Lions of the Sky

by Paco Chierici

  The Yellow Shirt nodded and signaled for the Rhino’s chains to be removed. HOB answered, “Yes, sir. Considering our next port call is six months away, I’m pretty safe.”

  He released the parking brake as the Yellow Shirt signaled for taxi, then cracked the throttles and felt the plane roll forward. Taxiing on a carrier was as counterintuitive as landing on one. Just as he referenced the ball for glide-slope when landing, instead of looking at the spot where he would touch down, when he taxied he put all his trust in a series of young sailors to maneuver the 60 million jet through a crowded deck. He sensed his nose was inches from the jet just in front as he swung left toward the waist catapult, but he focused on the signals as he and HOB progressed from one handler to the next till their launch bar was snuggled into the shuttle. A couple of minutes later, at the stroke of 1000 hours, the steam hit and Lion 1 roared down the waist cat as he whooped into his mask like a kid on a roller coaster.

  Quick was positioned on the cat adjacent to Slammer. She had gone into tension just after he had and the instant his jet cleared the deck she was launched. The jet was fully laden with a combat load of missiles and fuel, and the extra weight called for a stronger shove, so once the steam hit she felt like the entire offensive line of the 49ers had jumped on her chest. She was pinned against the seat and all the air wheezed asthmatically from her lungs. A moment later the wheels cleared the deck and she was suddenly free, gulping a lungful of air. For a second she was concerned she wasn’t flying, then she realized that after the slingshot of a combat load catapult, even afterburner acceleration felt like standing still.

  She had just a moment to appreciate how fast things change before Tumor barked, “Gear,” over the intercom as she was reaching for the handle. Her new WSO didn’t seem to worry about patience or tact.

  Slammer’s jet was just a few hundred feet in front of her and she chased after him, accelerating to 400 knots just 500 feet over the choppy waves. After a few miles of hugging the ocean they cleared the edge of the carrier’s traffic area and pitched up aggressively, climbing through 20,000 feet in thirty seconds.

  As he nosed over, Slammer watched Quick pull smartly into close formation. He passed her a hand signal to take combat spread and she banked away, positioning herself a mile abeam.

  Fifteen minutes later they were at their Combat Air Patrol point, the CAP station a few hundred miles from Bush where they would fly a five-mile racetrack pattern. They were simulating protecting that flank of the Strike Group, orbiting at maximum conservation throttle setting until Banger detected a threat to vector them against.

  He peeked over at Quick, still a mile to his left, as he settled them into the imaginary racetrack. He mashed his oxygen mask, dangling from the left bayonet fitting, against his face to transmit, “Shrike One, Lion One. You up?”

  The answer came immediately. “Shrike one’s up. We’re ready as the Bogeys. Is Banger up for control?”

  Without skipping a beat the E-2 controller added his voice to the cadence. “This is the eye in the sky. Banger’s up and I have all the players on my scope. Understand the Blacklions are defense and the Shrikes are the bad guys?”

  “That’s affirm, Banger,” Slammer keyed his mic.

  “Banger copies. All players are on station. Fight’s on, fight’s on.”

  “Fighters echo, fight’s on.” Slammer clipped the right bayonet fitting into place, securing the mask to his face. Time to get serious. A glance confirmed Quick was still perfectly positioned as they tracked away from the threat sector on the cold side of their racetrack.

  Banger started the engagement cadence. “Lions, single group, bogeys, bearing one-eight-zero at fifty miles, hot.”

  Slammer snapped the Rhino into a left turn. “Lions committing your call. Declare?”

  “Banger, group one-eight-zero, bogey, bogey.” A bogey, or unidentified aircraft, could be a commercial plane or a threat fighter, or even a friendly. Bogey meant they were required to somehow verify the identity of the particular aircraft and today’s game called for the most difficult version of that scenario, the visual identification, or VID.

  There was no situation where the fighters were more vulnerable. They would not be able to use their long range missiles. Instead, they would have to poke their noses deep into a potential enemy’s missile envelope. And if they were skilled enough to get close-in and use their eyeballs to ID an enemy, then they would engage in the hand-to-hand combat version of aerial warfare, a close-quarter dogfight where anything could happen.

  “Lion Two has the bogeys,” Quick transmitted without pause. “Lead-trail. Lead’s at forty miles. Trail’s forty-five.” Slammer nodded. Good. She’d spotted them.

  A moment later his screen displayed the same contacts. “Lion One has the same, let’s offset to the east. Left to 150.” The jets banked in unison.

  She was feeling pretty good. Everything was happening just as Slammer had briefed. “Slammer’s a thinking man,” Tumor’s voice came over the intercom. “We’re offsetting into the sun. Once we turn back in they won’t see us coming with their radars or their eyeballs.”

  She nodded, vocalizing again the scenario they’d run though in the brief. “So Slammer will end up in front of me. He eyeballs the lead bogey then shoots the trail. Soon as I hear him call the ID, I shoot the lead.”

  “That’s it,” Tumor answered. “Easy as pie. No sweat, clean sweep.” She was nodding as Tumor added, “Just don’t shoot Slammer.”

  The seconds ticked by as they chased the sun at nearly supersonic speeds. She spent the majority of her brainpower staying in proper position with Slammer, scanning her radar screen every few seconds and watching the two Shrikes playing bogeys march down the right side of her radar. The Shrike symbols indicated a high-speed trajectory pointing past Lion 1 and 2 directly at the ship as she and Slammer were driving to outflank them to the southeast. She began to wonder if they were going to miss their opportunity to intercept when Slammer’s voice came through. “Lions, come right to Two-zero-zero.”

  Before she could answer Tumor keyed the mic, “Lion Two copies.” Then he spoke to her over the intercom. “Get ready, this happens fast.”

  She banked hard, pulling 4 Gs to the intercept heading. Slammer’s jet was about a mile on her nose. “Ready,” she breathed.

  “Here we go,” Slammer transmitted. ”I’m taking him down my right side. I’ve got a lock on the trail. You got the lead?”

  “That’s affirm,” She responded. “Fox-2 selected.” She could hear the low growl of the missile’s infrared seeker confirming her selection. Squinting through the Plexiglas windscreen she could barely make out the dot of the target as they raced closer. But at this speed they were closing at a breathtaking 20 miles per minute.

  A moment later Slammer flashed by the lead Shrike and called, “Fox-3! Confirmed Su-27s. Shoot, Shoot!” She knew he was confirming the lead as hostile and using guilt by association to shoot the trail. Now it was her job to shoot the lead Slammer had just flown past.

  Her target was locked up on radar and the now high warbling tone from the missile told her it was locked on the heat of the bogey. As Slammer flashed by, the Shrike cranked into a high G turn across his tail, coming between them. She was about to squeeze the trigger when Tumor yelled over the intercom, “Don’t shoot! Slammer’s on the nose.” She released the pressure on the trigger and noticed she was staring through the Heads-Up-Display at both Slammer and the Shrike’s tailpipes. The heat-seeking missile wasn’t discreet enough to guarantee it wouldn’t go after the wrong jet, leaving a chance she might shoot down her own lead.

  Train the way you fight. “Shit,” she muttered, momentarily paralyzed, unsure how to proceed with the rapidly unraveling plan. She watched far above as Slammer’s Rhino pulled lazily straight into the clear blue sky, obviously unaware of the Shrike chasing him uphill. All the while she zipped below them both at 600 knots craning her head up to keep sight.

  “PULL!” Tumor’s voice exploded in her ears
and she yanked back on the stick shoving the throttles into full afterburner. The nose snapped up and crushed them both under the instantaneous Gs. “What the hell you waiting for? Slammer’ll be defensive soon!”

  She gasped for breath as she fumbled for the radar switch and selected Fox-3. She still had a chance to get the shot off. The Shrike had lost a lot of energy turning all the way around to chase Slammer. She looked above and saw Slammer’s Rhino beginning to pitch back down from the top of his high loop.

  “Quick! Where the hell are you?” Slammer exclaimed. He’d obviously spotted the plane on his tail.

  “I’m engaged. Shot in five.” She looked up through the top of her canopy as Slammer’s Rhino tried desperately to squirm away from the Shrike. The two planes passed the horizon going down as she kept her 8 G pull up and over, tracking her nose quickly toward the Shrike. Her radar was sweeping back and forth at the top of the Heads-Up-Display, desperately seeking something to lock onto. As soon as it nailed the Shrike she would shoot. Almost. Got. Him.

  Bam. The radar settled and a box appeared on her Heads-Up-Display superimposing the Shrike. She squeezed the trigger and transmitted, “FOX-3!”

  As she released the mic switch she heard the Shrike call a shot, using the term for an enemy missile, “Archer. That’s a kill on Slammer.” The Shrike was right behind Slammer. Even though her own simulated missile would eventually blow the Shrike up in three seconds, the bandit’s Archer missile had already killed her lead. Slammer was dead. Total failure.

  Slammer’s clipped transmission followed immediately. “Copy kill. Knock it off.”

  She could hear the disappointment in his voice as she echoed the knock-it-off call. She fingered the ejection handle, wondering if it might be better to just punch out than face the debrief.

  They flew the same scenario two more times, and she shot the lead Shrike promptly on both. But she knew he was taking it easy on her. He never maneuvered, he never went after Slammer, he just offered himself up as a sitting duck. And she knew it for what it was, a slap. A double sign of failure. Not only was the first engagement the only one they counted, because in combat you don’t get a redo, but he was taking it easy because he didn’t think she could handle it.

  Half an hour later she was still fuming but she managed to stuff the self-loathing into a box while concentrating on the landing. She focused on flying the ball with venom and precision, but when the shadow of her plane crossed from water to metal, she overcorrected a small settle, flattening her glide path. Her heart sank into her stomach as she saw the ball shoot off the top of the lens. Before her wheels even touched the deck the LSOs called “Bolter, bolter” over the tower frequency. She’d floated too far to catch a wire.

  “Can this day get any worse?” she muttered, forgetting Tumor could hear her on hot mic.

  “It can always get worse,” he answered. “Just land this thing. I’ve got to piss like a horse.”

  Across the ship Dusty and JT were walking in opposite directions around their Rhino, preflighting in the shadow of the island. She’d been fighting a cold for the past few days and as she reached the nose of the jet she sneezed into the crook of her arm as JT rounded the nosecone. He unclipped his bandana from his harness and offered it up. She hesitated, wanting to be clear that their détente didn’t include friendship, just civil tolerance on her part. Then she took the cloth, deciding that civil tolerance could legitimately include blowing her nose into his rag.

  They paused for a second to watch the Rhinos and Hornets from the previous launch float overhead to enter the holding pattern. “I’m actually looking forward to that part,” she said.

  “Landing? You should be,” he said. “You’re really good at it.” He jammed his helmet over his head and gestured toward the ladder. “Now let’s go get good at the other stuff. After you.”

  She nodded, squeezing her own helmet on before climbing up to her seat. A few minutes later they taxied toward the catapult in the humid hot cockpit.

  Back in the Ready Room, Slammer put the red marker back in its cap after drawing a cloud around the arrow symbolizing his demise. He turned to the sight of Quick slumped in her chair. Tumor and HOB were chatting, comparing radar modes and WSO switches.

  “Alright. Let’s get this over with. We’ve got to cram some food in before tonight’s flight.” He spent the first few minutes reviewing the routine administrative facets of the flight. Nitpicky housekeeping items they could improve like talking on the radio and flying formation. The majority of the errors were heaped upon Quick’s shoulders. A missed call here, out of position there. It was the nature of being new combined with the stress created by the high expectations of the situation. But with each critique, he noticed her shoulders sagging further. It’s a sink-or-swim world out here girl, he thought. You’d better get stroking.

  He turned to the white board to break down the first engagement. Arrow by arrow, minute by minute, he explained the minutia leading to him getting shot. He didn’t hold back, despite Quick’s mood clearly darkening with each word. Wrapping it up he said, “The bottom line is this. We have a plan, a good plan. But no matter how good our plans are, they never survive the first merge. The bad guys have their own plans, and they rarely mesh nicely with ours. Aerial combat is a series of dynamic sets of problem solving. Execute, assess, react, then back to execute. The longer it takes you to assess, the higher the likelihood someone on your team is going to die.”

  He paused, taking in the somber mood of his audience. “Okay, enough for now. Go eat, get a nap. We’ll have a new scenario tonight.” HOB, Tumor, and Quick climbed to their feet. As the WSOs made their way out, he put his hand on Quick’ shoulder. “Do you mind holding up a second? I’ve got one last thing.” She looked tired and more than a little dejected. The spark of wild confidence that had burned in her eyes was gone. She nodded and sank into a seat. He took the one next to her.

  Part of him was pissed. Angry that this girl, this pilot, brimming with talent and self-assurance just weeks ago had allowed herself to be so easily crushed by the situation. But he swallowed the deep irritation and composed himself. He’d promised JT to give the women a chance. They had a week remaining to forge some grace under pressure.

  “Listen, I don’t know what you were expecting, but this is okay.” She regarded him with a suspicious eye. “You’re coming from a world where you were required to do only one thing very well per day. You went through training slicing up components of a real flight into edible segments. Formation one day, bombing the next, dogfight on another, then you got to spend a whole month practicing to land on the ship before carrier quals. Today was your first grownup mission. You took a massive fucking bite of everything you learned in the last nine months, and choked it down all at once. Next time it’ll be easier, and so on.”

  She nodded robotically, her face blank. Her impassivity tweaked the kernel of anger in his stomach. “You sure sucked. I’ll give you that.”

  She looked at the floor between her feet, which pissed him off further. “Maybe you’re not as much of a natural as I believed. I think I like that.” He saw some color rise in her cheeks. “There’s no accidental fighter pilots, Quick. You want it, you’ve got to grab it. No one’s going to give it to you.”

  She climbed to her feet, nodded curtly, and walked out.

  Out in the area JT and Dusty were flying on the wing of her new lead, Skids. She hadn’t been able to get a good read on Skids, but his WSO, Tiny, seemed like a competent guy. He was in Skids’ back seat working the same radar problem Slammer had devised for the whole squadron. She was feeling fairly comfortable with the scenario and the flight so far. She anticipated the turn away, and when Skids called for them to turn back into the bogeys, she put herself into perfect position a mile behind him.

  “Nice,” JT chirped from her back seat.

  The situation began to unravel once they were nose on and closing quickly with the bogeys. The radar picture should have shown a lead-trail formation. That’s
what had been briefed and was the picture Dusty had engraved in her head. She knew she was supposed to target the lead Shrike. But the picture on the radar screen sent waves of confusion washing over her. The blips on her screen were abeam each other. And to further muddy the picture her lead, Skids, was evenly splitting the middle giving her no sense as to which plane he was going to go after.

  She was a little irked that JT picked up on her confusion from the rapid little inputs of the wings. She told herself to lighten up; he’d been an instructor long enough to interpret the signs. “It’s okay, Dusty. The bogeys leaned into us a little. Stay on yours.”

  “That’s not super helpful,” she snapped. She looked at her screen again. The the geometry from which they were intercepting the bogeys made the formation appear like targets about 2 miles abeam each other. This wasn’t in the brief. Which one was hers?

  She could tell immediately he was frustrated with her answer. “It’s the right one, Dusty. The right one was the lead. Now get him!”

  She banked hard right to point at her bogey. As she was reversing she heard Skids call the ID. “Shoot shoot, Flanker. No shot for Skids. I’m engaged.” That was the call she needed to pull the trigger, but she was too close as well. There was a flashing giant X in her Heads-Up-Display indicating she was too tight to use the selected missile.

  She blew past the lead Shrike and pulled into the vertical as hard as she could, zooming toward the sun. The Gs squeezed the blood away from her eyes causing a shadow of gray to creep in from her peripherals. She hadn’t pulled Gs for almost a month now and it was not something she loved to begin with. She eased her pull slightly and contracted her abdominal muscles as hard as she could, pushing the gray away. “Copy. I’m engaged,” she answered.

  “You got him?” JT asked. Crap. No, she didn’t. She spun her head wildly, looking down for a plane to attack.