce you to the weapons system that we at Sky Masters believe will be the affordable interim ingredient to fulfilling the promise of the AirSea Battle concept: the XB-1F Excalibur.”

He could not have timed it better. Just as Patrick announced the name, Cuthbert’s attention was grabbed by a sinister-sounding rushing noise, like an oncoming race car, that steadily got louder and louder . . . and then it flew overhead from behind, and the roar of the XB-1’s four turbofan engines in full afterburner rolled over them. The sleek gray-green swept-wing bomber flew two thousand feet aboveground, but the immense size of the aircraft made it seem as if it was brushing their heads.

“Holy shit!” Cuthbert exclaimed. “A B-1 Lancer! She’s a beauty!”

As the bomber made a steep bank about a half mile away, Patrick began his carefully rehearsed sales pitch: “Not a Lancer, Cutlass. The XB-1 Excalibur looks like the standard B-1B Lancer bomber because on the outside it is basically the same—most of the changes are on the inside. We replaced the original F101 engines with the F136 engines, which are more powerful and more fuel-efficient; we retained the two-person crew of the EB-1C Vampire bomber and opted for remotely operated offensive and defensive operator stations and highly automated attack systems; we gave it the same steerable Active Electronically Scanned Array multifunction radar that’s been on the F/A-18 Super Hornet for years; and we replaced the older avionics with modern off-the-shelf electronic systems. The only other system we added was the ALQ-293 Self-Protection Electronically Agile Reaction system instead of the ALQ-161 electronic warfare suite.”

“What’s the ALQ-293?”

“The ALQ-293 SPEAR was developed by Sky Masters years ago in a competitive bid for the F-35 Lightning’s radar,” Patrick explained. “Our system was designed to not only send out a signal and then listen for the same returned signal for processing, but to listen for signals and then transmit other signals in response at that same frequency. SPEAR can alter the timing of the returned signal to make the enemy’s radar think we are farther away or even invisible. We also found that we can transmit just about any other kind of signal to enemy radar, even computer code.”

“Computer code?” Cutlass exclaimed. “You mean, like inserting a virus into a computer?”

“Exactly,” Patrick said. “We called it ‘netrusion,’ and it worked like a charm when we sent the Vampires over Iran during the civil war—we were able to spoof radars and even issue shutdown commands to computers and electronics. We installed SPEAR into all the special EB-1D Vampire bombers, but they were all taken out and replaced with APG-77. Sky Masters put them back into production right before Jon was killed, and I decided to put them on the refurbished B-1s.”

“Excellent, as long as it doesn’t break the bank,” Cuthbert said. “But putting that kind of system on a forty-year-old airframe must really crank up the refurbishment time, right?”

“The total time to do a conversion is just a few months—most of that time is airframe inspections,” Patrick replied. “But it’s also notable for what we did not do to the B-1B Lancer. As you know, Sky Masters did the initial research and development on the original B-1B conversion, the EB-1C Vampire flying battleship, and the work was done at Air Force Plant 42. The Vampire used mission-adaptive surfaces for flight control, which greatly improved its performance, and it also had other systems such as active laser defense, pilot-optional control, and StealthHawk attack cruise missile retrieval and rearming. But these advanced systems also added to the cost, which is why only a handful of those excellent planes were created.

“Sky Masters recently purchased all the B-1B conversion tooling, plans, and equipment from the Air Force, and we hired many of the workers and engineers who were laid off at Palmdale when the conversion program was canceled due to budget cuts, so now we’re doing the conversion work ourselves,” Patrick said. “We can create the Vampire again if the Pentagon wants them. We also have plans to convert a number of F-111 bombers for an even lower cost, and we are planning other conversions such as the F-14 Tomcat fighter. But we think the XB-1 Excalibur has the best combination of range, payload, and speed, and it’s the best value as well.”

“It’s an interesting idea, General,” Cuthbert said. “But you don’t expect the Air Force to train B-1 crewdogs, do you? Who’s going to fly the thing?”

“Our plan is not just to refurbish planes, but to provide everything needed to deploy the force,” Patrick said. “We anticipated that the Air Force was not going to want to train active-duty or Reserve crewmembers for a weapons system that might only be around for five or ten years, so we plan on providing all the personnel on a contract basis. We recruit and train the aircrews, maintainers, ground support personnel, and administration; and we deploy the aircraft based on a contract negotiated with the Pentagon. As part of the AirSea Battle strategy, our XB-1 Excalibur crews would perform long-range maritime reconnaissance, and if a strike mission is needed, the Air Force picks the targets and weapons remotely, just like a remotely piloted combat aircraft—our aircrews just drive the bus.”

“Just like your deal with reconnaissance operations in Iraq a few years ago, eh?” Cuthbert pointed out. “What was the name . . . Scion Aviation International? How did that work out for you, sir?” The skepticism was thick in his voice.

“I and the other company leaders made some unfortunate errors in judgment and planning,” Patrick admitted. “We didn’t anticipate Turkey’s aggressive military response. But the basic concept of using contractors to do interim jobs for the Pentagon is still sound, especially in this economic climate.”

“Yes, sir.” Cuthbert’s tone and expression told Patrick that he wasn’t totally convinced. “You brought in those manned robots and a couple of your rebuilt B-1s to clean that situation up,” Cuthbert observed, “except now we’re on Turkey’s shit list, along with Russia and China.”

“I’m not really interested in who has us on their hate list, Cutlass—all I care about is building a military force with some teeth without breaking the bank,” Patrick said.

“I’m with you all the way and then some, sir,” Cuthbert said. The Excalibur made another low pass, thankfully not in ear-shattering afterburner this time, then maneuvered in the runway traffic pattern to set up for landing—he couldn’t take his eyes off the sleek, menacing-looking bird. “So, how many of those things can you build?”

“There were twenty-six B-1s at AMARG in flyable storage, plus another nineteen airframes not flyable and designated for spare parts,” Patrick said. “There are just six B-1Bs in the inventory now—all the rest were lost in the American Holocaust or the counterattack. We’ve refurbished two B-1s that were in storage already, on our own dime. Out of the twenty-four flyable airframes left at AMARG, we’ve identified twenty suitable for refurbishment, for a total of twenty-two planes—two set aside for training and two squadrons of ten birds.”

“And how long did it take you to refurbish the two you’ve done?”

“About eight months.”

“Eight months? No friggin’ way, sir! One plane refurbished in just eight months?”

“We did both planes in eight months, Cutlass,” Patrick said, smiling as he saw Cuthbert’s stunned expression. “Assuming we don’t find any major problems with the airframes, it will be quicker than that for the next batch. As I said, we don’t really do that much to them—the engines, avionics, and AESA radar are practically plug-and-play, and we have a large staff of some of the best and most experienced engineers and technicians in the country. We’ve already got the engines, and the Air Force gives us equipment already in their inventory—literally off-the-shelf—so there’s no waiting for suppliers.”

The XB-1 had landed and was now taxiing toward them. While Patrick and Cuthbert donned flying helmets, a ground crewman in a light blue flight suit with an orange safety vest trotted out, wearing a headset and safety goggles and carrying bright yellow marshaling batons, and he directed the Excalibur bomber to its parking spot. Patrick plugged his helmet-mounted headset to a portable radio and keyed the mic: “How did it go, Colonel?” he asked.

“Flew like a homesick angel, General,” came the reply. “Coming aboard?”

“You bet we are,” Patrick said. “Keep ’em running. I’ll get the ladder.” Patrick motioned for Cuthbert to follow him, and together they walked up to the bomber. Patrick clasped the ground crewman’s shoulder as he stepped past him; Cuthbert shook hands with him, then looked at him quizzically as he headed to the plane. Patrick unlocked the entry ladder control lever on the nosegear door, then activated a switch that extended the boarding ladder, and he and Cuthbert climbed up. Patrick opened the hatch to the crew compartment, and they entered the aircraft.

The first area they stepped into, the systems officers’ compartment, was incredibly spacious, because the ejection seats and instruments had all been removed. “No offensive or defensive systems operators on a big-ass jet like this . . . pretty amazing,” Cuthbert shouted through the noise of the big idling engines. “Those systems are controlled from the ground now?”

“Yep,” Patrick replied, “just like the sensor operators do with Reapers, Avengers, and other remotely piloted attack aircraft. The aircraft commander can also do a lot of the en route navigation chores from the cockpit, and the mission commander can control the Sniper targeting pod if necessary. The defensive suite is pretty much automatic. So it wasn’t that great a leap—the Vampires switched to just two crewmembers years ago. Datalink technology is so sophisticated now that operating the offensive and defensive suites from the ground are the closest to real-time we can get. In an emergency, the pilots can operate the Sniper targeting pod and locate their own targets and manually fire chaff and flares and activate the jammers. I’ll show you the electronics bays after we get back—we’ve eliminated about three-quarters of the line-replaceable units the jet originally had.”

As the two stood aside in the empty systems officers’ compartment, a woman appeared through the tunnel connecting the systems officers’ compartment and cockpit and maneuvered herself between them. “Colonel Cuthbert, I’d like to introduce you to Sondra Eddington, part of the Excalibur flight test crew,” Patrick said. Cuthbert shook her hand. Even wearing bulky flying gear, Cuthbert could see how extremely attractive Eddington was.

“Nice to meet you, Colonel,” Eddington said. “Have a nice flight.”

“You’re not coming with us, Miss Eddington?”

“I don’t want to know what General McLanahan is going to do on your hop, sir,” she said with a bright smile, “but I know he wants to water your eyes. I’ll see you when you get back.” She gave him a surprising and alluring wink, then headed through the hatch and down the ladder.

“I’ll get in first so I can hold the brakes, and then you switch with the AC,” Patrick said to Cuthbert, and he headed up to the cockpit, shook hands with the pilot, then began to strap into the copilot’s ejection seat. After he was strapped in, the pilot unstrapped and headed aft. The guy was immense and filled up the narrow corridor between the cockpit and systems officers’ compartment. He went back to Cuthbert and shook his hand. “Colonel Cuthbert, I’m . . .”

“I know who you are: Colonel Thomas Hoffman, Operation Desert Fox, the B-1’s first operational deployment,” Cuthbert said. “You were the one who came up with the idea of launching Bones into ‘kill boxes’ without preplanned targets, getting target coordinates passed from other aircraft or special-ops guys on the ground. A pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Same, Colonel,” Hoffman said in a booming voice that was easy to hear even in the loud compartment. “Have a good one.” He started to move past Cuthbert.

“You’re not going with us either, Colonel?”

“You’re in good hands with McLanahan, Colonel—except for me and Sondra, he’s got more experience in Excaliburs and Vampires than almost anyone else on the patch,” Hoffman said. “I’ll see you later, sir. Have a nice flight.” Cuthbert had to retreat into the vacant offensive systems officers’ space so Hoffman could get by, and even so Hoffman’s broad shoulders brushed Cuthbert’s chest as he lumbered past.

After checking that the aft entry hatch was secure, Cuthbert ducked under the empty systems officers’ panel, past the crew rest compartment—he was happy to see that the Excalibur still had a relief pilot’s bunk, tiny galley, and chemical commode—then went up to the cockpit and looked around a bit before hoisting himself up into the aircraft commander’s seat. Both the pilot’s and copilot’s sides of the instrument panel had two twelve-inch color multifunction displays. On the pilot’s side, the left one was displaying flight information, with an artificial horizon on the top half and a horizontal situation indicator on the bottom; the right display showed a checklist, with electronic buttons and switches beside each line on the screen. There were two more MFDs in the center of the instrument panel between the pilot’s and copilot’s pairs with engine, fuel, electrical, and other systems’ readouts. Patrick’s MFDs displayed a moving map of the airport and his own checklist page. The center console between the seats contained most of the controls and switches he was familiar with. Rows of standby flight instruments were arrayed below the crewmembers’ MFDs.

Cuthbert strapped in and plugged in his headset cords and oxygen hose. “Quite a nice job with this instrument panel—it looks like a bizjet,” he said after checking in with Patrick on the intercom.

“All off-the-shelf stuff that most bizjets and airliners have been using for years,” Patrick said. “The checklists are mostly automated: you set normal or emergency conditions and phase of flight, similar to the B-2 bomber, then initiate a checklist at the proper time and just monitor the jet.” He swapped checklists with Cuthbert. “Normal, takeoff/land, before taxi,” he read. “When each step in the checklist is accomplished, you’ll get a green indicator; yellow is caution or wait, and red is a malfunction. Instrument displays will change on the MFDs depending on the checklist being run: engine and aircraft systems instruments for takeoff, navigation for cruise and landing, weapons status diagrams for bomb runs, fuel system for air refueling, et cetera. Pretty straightforward, easy to learn, easy to teach. Again, all off-the-shelf stuff, so it’s easy to get stuff repaired, upgraded, or reprogrammed. Parking brake lever is . . .”

“I know where the parking brake handle is, General,” Cuthbert said with a smile. “At least you haven’t automated everything on my jet.” He moved the control stick in a circle, deflected the spoilers and horizontal stabilizers to let the ground crewman know he was ready to taxi; Patrick got taxi clearance from the control tower. Guided by the ground crewman, Cuthbert turned the Excalibur around and headed down the taxiway toward the active runway.

After he had made the turn and gotten a thumbs-up from the ground crewman, telling him he was clear of all obstacles, Cuthbert said, “That linesman looks familiar, General. Isn’t that . . . is that your son, Bradley?”

“Sure is,” Patrick said. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“A year or so after Wendy was killed,” Cutlass said solemnly. After a moment of respectful silence for Patrick’s ex-wife, murdered by Libyan terrorists many years ago, he added, “Jesus, he’s a big kid.” He looked at Patrick. “I heard he got an appointment to the Zoo from President Phoenix himself.”

“He did.”

“So . . . pardon my curiosity, sir, but shouldn’t he be in Colorado Springs getting hell beat out of him?”

“He had an . . . unfortunate and ill-advised disagreement with an upperclassman,” Patrick said. “They asked him to depart during Second Beast and not return.”

“Sorry, sir. What was the disagreement about?”

“He won’t say,” Patrick said moodily. “I think he was provoked into an altercation, but he refuses to explain his side, even on a direct order from the Academy commandant. The second-classman said Brad refused instruction and correction, misused his training rifle, then attacked him without warning. Doesn’t sound like him at all, but he offered no explanation.” Patrick’s face and tone of voice were stony as he added, “So he’s out.”

“That’s too bad,” Cuthbert said. “What’s his plan now?”

“I thought I’d give him the rest of the summer to get his bearings and make a plan,” Patrick said. “He knows how to operate the power cart, fuel trucks, and tugs, and how to marshal and tow aircraft, so he’s helping out on the flight line for a little folding money. But the moment I see him break out the video games instead of working, he’s out on his keester.”

“Don’t be too tough on him, sir,” Cuthbert said. “I’ve got two daughters that both dropped out of college. I was bugged that they didn’t seem to do anything much with their lives afterward and I made the mistake of telling them so. The first got pregnant. The second . . . joined the Army.”

“Oh, no,” Patrick deadpanned.

“Actually, it’s all good,” Cutlass said. “The first is married to a dentist and has given me two grandchildren, and the second is a first lieutenant flying Chinooks. A little friendly advice: nudge, but nudge carefully. Don’t be a general officer to your kids.”

“Advice well taken, Cutlass,” Patrick said. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, sir,” Cuthbert said. He looked around the cockpit and out the forward windscreen at the air refueling receptacle aiming markings on the nose. He punched the “Takeoff/Land” checklist on his MFD, selected several steps, then looked out his left side window to make sure the wing sweep, flaps, slats, and spoilers were set properly. “The bird looks great, sir,” he remarked. “What did you do to the skin? It looks brand new.”

“Nothing except inspection, minor repairs, anticorrosion treatment, and a little paint,” Patrick said. “No stealth antiradar coatings, no structural improvements except to fix minor structural flaws and to add a few features. We didn’t consider stealth hardly at all.”

“Why?”

“Because we assumed the battlefield would already be consumed with electronic jamming and intrusion,” Patrick said. “The Bones’ radar cross section—the lowest of the entire world’s heavy aircraft until the B-2 Spirit came along—could mostly be neutralized by electronic jamming. Our objective was to field an AirSea Battle attack and antimissile airframe in minimum time and cost. We analyzed the risk and advantage of the B-1B with advanced jammers and low-level flight profiles, and designed an attack profile to match. The B-1’s radar cross section is actually about the same as a Super Hornet.”

“Pretty good,” Cuthbert said distractedly. “Where did you get all the plans and manpower to do these conversions?”

“When the Air Force closed down the B-1 refurbishment project at Plant 42 in Palmdale, we bought all the tooling, design and manufacturing software, tech orders, and plans from the Air Force—much of which was designed and written by Sky Masters—and brought a bunch of the engineers and technicians up here,” Patrick said. “We’ve got the best in the business, all seasoned pros, and they set out to prove we could do it faster and better up here in Battle Mountain.”

“A private company doing it faster and better than the government? Who knew?” Cuthbert deadpanned. “So you’re not going to put all that fancy drone recovery and rearming stuff and the mission-adaptive wings on your birds?”

“We certainly can—Sky Masters developed both systems years ago, and we put all that technology on a B-1 just a couple years ago,” Patrick said. “We did retain the weapon loadout capabilities, software, and data bus of the Vampire bombers, so we can carry every air-launched weapon in the arsenal, including air-to-air missiles.”

“Air to air! No kidding?”

“We can put up to eight AMRAAMs on a rotary launcher, and we can carry a max of three rotary launchers,” Patrick said. “Although AirSea Battle envisions land-based bombers working with carrier-based fighters, we wanted to keep the capability of long-range unescorted land attack. Just give us whatever weapon you want to employ, and we can carry it into battle for you and let you launch them.”

“Pretty cool, sir.”

“The idea behind this project was to quickly field a force of long-range bombers to help protect the fleet over the horizon and to validate the AirSea Battle concept in minimum time and money,” Patrick said. “It’s just an interim solution, but time and money-wise, we think it’s the best option until they find more money for a new long-range bomber.”

“And I’m sure Sky Masters has a design in mind for that, too,” Cuthbert said.

“Of course.”

“Thought so,” Cutlass said. “So let’s talk turkey a bit before we take off, General. What’s it going to cost the Air Force to build your little fleet here?”

“Nothing,” Patrick said matter-of-factly.

“Excuse me? Nothing?”

“Sky Masters is making an investment in this project, not just trying to get a government contract,” Patrick explained. “We want the Air Force to give us the engines, avionics, radars, weapons, fuel, and access to the other aircraft at AMARG for spare parts—all stuff the Air Force already has in abundance and taxpayers have already paid for. The company pays all the personnel costs—engineering, maintenance, aircrew, support staff, and instructors. If the Air Force cancels the program, you get your hardware back, and Sky Masters writes off the personnel costs.”

“Not that an old warhorse like me knows anything about business, sir,” Cuthbert said, “but I have to wonder: How do you make any money at this? Sky Masters is in this to make money, right?”

“The company’s shareholders want to make money, Cutlass—I want to support the AirSea Battle strategy and contribute to the defense of our nation by building highly capable long-range reconnaissance and strike aircraft in a short amount of time,” Patrick said. “We make our money by employing the Excaliburs after they’re built. The Air Force is going to need personnel to fly and service the jets—that’ll be Sky Masters’s job. Once the bombers are built and the program validated, the Pentagon pays for the labor to build the bombers, and we sign a contract to operate the jets at the direction of the Air Force or theater commander. We’ll provide fully qualified aircrew and the datalink technology for Air Force personnel to operate the offensive and defensive systems in the plane, and we’ll drive the bus wherever you want. Your folks—or ours, if you prefer—remotely man the weapon systems and do the strikes in case there’s an operational need.”

“And your board of directors agreed to not getting paid until and unless there’s a contract job?”

“It was a little bit of a chore to convince them to make the investment,” Patrick admitted. “We got a little help from some local, state, and federal agencies, because we’re bringing in hundreds of skilled laborers and their families into one of the poorest and economically hardest-hit areas of the western United States. But I noticed something when I first created this program: like any government program these days, the workers who moved to Battle Mountain from Palmdale and other places to work at Sky Masters know that this whole deal could never materialize, or it could be canceled at any moment even after the contracts are signed. They’re still willing to move out here and do the work. That’s more than just getting a paycheck, Cutlass—that’s being dedicated to the work and the country. I want to support that, and after I pointed this out to my board, they agreed . . . eventually. After they saw the first refurbished Excalibur fly, they were fully on board—they even authorized the funds to refurbish the F-111 and F-14. The F-111 might be a lower-cost solution to the air arm of AirSea Battle, and we can build about fifty of them, a lot more than the B-1s.”

They got back to work as they neared the hammerhead area of the active runway at Battle Mountain. Cuthbert pressed the “TTO” switch, which automatically set the trim and spoilers for takeoff, then checked the rows of green dots on the checklist page on the MFDs, indicating that the plane was configured for takeoff, Patrick typed a text message on one of his MFDs. “I told the range controllers at Naval Air Station Fallon that we’re ready for takeoff, and they cleared us into the military operating area and low-level routes,” Patrick said. “The navigation heading bug is on the range entry point. I’ll talk to Battle Mountain Approach after the handoff, then the Fallon range controllers.” Patrick made his own scan of the checklist page and the engine instrument page, then fastened his oxygen mask over his mouth, and checked his straps, and armed his ejection seat. “Seat’s armed. I’m ready to roll, Cutlass.”

“My seat’s hot. Ready.” Patrick got takeoff clearance, then said, “You have plenty of runway for a rolling takeoff, and we’re extremely light, so no need to lock the brakes to run the engines up. Pedal to the metal.”

“Coming up,” Cuthbert said. He smoothly applied full military power.

“Compressors look good,” Patrick said, scanning the engine instruments. “Clear to go into the zone.”

“Here we go.” Cuthbert moved the throttles past the detent into afterburner zone.

“Good nozzle swings, temps look good.”

“Zone five,” Cuthbert said, and then he felt it—that satisfying, almost surprising kick in the small of his back as the engines reached full thrust. “Oh baby, that feels good,” he murmured seductively.

“V-one, seven thousand to go, continue,” Patrick said, using the runway length remaining and their airspeed to determine the go/no-go decision point in the takeoff roll—even though the Excalibur’s flight computers automatically calculated that, the human backup kept the crew ready for emergencies. There were two such V-speeds, one to determine the time to abort if there was an engine failure and the other to determine if the plane should continue the takeoff in case of engine failure. “Coming up on Vr . . . now.” A third reference speed told the pilot when to begin takeoff rotation. Cuthbert smoothly pulled back on the control stick, and seconds later the Excalibur bomber fairly leaped off the runway. They were climbing at over five thousand feet per minute just seconds later and going faster every second. “Clear of the runway, I got the gear.” He raised the landing gear handle, and moments later he raised the flaps and slats as well. “Flaps and slats up, clear on wing sweep.”

“Roger. Wings coming to thirty.” Cuthbert moved the large wing-sweep handle on his left side back to the thirty-degree setting. He nodded happily. “Wow, this baby really likes those wings swept back. It felt like a B-52 on takeoff with the wings forward, but with them back the controls feel a hell of a lot lighter.”

Within the restricted Naval Air Station Fallon bombing and gunnery ranges, they climbed up to thirty thousand feet, and Patrick demonstrated some basic airwork maneuvers—slow flight, stalls, and steep turns—followed by more advanced maneuvers—lazy-eights and chandelles—and finally some simple aerobatics—inverted flight, barrel rolls, and aileron rolls. The Excalibur performed all of them without difficulty, which gave Cuthbert enough confidence to try them on his own. Patrick was pleased to see Cuthbert grinning like a young kid on a Ferris wheel after he was done.

“What do you think, Cutlass?” Patrick asked after the Air Force colonel finished his second aileron roll.

“She handles like a great big fighter jet,” Cuthbert said, still grinning. “Just fantastic.”

“Of course, we can’t do most of this with weapons aboard—but I wanted to show you that this bird is still very solid and has plenty of power to do advanced maneuvering,” Patrick said. “But now it’s time to show you what the original B-1 was made for.” He called up a flight plan on his MFD, and a serpentine corridor drew itself on the moving map, while Cuthbert’s MFD showed a series of squares on the synthetic-vision display that they were passing through. He then called up the “Before TFR Flight” checklist. “Now we’re going to have some real fun,” he said. “Terrain-following system checks, radar configured, one-thousand-foot clearance plane set. Engage when ready, Cutlass.” Cuthbert pressed the “TFR ENGAGE” button on his MFD, and the Excalibur nosed over into a fifteen-thousand-foot-per-minute descent. “Wing sweep to sixty-seven,” Patrick said. “Throttles to keep us from going past the Mach—we have the Rod Pod on, and we haven’t tested it beyond point nine five Mach.” The AN/AAQ-33 Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod, nicknamed “Rod Pod,” was a device mounted underneath the fuselage that allowed the crew to search for and laser-designate targets on the ground from long range and at night for precision bombing. The pod could laser-designate targets for the Excalibur, “buddy laze” targets for other bombers, or spot targets, measure coordinates, and transmit images and data via satellite to other commanders around the world. “If you want to hand-fly the course, just keep the plane inside the squares on your screen and let the TFR control pitch.”

In two minutes they had descended to just one thousand feet aboveground. They performed another system check, then stepped the altitude down to just two hundred feet aboveground, traveling over six hundred miles an hour. Cuthbert let the terrain-following radar and computers control their roller-coaster ride over the terrain while turning the bomber to keep inside the squares that depicted their flight-planned course, sometimes having to bank at almost ninety degrees to stay on course because his attention drifted away at the wrong moment. He finally engaged the autopilot so he didn’t have to concentrate so hard on flying and get a chance to experience terrain-following flight in the Excalibur. “This is fantastic, Patrick, just incredible,” he said. “She feels rock-solid.”

“We were happy that the ship’s original Stability and Control Augmentation System interfaced so well with the new Active Electronically Scanned Array radar,” Patrick said. “But SCAS was ahead of its time. We could also do away with some of the other systems such as the radar altimeter and bank angle fail-safes on the TFR, because AESA performs well at any bank or pitch angle or in situations such as over water, whereas the original radar had severe limitations.” They were coming to the end of the low-level route on the flight plan, and the squares on the synthetic-vision display were starting to indicate a climbout. “Want to go through the route again?”

“I’d like to, Patrick, but I’ve got a flight back to Hickam to catch,” Cuthbert said. “But you definitely watered my eyes today. Thanks for an incredible demonstration.”

As they were climbing out of the low-level route, with Cuthbert hand-flying the aircraft again as he liked to do, they heard on the Fallon range control frequency: “Masters One, Fallon Range Control.”

“Go ahead, Control,” Patrick replied.

“Masters One, we have a couple Hornets scheduled for the range in fifteen minutes after you exit, but they’re already airborne, and they requested some formation flying for pics. They’ve never seen a B-1 before except in museums. I can approve MARSA with them if you approve.” MARSA stood for Military Assumes Responsibility for Separation of Aircraft and was commonly used for operations such as air-to-air dogfighting practice and aerial refueling.

Patrick looked over at Cuthbert, who nodded with a big smile on his face. “Sure, Control, Masters One welcomes them in.”

“Roger that, sir. Masters One, Welder One-Seven flight of two, Fallon Range Control approves MARSA while in the ranges. Maintain block altitudes angels fifteen to angels twenty-one. Report canceling MARSA on this frequency. Masters One, your traffic is at eight o’clock, forty-eight miles and closing.”

“One copies,” Patrick responded. He switched one of his MFDs to a radar-warning defensive systems display. Moments later, an icon of a friendly aircraft appeared at the clock position called out by the controller.

“Masters One, Welder flight of two, we’re tied on radar, moving in,” the lead pilot of the approaching F/A-18 Super Hornets radioed.

“Masters One, roger,” Patrick responded.

A few minutes later the Hornet pilot radioed, “Masters, we’re tied on visual, splitting up, one on each side for a better shot.”

“Masters One, roger.”

A few moments later, the Navy-gray Hornet two-seat fighter-bombers appeared out their side windscreens, and they could see the Navy backseaters snapping pictures of the XB-1 with their wingman on the other side.

“She’s a big mutha,” one of the Hornet pilots radioed.

“Show us what she can do,” another said. Cuthbert started a left turn, getting steeper and steeper until they were at ninety degrees bank. The Hornet pilots remained in tight formation as if they were airshow performers.

“Not bad, not bad—for a big ol’ dinosaur,” another crewmember radioed. “What else does the old girl got?”

Cuthbert glanced at Patrick. “What do you think, General?” he asked.

“I think they want to play.” Patrick called up the low-level flight plan again, and Cuthbert kept the turn in until they were headed for the entry point again. Patrick ran the “Before TFR Flight” checklist again, then shook his control stick and said, “I’ve got the aircraft.”

Cuthbert shook his stick in response. “You’ve got the aircraft.”

“How about it, momma?” a Hornet pilot radioed. “Got anything else to show us?”

“They’re probably afraid it’s going to break if they G it up too much,” another chimed in.

“No, we’re just waiting for the right spot,” Patrick radioed back. “Ready, Cutlass?”

“Go fry their butts, sir,” Cuthbert replied, his wide grin hidden by his oxygen mask.

“Here we go,” Patrick said. He swept the wings full aft and moved the throttles up to full military power.

“Well, sweeping the wings is cool, like a great big F-14 Tomcat,” one of the Navy pilots radioed, “and I see she still has a little oompf left in her . . .”

. . . and Patrick hit the “ENGAGE” button on his MFD and started a hard right turn into the low-level corridor.

“Hey! Watch it!” one of the Hornet pilots radioed. “Where in hell are you going?”

“Catch us if you can, girls,” Patrick radioed. The two Hornets had disappeared from sight as the Excalibur began its dramatic plunge toward Earth.

“No sweat, momma,” a Hornet pilot said. “Welder Two, you’re at my three o’clock; join on me in loose fingertip.”

“Two,” the wingman responded.

The two icons on the defensive systems display showed the Hornets merging and moving higher and farther away. Patrick reluctantly had to pull the throttles back to avoid going supersonic in the steep descent. In less than a minute they had descended to two hundred feet aboveground and were again riding the ridges, now traveling closer to seven hundred miles an hour.

“Hornets at seven o’clock high,” Patrick said, scanning his checklist and defensive displays. “TFR system checks.” He strained to check out both side windscreens for terrain. “Hang on, Cutlass,” he said, and he threw the Excalibur in a steep right turn.

“Hornets at six o’clock . . . five . . . four . . . coming back to five o’clock . . .”

“Not for long,” Patrick said. Just before reaching a peak, he threw the Excalibur into a very steep left turn, hugging the peak so closely Cuthbert could see individual cracks on the rocks below.

“You got the dirt, Patrick?” Cuthbert asked a little worriedly.

“I’ve got the dirt, I’ve got the dirt,” Patrick said.

“Hornets at nine o’clock, eight o’clock, moving away . . . now turning back, still at eight o’clock . . .”

“No fair using radar, chums,” Patrick said. He called up another checklist page, this time to activate the Excalibur’s defensive ALQ-293 SPEAR system, then made another tight right-hand turn and skimmed over another rocky ridge. “I’ll just scramble their radars and radios, not take them out completely,” Patrick said. Moments later the icons representing the Hornets disappeared. “Take that, squids.”

“Welder flight, knock it off, knock it off,” the lead Hornet pilot radioed a few moments later, his voice a combination of anxiety and anger. The radio was a mess of squeals, pops, and static—the pilot’s voice was barely recognizable. “Lead is climbing to angels seventeen. Fallon Range Control, Welder One-Seven is canceling MARSA at this time.”

“Welder One-Seven, repeat,” the range controller replied through the jamming. “Did not copy.”

“Fallon Range Control, Welder One-Seven canceling MARSA,” the pilot repeated through the haze of static. Then he said, “Hey, Masters, shut the damned jamming off, dickheads.” Patrick shut down the defensive suite, and the squealing stopped. “Fallon Range Control, how do you copy now?”

“Loud and clear now, Welder,” the controller responded.

“We’re canceling MARSA, squawking normal.”

“Roger, Welder One-Seven. Radar contact, five-seven miles northwest of the field, passing angels thirteen. Your wingman is at your seven o’clock position, four miles, passing through angels eleven. I have negative radar contact on Masters One.”

“That’s because the bastard went low-level while we were in formation!” the lead Hornet pilot replied angrily, “and then he turned on his jammers and shut every radar and radio down for fifty miles in every freakin’ direction!”

“I copy, Welder,” the controller said. “Masters One, are you on frequency?”

“Affirmative, Fallon Control,” Patrick replied. “We’re ten miles south of waypoint Tango on IR-7, passing six thousand climbing to one-six thousand, on the way to range control point JASPER.”

“Still negative radar contact,” the controller said. “You were directed to remain MARSA with Welder flight in the block angels one-seven to two-one.”

“We still own the range and the IR-7 low-level route for another five minutes, Fallon,” Patrick said. “We simply reentered IR-7 and resumed our test flight. If the Hornets couldn’t remain MARSA with us, they should’ve reported that to you and stayed in the block.”

There was a long pause on the frequency, then: “Masters One, contact Fallon Range Operations after landing. You are cleared to point JASPER, climb and maintain angels one-six. Upon reaching JASPER, you are cleared direct to Battle Mountain Airport. Contact Battle Mountain Approach upon reaching JASPER, and after arriving at Battle Mountain, contact Fallon Range Control by telephone,” and the controller read off a phone number.

“Masters One copies all,” Patrick said, adding, “Have a nice day, Welders.”

“Bite me,” came the reply, and the frequency remained silent until they exited the range and switched to civilian air traffic control.

“So, what do you think, Cutlass?” Patrick asked.

“It was awesome!” Cuthbert replied, pulling off his oxygen mask, squirming excitedly in his seat, and clapping his hands. “Man, I’d forgotten how exciting low-level flying is—the heavies haven’t done it in years. Sounds like you might get a spanking from the Navy after you get back for turning on that SPEAR jammer thingy and shutting everything down.”

“They’ll get over it—I’ll let the legal beagles sort it out,” Patrick said, completely unconcerned. “Feel like making the landing, Cutlass?”

“Damn right I do, sir, damn right I do!” Cuthbert said happily. “I feel like a young butter-bar bomber jock again. I’ve got the airplane!” He shook the control stick to indicate he had control of the aircraft, and Patrick shook his stick to acknowledge. “I might miss my flight back to Hawaii, but it was damn well worth it!”