The Hot Pilots

by T. E. Cruise

  Through his helmet headset he could hear the two pilots conversing in their national tongue with each other, and with ground control. Then Steve heard Benny Detkin’s unmistakable voice joining the Hebrew conversation. Steve didn’t know what anyone was saying, but from the tone of the various exchanges he could tell that nobody was terribly angry. As a matter of fact, one of the pilots was chuckling—

  The pair of Tyran IIs abruptly broke apart into a defensive split. The high man—Steve immediately dubbed him Alpha —went to afterburn, zooming up toward the sun. The low man—Beta—banked sharply, and barrel-roll dived away from the fray.

  Steve, grinning, kicked in his own afterburner, and went after the high man, knowing that he would be the most immediately dangerous. It would take Alpha far less time to drop down on Steve than it would low-breaking Beta to circle around and then climb to set up an ambush.

  The Alpha Tyran was already whipping around in a vertical reverse: topping out in his climb, fluttering in the sky as all speed was lost, and then ruddering his bird sideways and around into a steep dive. Steve had to give the IAF pilot credit as he watched the guy successfully complete his move. Delta-winged aircraft were not at their best at the sudden low speeds characteristic of the vertical reverse. In less capable hands the Tyran might have gone into a stall.

  Alpha was now diving toward Steve, who was simultaneously zooming up toward the Tyran in a head-on game of chicken. Steve craned his neck, cursing the MIG’s poor visibility as he searched the sky for the Beta Tyran. Finally he spotted the jet, and saw that he still had time to deal with Alpha before Beta became a concern.

  The Alpha Tyran was still coming head-on. Steve decided on an offset head-on pass; a maneuver for which the agile MIG was born and bred.

  He waited until the Tyran II loomed huge in his foreward windscreen and then Steve veered to the left, angling slightly below the attacking jet. In quick response, the Tyran broke right. Now both jets were banked sharply in opposite directions, but Steve, by stressing the MIG to the utmost, was able to corkscrew around in the tighter turn. The Alpha Tyran was still skating around when Steve was able to straighten out and settle on its six o’clock.

  Alpha began jinking, trying to lose Steve. Steve, keeping an eye peeled for the Beta Tyran, managed to stay locked onto Alpha for five seconds. He then had to break as the Beta Tyran began to close on his tail.

  As Steve banked away from the Alpha he knew that he’d won the first part of the mock dogfight. Five seconds would have been plenty of time to blast the Tyran out of the sky with a cannon. He had no camera on the MIG to record his mock victory, but he knew that downstairs they would have been watching the whole thing. He wondered what Benny and the Air Force operations people at the base were thinking…

  Steve also wondered what the Alpha pilot was thinking. Would he continue the fight, or withdraw, as honor dictated he should do because he had hypothetically been waxed? Steve was pleased to see the Alpha pilot do the right thing, banking away from the fight, although he did stay in the vicinity. Steve understood the reason for that: The Tyran II pair’s original purpose for being here was to protect the MIG against a possible Arab attack.

  It was time to deal with Beta—

  Steve put the MIG into a vector roll: He pulled up hard, banked into a turn, and then barrel-rolled his airplane so that it was suddenly twirling in the opposite direction from that turn. The Tyran pilot, realizing that he had been set up to overshoot, disengaged by breaking into his own turn in order to regain the speed and altitude he would need to once again come down on Steve’s six o’clock.

  Steve quickly stood the MIG on her ear, whipping her around so that she resembled a dog—a borzoi—chasing her own tail. The sharp maneuver put the MIG behind and above the still-banking Tyran. By dropping the MIG’s nose Steve could set up for what would have been a fairly decent deflection shot.

  The Tyran pilot immediately realized Steve’s advantage, and broke sharply in the direction of Steve’s attack approach. Steve, all the while gaining velocity in his dive, cursed himself for falling for the IAF pilot’s trick as the MIG duly overshot the Tyran. Now Steve found himself once again below and behind the Israeli jet, which had quickly reversed, in order to attack the MIG. Steve executed his own reverse turn in order to deny the Tyran a firing opportunity. The Tyran immediately copied Steve’s reverse turn, so that now he was back on Steve’s six o’clock. Steve reversed, and now the horizon was spinning like an airplane’s prop as he and the IAF pilot repeatedly exchanged positions, playing out their scissoring ballet across the sky.

  Finally, Steve’s lighter, more maneuverable MIG gained the advantage, forcing the cannon and drop tank burdened Tyran II out in front. Steve stayed locked onto the Tyran’s six o’clock until its driver waggled his wings, indicating that he knew he’d been shot down.

  Good fight, son, Steve thought. He pulled abreast of the Tyran II. Once he had the IAF pilot’s attention, Steve waved to him and then waggled the MIG’s wings in order to salute the guy for leading him on such a merry chase.

  As Steve headed back to base he thought that the furball he’d just engaged in was likely nothing to what he would soon be experiencing on the ground.

  Steve brought the MIG down, turned her over to the ground crew who would check her out before towing her into her hangar, and then went to the pilot’s personal equipment shack to change out of his gear. He was stowing his equipment in the locker when a tight-lipped Benny Detkin came into the shack.

  “Benny, I know what you’re going to say,” Steve began quickly, hoping to head off his friend’s tirade.

  “Do you now?” Benny asked coolly, his expression deadpan.

  “I know I disobeyed orders by challenging those Tyrans,” Steve hurriedly continued. “But I did it for a good reason—”

  Benny nodded. “What you mean is that you did it because you wanted to—”

  “No!” Steve protested. “Well, I mean, sure I wanted to.” He couldn’t help grinning.

  “Hmmm …” Benny scowled knowingly.

  “But I also learned a lot of valuable stuff about the MIG—” Steve quickly added as the pilots who had been flying the Tyran II’s that he’d just waxed came into the shack to change out of their gear. “Hi, guys.” Steve grinned. “No hard feelings, right?”

  “No, of course not.” One of the pilots smiled.

  The other pilot was also smiling, nodding his head in agreement. They were both skinny, dark-haired guys. The one who’d been nodding had a bad case of acne. They both looked like they should be in high school, not in the cockpits of fighter jets.

  “If that fight had been for real, you would have been carrying auxiliary tanks and weapons,” the pilot with the acne good-naturedly accused in thickly accented English. “Loaded down as I was, your MIG would not have had the advantage.”

  “Sure I would have,” Steve said softly. “If that fight had been for real, I would have punched my drop tanks,” Steve explained. “Cleaned up, my MIG would have gotten the better of you just the way it did just now, and then I would have taken you out with my cannon.”

  “You would have wasted auxiliary tanks?” the Israeli pilot asked, appalled. “They cost so much money—”

  “Look,” Steve interrupted. “I know this country has to scrounge dearly to find the funds to buy weapons …”

  He paused, wondering if he had the right to continue with what he wanted to say. He glanced at Benny, who nodded.

  “Okay, listen guys—” Steve began again, returning his attention to the two young pilots. “When you’re in a dogfight, you can’t be thinking dollars and cents. Take the situation we were just in, what’s the better choice? To waste a couple of drop tanks, or lose a pilot and his aircraft?”

  “He’s right,” Benny interjected. “If you’re going to do the job you must have your priorities straight.” He paused. “We’ll talk more about this later. For now, would you men excuse us for a few moments? I’d like to speak with the colonel in pri
vate.”

  Steve waited until the two pilots had exited the shack and then said, “Look, Benny, let me save you some trouble. I know what this dinner you’ve got planned for tonight is all about.”

  “You do, huh?” Benny asked skeptically.

  “Sure, it’s intended to be my kiss-off, but that’s okay. I’ll finish up here, head back to Tel Aviv to pack up, and—”

  “Just shut up a minute,” Benny said. “It so happens that’s not at all the purpose of tonight’s dinner. The purpose of the dinner is to convince you to stay—”

  “Huh?” Steve stared blankly. “What are you talking about?”

  Benny hesitated. “Ah, what the hell. If you can break a few rules, so can I … I’m going to tell you what’s been planned for tonight so that you’ll have a little more time to think about it, but I’d appreciate it if tonight you’d act surprised when the subject is brought up. The IAF is going to ask you to stay on for a few more months, in order to head up a training program for our fighter squadrons in combat techniques.”

  “You’re shitting me?” Steve blurted happily. “I can’t believe it!”

  “Why not?” Benny shrugged. “It’s not that unusual. There are American military advisers training armed forces in Indochina and South America, so why not one working with an ally like Israel? The Air Force brass here have been watching you put that MIG through its paces for some time now. What you accomplished dogfighting today—despite the fact that you were specifically told not to—will only strengthen the IAF’s resolve to keep you on. If you’re agreeable, the IAF will make an official request to the USAF that you be allowed to remain.”

  “I’m agreeable, I’m agreeable,” Steve said quickly. “The more flying I get to do the better, and the opportunity to spend my time concentrating on nothing but fighter strategy and tactics makes me happier than a pig in shit.”

  Benny winced. “Just try and think up a little bit nicer reply for when the offer is put to you at dinner tonight,” he icily suggested, turning to go.

  “Roger, old buddy!” Steve said. “Oh, and naturally I’ll need Rivka to continue acting as my assistant when I set up this training program—?”

  “Naturally.” Benny nodded, straight-faced. “It’s a given that fighter jocks are more aggressive when they’ve got lots of pent-up, frustrated sexual energy.”

  “She can’t deny me forever.” Steve laughed.

  “Famous last words,” Benny said gloatingly. “Oh, and by the way, I’ll be participating in the training whenever I’m in Israel …”

  “You want to see if something of the old master can rub off on you, huh?” Steve asked innocently.

  Benny winked. “I just want to keep you properly humble; although it appears that Rivka is accomplishing that quite well on her own.”

  CHAPTER 21

  * * *

  (One)

  Gold Aviation and Transport

  Burbank, California

  3 June 1967

  Herman Gold’s desk was piled high with work. It was a Saturday afternoon, but lately Gold had taken to coming into the office on weekends in order to catch up.

  The GAT production lines ran seven days a week around the clock, and Gold suspected that if he went down to the design department he’d find a couple of engineers busy at their drafting tables, but on weekends the executive and sales offices were closed tight. The lack of ringing telephones and people at Gold’s office door allowed him the uninterrupted time he needed to clear the decks for the coming week.

  Because the office was officially closed, Gold was dressed casually. He was hunched over in his chair, working an adding machine as he slugged his way through some ponderous cost analysis sheets. The Air Force had been complaining about design defects in the Super-BroadSword. The cost analysis sheets itemized the contemplated running changes that must be made in the GAT production lines to try to rectify the problems.

  “Grandpa?”

  “What is it, Andy?” Gold asked, glancing up over his bifocals.

  His nine-year-old grandson, dressed in white tennis shorts, a T-shirt, and blue sneakers, was sprawled out on a sofa, idly flipping through a comic book. “How much longer do we have to stay, Grandpa?”

  Andy’s parents had gone away for the weekend, so Gold and his wife had volunteered to take the boy, in lieu of leaving him in the care of the Harrisons’ housekeeper. Gold had known better than to bring the kid to the office with him, but Andy had begged and pleaded, and it tickled Gold that his grandson seemed interested in the business.

  “I told you when you insisted on coming that I’d be here a long time!” Gold snapped.

  He saw the boy flinch, and immediately regretted his gruffness. “I’m sorry, Andy. I’m not mad at you,” he softly reassured. “I’m mad at myself, I guess …”

  “How come?” Andy asked.

  “We’re having some problems with the Super-Broad-Sword,” Gold muttered. “That’s our latest military airplane?”

  Andy nodded. “It’s broken?”

  Gold smiled thinly. “You could say that …”

  “When my stuff gets broken you fix it,” Andy said. “You gonna fix your plane?”

  “I’m going to try.” Gold forced patience into his voice. “But I need you to be quiet, okay…?”

  The more Gold thought about the trouble the full-production Super-BroadSword had been causing for the last several months, the more he could feel his gut clenching. Just about everything that could go wrong with the damned airplane—from its aerodynamic drag to its engines—had gone wrong. It was becoming impossible for his design and production departments to stay on top of the mess. Just last week a new batch of complaints had flooded in concerning a potentially life-threatening in-flight malfunction of the variable-sweep swing wing. Gold couldn’t account for the gremlins. He’d had Don Harrison and his best people heading up the design process. The components had all been checked and double-checked. The parts had all been perfect. Hell, they still were, and yet when those parts were assembled into a Super-BroadSword they just didn’t seem to want to hang together…

  “Grandpa, I’m bored—” Andy was complaining. He’d tossed aside his comic book, and was restlessly swinging his heels against the sofa.

  “I wish there was something around here for you to do,” Gold murmured. His elegant office with its oil paintings, dark wainscoting, and leather furniture was not exactly set up to be a playroom …

  His eyes fell on the newly installed glass display case in the office’s far corner. The case was filled with scale models of all the airplanes that GAT had designed and manufactured in its forty-two-year history. The models had resided in Teddy Quinn’s office back when Teddy was chief engineer. When Don Harrison had stepped into the job he’d moved the model case onto the main floor of the engineering department. Gold, feeling sentimental, had recently had the case moved up here.

  “I’ve got an idea.” Gold pointed toward the model case. “Would you like to play with the airplanes?”

  “Sure!” Andy hopped off the sofa. “Can I?”

  “You bet,” Gold replied, standing up and walking to the case. He slid open the glass doors and stepped aside, grinning as he watched his grandson carefully lift from its stand the twelve-inch-long, cast metal replica of a prop-driven, open-cockpit G-1 Dragonfly.

  “That was the first airplane we ever built,” Gold said as the boy held the silvery model up to the light. “We called it the Dragonfly. We sold a bunch of them to the Post Office, and to private freight transport companies. For a while it was used all over the country to deliver the mail.”

  “It must have been fun to fly one of these, huh, Grandpa?”

  Gold nodded. More fun to fly them, and more fun to build them in those days, he sadly added to himself. He would have liked to play with the models along with his grandson, reminiscing about old, and better times. You’ve got work to do, he reminded himself. He trudged back to his desk, intent on dealing with today’s problems instead of losing himse
lf in yesterday’s fond memories.

  He spent another quarter hour staring at the goddamned columns of numbers, then tossed aside his pencil and shut off the adding machine. He couldn’t concentrate, and it wasn’t just because Andy was sitting on the carpet by the display case, making airplane noises as he played with the models.

  Gold leaned back in his chair. He was feeling exhausted. This Super-BroadSword fiasco was keeping him up nights with worry. He was also feeling a bit sorry for himself—

  Despite all the problems, things could have been smoothed out if old Howie Simon was still in charge of procurement, Gold brooded.

  He’d shared twenty years of aviation history with Howie. The two men had understood each other. Howie would have known without question that Gold would work day and night to set things right …

  But Howie was gone, put out to pasture in Texas. The general had been replaced by a team of snot-nosed young officers who didn’t have the aviation savvy in their entire bodies that Howie had possessed in his little finger. And the way those young bastards had talked down to Gold! Just thinking about it was enough to set his pulse pounding all over again …

  Yeah, he could have worked things out with Howie. The problems could have been rectified without tarnishing the reputation of the Super-BroadSword and the reputation of his company. But the new people in charge of Air Force procurement hadn’t been interested in the way things had always been done—

  On Gold’s desk was the telegram notifying him that the Air Force had temporarily suspended acceptance of Super-BroadSword deliveries pending an evaluation of the design changes, and a reassessment of the unit costs.

  The trade publications would soon get wind of it—if they hadn’t already, Gold thought sourly. He supposed that once the headlines broke, the politicians in Washington would want to stick their noses into it, as well. He also knew that once the Air Force had pinned the lemon label on the airplane, it wouldn’t matter how hard GAT worked to rectify the problems. The company could still kiss good-bye its future foreign orders …