Alpha Kat

by William H. Lovejoy

  “Tex told you about the air intakes?”

  “He did, Virg.”

  “Sam Eddy bitches a lot.”

  Thomas opened a small hatch on the left side of the fuselage and worked the switches. The canopy rose with a hydraulic hiss, and the single-stemmed boarding ladder lowered from the fuselage, its two steps folding out. In an early design stage, the pilot design team had determined that they didn’t want to have to mess with detachable ladders. The ladder was necessary since the Alpha Kat sat on landing gear that was stilt-like in its height. That allowed a wide variety of ordnance and accessory packages to be suspended from the hard points.

  Ought-eight was outfitted with four AMRAAMs, two each on the outboard pylons. The missiles topped Mach 4 in speed and had a range of seventy miles. One inboard pylon carried a pair of AIM-9L Super Sidewinders, with a cruise speed of Mach 3 and a range of 11 miles. The left inboard pylon was mounted with a pod containing an M61A2 20-millimeter, rotating barrel gun and six hundred rounds of ammunition. On the centerline, one behind the other, were two simulated Mark 84 low-profile 500-pound bombs.

  “You’ve got a full load, Kim,” Thomas said. “Don’t drop anything until you’re ready.”

  “Got it, Virg.”

  Kimball gave Thomas his helmet, pushed in a spring-loaded handhold, got a grip, and climbed the ladder. He rotated his hips over the cockpit coaming, levered his legs inside, and stood on the seat. The seat pan was constructed of carbon-reinforced plastic, as were all major components of the aircraft, to reduce radar reflections. With this seat, modified to the Martin-Baker SJU-5/A ejector seat design, only the ejector rails used stainless steel.

  Thomas came up the ladder with Kimball’s helmet and parachute pack and helped him into it. The seat pan pack contained the survival gear, including a one-man raft. Thomas stayed long enough to help him strap in, don his helmet, and couple the communications, oxygen, and pressure suit lines, then slid back to the ground.

  Kimball powered up the instrument panel and accessory systems, then ran diagnostic checks on each of the major systems, watching for green light-emitting diodes on the instrument panel. The Alpha Kat did have its own radar, but it was a low-power, fifteen-mile range set to be utilized in emergency situations. Since the odds were that the Alpha Kat would not be attacked by radar-guided missiles, there was no radar threat system. The AAR-38 infrared tailwarning system was mounted.

  All of the radios and data link receivers came up and announced their availability with green LEDs. On the radio panel above the throttle handle, Kimball dialed the radios into the respective frequencies they would be using. The gyros came up to full speed. The Alpha Kat did not carry expensive navigational systems; it relied on data links to the Kappa Kat for navigation aids that were more exotic than the pilot’s mind.

  Kimball stuck his left hand outside the cockpit and rotated his wrist.

  Thomas’s crew powered up the start cart, and compressed air was forced into the turbojet intake. The RPM indicator (all readouts were digital) immediately showed the turbine blades beginning to turn. When he had 35 percent RPMs, Kimball initiated fuel flow and ignition.

  The turbojet started to whine on its own.

  He advanced the throttle slightly, tapping the key on the handle for Tac Two communications. “Bengal One. What have we got?”

  “Two. Impatient,” Mabry said.

  “Three,” Gander responded.

  “And Four,” Greer said.

  Keying the button for Tac One, he said, “Uh, Phoenix Ground Control, this is Alpha Kat zero eight.”

  “Again, zero eight? You guys are hot on it lately.”

  “Got to make sure they work. How about permissions?”

  “You’re in good shape. There’s a cargo transport due in about fifteen minutes, otherwise it’s all going to be yours. Proceed to two-seven, zero eight, and go to air control.”

  Kimball released the brakes and pulled out of the line, turning right. The others fell in behind him and he left the air park, headed for the east end of the runways.

  Changing to the tower frequency, Kimball checked in, “Phoenix Tower, Alpha Kat zero eight with a flight of four.”

  They were becoming accustomed to the increased traffic from Kimball Aero.

  “Zero eight, Phoenix. You’ve got immediate clearance for two-seven-zero left. Barometric is three-zero-point-one-four.”

  Kimball checked to make sure that his altimeter setting agreed with the tower’s.

  “Wind is three knots southwest, maybe a thundershower in a few hours.”

  “That’s wishful thinking, Phoenix.”

  “You’re probably right, zero eight.”

  At the end of the taxiway, Kimball turned left, stopped short of the runway, and ran the engine up to full power for a few seconds. It responded immediately, its song vibrating in his ears and in the airframe.

  He checked in both directions, lowered the canopy, released the brakes and moved onto the runway. Turning left, he braked until Mabry pulled up alongside him.

  Mabry gave him a thumb’s up.

  On Tac Two, Kimball said, “Let’s roll.”

  And he slammed the throttle to its forward stop.

  Even with the full weight of the ordnance load, the Alpha Kat leaped forward. In seconds, the airspeed readout was showing sixty knots.

  Mabry was right with him.

  At 180 knots, the aircraft felt jittery, and he rotated by easing back on the hand controller.

  The Alpha Kat utilized a fly-by-wire control system. The ergonomically-designed controller was located at the forward end of his right armrest and his hand gripped it snugly. Situated on the controller were buttons and keypads with different shapes and textures for controlling weapons release and other aircraft systems.

  As soon as he had cleared the ground, Kimball verified the airspeed, then pulled in his flaps and landing gear. Putting the nose down slightly, he brought the speed up quickly.

  “Five hundred,” he said on Tac Two.

  “Two at five hundred,” Mabry said.

  The two aircraft climbed steadily at a shallow five hundred feet per minute.

  “Three and Four off,” Gander reported.

  By thirty minutes after midnight, they were cruising southwestward at 600 knots, in a loose four-finger echelon formation. The altimeter readout’s blue numerals indicated 26,500 feet.

  As they closed on the north end of the reservation, Soames came on the air from the Kappa Kat, which was doing lazy eights at 34,000 feet.

  “Bengal One, Hawkeye.”

  “One.”

  “Squawk me once, so I can find you.”

  Kimball tapped in the IFF transponder, counted to five, and shut it down.

  “This will be a breeze if you guys just listen close,” Soames said. “Go right to two-one-five.”

  “One. Turning right.”

  Kimball eased the controller over and added rudder. The compass readout on the Head-Up Display slowly came around to 215. The HUD readouts, directly in front of him so he didn’t have to glance down at the instrument panel, repeated the important information from the panel. The readouts were primarily in blue, though targeting information would appear in red.

  Flying the Alpha Kat brought out polarized emotions in her pilots. On the one hand, it was back-to-the-basics flying, augmented by a few technological advances, like the HUD display. Without radar, navigation and advanced computer systems, they could be flying Stearman bipes or Spads. It was exhilarating, out on one’s own on a clear, hot Arizona day, chasing coyotes and diving into arroyos.

  Conversely, in an F-15, Kimball had had the ability to accept or reject the data provided by the computers and make his own decisions. In tactical situations with the Alpha Kat, he now had to rely on his air controller. It was difficult for hotshots like Gander and Greer and, he admitted, himself to relinquish that decision making.

  Especially when it could mean a life.

  “Bengal flight, put it on the deck,” Soa
mes told them. “Let’s call it two thousand.”

  “Roger, Hawkeye, going to angels two.”

  Kimball eased back on the throttle and nudged the nose down with the hand controller. The airspeed began to increase, and he retarded the throttle some more. Supersonic flight wasn’t programmed for this mission.

  The stars were impressively clear tonight; bright, hard twinkles in the black sky. Moonset had occurred earlier, so the desert floor was almost invisible. To his right were the Sand Tank Mountains.

  “What have we got for traffic, Hawkeye?” he asked.

  “There’s a couple choppers messing around over at Luke. What for, this time of night, I don’t know. That’s it.”

  Luke Air Force Range abutted the Papago Indian Reservation. It would have been nice to use their bombing and missile ranges, but Wilcox had vetoed the idea, not wanting to force the USAF any further after already requisitioning so much of their ordnance and gaining control of the two C-141s without identifying KAT as the beneficial party. The request for Luke would have pinpointed Kimball Aero Tech and created a verbal firestorm in the halls of the Pentagon.

  The readout wound down to 2000, and Kimball eased the power back in. Checking to his left, he saw Mabry a half-plane back. On the right was Jimmy Gander, and beyond him, Greer. If they hadn’t been operating their low-wattage wingtip guidance lights, he wouldn’t have known they were there.

  “Bengals, take spacing and douse the lights,” he ordered.

  “Two.”

  “Three.”

  “Four.”

  The aircraft lights blinked out as the planes spread apart.

  Tac Two sounded off. “Cheetah, we’ve got a UFO. I want two of your flight.”

  “Take whatever you want, Papa.”

  “Bengal Three and Four, jettison bomb load and climb to angels one-three, heading zero-nine-eight.”

  The intruder was off Kimball’s rear quarter. He decided to let Gander take care of it and not worry about it.

  Soames moved Gander and Greer to Tac Three, then said, “Bengal One, you’ve got a short peak coming up, but not short enough. Turn to one-nine-five.”

  “Roger, Papa. Going to one-nine-five.”

  “I’m going to need a guide, I guess,” Warren Mabry said.

  “Coming up, Two.”

  Kimball reached for the light panel and turned on his left wingtip guidelight. It was a red light that could be seen for perhaps a mile. The left or right guidelights were utilized by wingmen to keep track of the leader.

  He would like to have listened to the dialogue between Soames and Gander, to get a feel for the attack of the aggressor aircraft, but knew that his job was to concentrate on the ground attack.

  “One, Hawkeye. You have a visual on ground lights?”

  “Roger, Papa. At my ten o’clock.”

  They appeared to be a couple of farm yard lights, to be used as the Initial Point in his bomb run.

  “That’s the village of Ventana, Cheetah. When they hit your nine o’clock, that’s your IP. Go to one-eight-zero. Target six miles. I’m feeding data now.”

  Kimball switched on his primary data receiver.

  “Receiving, Hawkeye. How about you, Dingbat?”

  “Two.”

  Mabry had always wanted a codename of “Othello,” but somewhere along the line, got stuck with “Dingbat,” and couldn’t shake it.

  The Alpha Kat computers accepted the data gathered by the Kappa Kat radars, compared it with on-board altitude, speed, and direction data, verified it, and displayed the results on the HUDs.

  The center of Kimball’s HUD showed him little spikes of light whenever the earth came closer than 500 feet, the altitude above ground for which he had set a tolerance.

  “Bengal One, I’m painting the target now.”

  On the upper left of the HUD targeting screen, a red diamond appeared, the initial point to the target selected by Soames.

  “Got it, Hawkeye.”

  “IP, One,” Mabry reported.

  “Roger that,” Kimball said and started a turn to the left. When the HUD readout read 180, he stabilized.

  The red diamond was now directly ahead.

  “Bengals, Hawkeye. Bengal Three splashed himself a Fighting Falcon.”

  “Won’t hear the end of that,” Mabry said.

  “Deploy IR,” Kimball ordered.

  “Two.”

  With his forefinger, Kimball found and depressed a keypad on the control stick. That lowered a gimbal-mounted nightsight lens and infrared targeting lens from below the nose and simultaneously activated the interface with his helmet reader. He reached up and pulled the hinged infrared reader down over the Plexiglas of his helmet visor. He could still read the instruments and the HUD, but he also had an irritating little yellow square in the center of his vision. It moved around whenever he moved his head. It also moved the gimballed lenses jutting from under the nose of the Alpha Kat.

  “I want weapons, Hawkeye.”

  “Free fall weapons cleared,” Hawkeye responded.

  Kimball reached for the armaments panel with his right hand, the control stick always stayed in the position in which he left it; lifted the protective plastic cover, and snapped down the toggles for each of his two bombs.

  On the bottom right of the HUD, two amber lights labeled “CL-1” and “CL-2” came on.

  “I’m hot,” Kimball reported.

  “Two’s hot.”

  The airspeed was four hundred knots, a bit high for the bomb drop, but they were experimenting a little.

  The infrared lens picked up a heat source, and made it a red dot on the transparent screen of his infrared reader.

  The landscape outside the canopy was utterly dark.

  Kimball moved his head, sliding the yellow square over the red dot. With his forefinger, he pressed another keypad. From that point, the computer would track and stay locked on the red dot. He pressed the bomb release stud twice.

  That only committed the drop. The weapons control computer would release the bombs at the optimal moment, considering altitude, speed, weight of the bomb, and the trajectory.

  “Committed,” he reported.

  “Two, ditto.”

  A tall hill on the right penetrated the tolerance level of the computer and appeared on the HUD. He jinked slightly to the left.

  “Watch it, One.”

  “Sorry, Dingbat.”

  One beep, then another, in his earphones signalled bombs away. The Alpha Kat surged upward a little as the weight dropped away.

  “Bombs away,” Mabry said.

  Kimball eased the stick back and shoved the throttle in, climbing steeply away from the target.

  There was no flash and no roar of thunder behind them. The two men tending the target would report the extent of their accuracy later.

  “Felt good to me, Dingbat,” Kimball said.

  “Something missing though, Cheetah.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There wasn’t anyone shooting at us. I kind of expect people to shoot at us.”

  “Not if we do it right.”

  “That one of Murphy’s Laws, Cheetah?”

  *

  The compound rested on the brow of the hill, overlooking a deep, flat-floored valley. The view of the valley was not spectacular. There was a thin and meandering stream that eventually joined the Nam Hka. The stream was lined with deciduous trees, pines, and spruce. At two thousand meters of altitude, the jungle was not present.

  At the head of the valley was a village composed of two dozen huts, shacks, and sheds. The village was blessed with electricity and a rude hospital, both gifts of the master.

  In this part of the world, there was not much for the electricity to do. Each hut had a lightbulb, the hospital had a refrigerator, used by the entire village, and the chieftain’s hut had a radio.

  Midway up the valley, a hundred meters from the stream, running parallel to it, was an asphalt runway. It was nearly 4,000 meters long, and it was not parti
cularly level. Along its length, it rose and fell by several meters. It was not crowned well, and in the rainy season, pumps had to be used to drain the water from the pools that appeared. Asphalt was as rare as electricity and bespoke great wealth.

  A twin-rutted road that was not asphalted, and which became as slippery as snakes in the rainy season, wove its way from the runway, up the side of the hill, to the compound. There were six trucks that used the road frequently, in addition to occasional forays into the village. The trucks had been brought into the valley by large airplanes and had nowhere else to go but to the runway, to the village, and back to the compound.

  It was a large compound, and as it had grown, had amazed the villagers who walked up the valley to personally view the construction. The perimeter was composed of thick walls six meters tall. From the outside, above the walls, could be seen red-tiled roofs which joined to the walls. At intervals along the walls, high up, were small openings that appeared suspiciously to be gun ports. No one in the village had ever seen a fortress.

  One villager, who had paced off the perimeter during construction, had professed that the long sides were three hundred paces long, about three hundred meters, and the short sides were two hundred paces long.

  Inside, before the massive central doors in the wall had been closed to them, the villagers had seen houses being erected against the outside walls. They were tall houses, narrow, with two floors. Some houses appeared to have been constructed for the trucks.

  The trucks went back and forth to the runway, meeting airplanes bringing in the building materials and strange furnishings. Trees and shrubbery in heavy tubs were flown in. The machinery that made electricity was placed in its own house farther up the hill, and eventually the wires that carried the electricity were nailed high on the trees and brought down to the village.

  There was a little ceremony in which the chieftain thanked the master of the compound for his largesse.

  Bolts of fabric and exotic rugs were carried in on the airplanes. Utensils and china and clothing were reported by the young boys who spied on the airplanes.

  And then, several years before, all of the people who had constructed the compound got on the airplanes and left.