by Dale Brown
“I’m receiving heavy jamming and I can’t maintain a radar lock. Close us within PL-2 missile range. You have the lead.”
“I have the lead.” The JS-7 pilot could feel the tension grow in his arms and shoulders as he made the dangerous transition from following his radar cues and searching out the windscreen for terrain to picking up the A-5K’s dim formationlights. He used a few notches of airbrakes to slide back and ease into a comfortable position on the A-5’s right wing, but he immediately edged away from the fighter-bomber in a momentary panic when he thought he was getting sucked in too close. It took several moments of adjusting before he could inch back in to proper wingman position. At night, only a few meters away from another fighter loaded with weapons, traveling over sixteen kilometers per minute close to the ground, chasing down a heavily armed and dangerous intruder-it was some of the most dangerous flying around. The two crew members of the B-2 Black Knight stealth bomber only seventeen miles ahead of the Chinese pilots might have disagreed. Cobb had the power up to full military thrust, trying desperately to make it to the cover of the hills to the west. “Fighter’s crossing behind us, ” McLanahan told him. “They found us… fighter radar’s down now. They might be engaging visually or by IR.” He set the B-2’s MAWS system from “Passive” to “Active.” MAWS, or Missile Approach Warning System, used small passive infrared sensors to search for nearby aircraft that might be a threat. Once a threat was located, it would lock onto it and continue to track it. If MAWS detected a second flash of light from that same target-indicating the ignition of a missile’s rocket motor-it would activate the bomber’s ALQ-I99A Doppler radar missile tracking system to track the missiles and begin active countermeasures. “I’m launching the SLAM missiles-at least we’ll take out the radar before these bozos get us.” McLanahan touched the weapon icons at the bottom of the Super Multi Function Display, overrode the mission timing schedule of the computer that deconflicted weapon releases for the entire strike package, then commanded the two Standoff Land Attack Missiles to launch. Cobb had to allow the bomber to climb an excruciatingly high one hundred extra feet before the missiles would start their countdown: “Altitude hold off… missile one counting down. . . doors open. . . missile one away. . . launcher rotating… missile two away… doors closed… altitude hold back on, descend back to one hundred feet TFR.” Although they still had two SLAMs and two HARM antiradar missiles remaining, their primary mission was completed-as the old bomber pilot’s saying goes, once the bombs are gone, you’re not flying for Uncle Sam anymore; you’re flying for yourself. Cobb and McLanahan started flying for their lives. … “Missiles! Bomber launching missiles!” the A-5K pilot screamed. On his TV sensor he could clearly see the two missiles slowly speed away from the bomber’s belly. . . and the sight filled him with an almost overwhelming red-hot rage. He selected a PL-2 heat-seeking missile and hit the “Launch” button when the bomber was directly in front of him. He realized after launching the missile that he was still too far out and did not give the missile enough time to lock on, but at this range, he could not miss. . . “We’re not going to find anyplace to hide in these hills here, ” McLanahan said, checking the computer-generated terrain depiction on the Super Multi Function Display. Without one squeak of radar energy being transmitted, the computer drew all the terrain, rivers, valleys, and cities on the SMFD, updating their position with every turn-but right now it was not giving them any good news. Unless they flew their B-2 below one hundred feet, those hills would not provide enough cover to shake off their pursuers. We should-” He was interrupted with a flashing “Missile Launch” indication and the computer-generated words, “Infrared Missile Launch… Break… Infrared Missile Launch… Break” in the interphone. “Break right!” McLanahan shouted. At the same time, he checked to make sure that the electronic-countermeasures computer had launched decoy flares and had activated their HAVE GLANCE infrared jammers, a device that would use laser beams guided by the ALQ- I 99 missile warning radar to blind and distort the enemy missile’s seeker heads and make it difficult for a heat-seeking missile to lock onto the B-2’s engine exhausts. It was the first time Patrick had ever observed a missile launch on the Super Multi Function Display, and it was weirdly fascinating-like watching an arrow speeding to its target in slow motion, except this arrow was speeding at them! The MAWS sensors had tracked the fighters to the rear quadrant, and when the heat-seeking sensors detected the missile launch, it automatically activated the ALQ- 199 tracking radars and laser jammers. The fighters were depicted as red triangles with squares around them, highlighting them as the major threat against the B-2, and when the missiles were picked up by the ALQ-199 they appeared as blinking red circles. The SMFD redrew the scene, zooming in on the B-2 icon, the terrain immediately surrounding the bomber, and the pursuing fighters. The dots initially swerved left to follow the decoy flares as they ejected from the left ejector racks, but they immediately realigned themselves on the B-2. A tiny data block showed time since launch and estimated time to impact-the “time-to die meter.” It had initially started at twelve seconds, but as the Chinese PL-~ missile accelerated to its top speed of Mach three, the time to impact wound down to five seconds and counted down swiftly. But the missile had to make a hard left turn to follow the decoy flare, and when it reacquired the bomber’s hot exhausts it began a hard right turn. The missile was “stressed, ” losing energy and skidding all over the sky-it was ready to be aced. “Break left!” McLanahan shouted, and he ejected two flares from the right ejectors. At the same time, the HAVE GLANCE laser jammer, which had begun tracking the missile via the ALQ-I99 warning radar, had locked onto the PL-2 and began bombarding it with high-energy laser light. As the missile swung back to the left to reacquire the bomber, the laser beam shined directly on the seeker head, instantly burning out its sensitive gallium-arsenide eye and rendering the missile useless. But McLanahan couldn’t celebrate yet-the Chinese fighter had launched a second missile, this time from even closer range-McLanahan noticed a 00:04:39 in the time-to-die meter almost immediately. There was no time to turn, no time for a break maneuver. “Climb!” McLanahan shouted, and he began pumping out flares as fast as he could. The tactic worked. The second missile, the A-5K’s last heatseeker, lost the hot engine exhausts for a split second. Although the missile started a climb in pursuit, the lock-on was lost, and the PL-2’s twenty-eight-pound warhead automatically detonated-but only thirty feet away from the B-2’s left engine nacelle. The explosion sawed off twenty feet of the left inboard elevon, the flaplike control surface on the wing’s trailing edge, completely separating it from the bomber. It sliced into hydraulic lines, cut open the left trailing edge fuel tank, and blew out two of the left main gear tires, which ripped open the left fuel tank completely. Raw fuel began streaming out of the bomber; the self-sealing foam fuel tanks kept the fuel from spreading to the engine compartment, but within seconds the left trailing edge fuel tank was empty and the number-one primary hydraulic system was dead. Inside the cockpit, the explosion, the shock, the concussion, and the vibration were as severe as if they had hit the The airspeed dropped one hundred knots as the huge bomber uncontrollably heaved and rocked across the sky-the Black Knight seemed to spin violently to the left, toward the dead number-one engine. The controls shook violently, then turned mushy and completely unresponsive, then seemed to freeze. The left wing dipped lower and lower, and there seemed nothing Cobb could do to stop it. “We’re hit!” Cobb screamed. He hauled on the sidestick controller with all the strength of his right arm. “Get on the controls!” he shouted to McLanahan. “Get the left wing up!” McLanahan unstowed his sidestick controller, which was normally stowed underneath the right instrument panel glare shield. He moved the grip but nothing happened. “It’s not active!” The interphone died as the number-one generator popped off-line. Cobb ripped off his oxygen mask and screamed, “Then get out, Patrick! Get out!” Despite the emergency, Cobb still wasn’t going to yell “Eject!”-that would elicit an immediate response from any
well-trained crew dog. “Get the wing up, Henry!” McLanahan yelled. Cobb took his left hand off the throttles and pushed on his control stick. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the left wing seemed to riseand McLanahan decided right then and there that he wasn’t going to eject. The bomber could be milliseconds from hitting the ground, there could be a fire spreading through the bomb bays-but unless Cobb ordered him to eject he was going to stay. There was enough of a hint of aircraft control left to convince him they still had a chance. Several loud bangs rattled the three-hundred-thousandpound bomber as if a giant hand were throwing them against a mountainside, picking them up, then hurling them again. McLanahan turned away from his pilot and scanned the engine and flight instruments. “Airspeed one-eighty. RPMs on number-one engine fifty percent, TIT and EGT on redline . . . number-one engine compressor stall, shut down number one. Number-one throttle.” McLanahan put his left hand on the center console throttle quadrant, guarding the three good engines to make sure Cobb didn’t shut off a good engine. The leftmost throttle snapped back to idle, then to “Cutoff.” A compressor stall was a common but potentially dangerous engine malfunction in which the airflow through the engine is disrupted and the engine stops producing thrust-but fuel continues to flow through the engine and ignite in terrific shuddering explosions, one after the other, causing a huge fire inside the combustion chamber. “Off!” Cobb yelled back. “Turbine inlet temperature and exhaust temps, ” McLanahan said. He checked the right-side multi-function display, but it had gone dead when the number-one engine generator popped off-line, so he went to the rows of tiny standby gauges. “RPMs on number-one forty percent, TIT and EGT still redline. All the others are OK. Gotta shut number one down.” Since the MFDs had shut off, they couldn’t tell if the computer had already initiated the shutdown procedures, so they assumed it had not. “Fuel cutoff T-handle, number-one engine, pull.”
“You get it!” Cobb yelled-he dared not take a hand off the control stick. McLanahan released the inertial reel lock on his shoulder harness and reached across the forward instrument panel to a row of yellow-and-black-striped handles labeled “Emergency Fuel CutoffPull.” He laid his left hand on the first handle, stopped, double-checked that he had the right oneagain, to avoid shutting down a good engine and killing them for sure-then pulled the handle. “Number one T-handle, pull. Fire lights.” McLanahan checked the row of engine fire lights near each T-handle-all four were out. He hit the “Press to Test” button to doublecheck that the bulbs were still good-they were. Fire lights out. Engine instruments.” The pilot’s right multi-function display was black, so McLanahan ran his fingers across the standby engine instrument gauges at the bottom center of the forward instrument panel. “TIT and EGT high but coming ……. EGT below redline. I think we got it. Number-one primary hydraulic system is out. Electric system is reset-turn the number-one generator off when you can. “I can’t.” McLanahan was going to continue reciting the rest of the emergency checklist, but all of the critical “bold print” items were done-the rest of the items were double-checks. The Black Knight bomber apeared to be wings-level, and finally Cobb was able to take his left hand off the control stick. He spent a few moments shutting off equipment that ran off the number-one engine, then slowly resumed his usual stony position-one hand on the throttle, one hand on the sidestick controller, eyes caged straight ahead, although this time with a few more noticeable glances around the cockpit. It was hard to believe, but it had taken only ten seconds from the missile explosion to wings-level-to McLanahan, it seemed like a slow-motion eternity. He had once again experienced Death creeping toward him, and it was even more horrifying the second time. The feeling of utter helplessness was so overwhelming that it often threatened to shut crews down. Only their long hours of drill, training, and simulator sessions pulled them through it in time. “Bring us right if you can, ” McLanahan said. He put his SMFD in reset, then reactivated it and found to his surprise that the navigation system was still running. “Mount Apo is at our two o’clock position, eight miles. It’s our last hope. Heading zero-three-five.” The single bright flash of light was followed by a long tongue of flame that lasted for several seconds, and part of that flame seemed to shoot out forwards as well as backwards. “Good hit! Good hit!” the A-5K pilot cried out. “Strike . . . !” But in his exuberance, the pilot again forgot he was in formation. When the trail of fire began to arc to the right he immediately banked right in response, directly into the path of the JS-7 fighter. With the excitement of the missile launch, the blood pounding in his head, and the adrenaline rushing through his brain, theJS-7 pilot immediately broke right and climbed away. ‘han Zero-Nine, lost wingman, ” he cried over the command radio. Suddenly realizing that he didn’t know where he was-except that he was at three hundred meters altitude, flying near a 3, 200-meter-high mountain-he immediately began a climb to his area minimum safe altitude, which in this sector was 3, 300 meters. “Zero-Nine climbing to min safe altitude.”
