“Five minutes to bingo,” Povik’s RIO said. “Time to get out of here.” Povik was continuing to maneuver on a more or less westerly heading, still trying to put as much distance between the two Chinese fighters and the RC-135 as he could until the two extra Bullet fighters arrived.
“Few more turns and then we’ll bug out,” Povik said. “I need to make sure those bozos on us can’t go after that recon plane.”
The Chinese fighters were laying off for now — they were still about nine miles somewhere behind them, closing only when Povik tried a large turn but backing off again when he returned to straight and level. Povik’s ALR-45 threat-wam- ing receiver was showing the Chinese fighter’s position as an “S” with a diamond around it on his rear hemisphere — that was the fighter’s search radar, reported to be a Type 225 Skyranger range-only radar. That meant the Chinese probably didn’t have radar-guided missiles, which in turn meant they wouldn’t attack unless they were within about five to six miles. According to Intelligence, these were supposed to be J-7 fighters, copies of the Soviet Union’s MiG-21 fighter. The Chinese had another fighter, called the J-8 “Finback,” with an L-band multi-mode radar, but that would show on the threat warning receiver as an inverted V “bat-wing” symbol, not an “S.” The Finback was supposed to be deployed only to protect cities and, the spooks said, would probably not be encountered way out here.
“Bullet, Bullet Two flight of two is engaging the other two bandits,” the AWACS controller reported. “I show you two minutes to bingo. You’ve got two, possibly four more bandits northwest of your position at Blue plus forty, closing at six hundred knots.”
That was all Povik was waiting for. “Copy, Basket. I’m not getting any radar warning signals from these guys — they just might be sitting on us.” Povik’s older, less capable ALR- 45 threat warning receiver was little more than a glorified fuzz-buster that could tell him that there was a threat out there but not reliably tell where or what. “We’re bugging out of here. Bullet Five, I’m coming left first. I’ll take anybody who tries to get behind you.”
“Two,” came the usual wingman’s reply.
Povik had just started his hard left turn when he heard his wingman scream, “Missile launch! Hitman, missile on you!”
“Shit,” Povik cursed at himself, not one squawk from his threat-warning receivers — sometimes they were useless pieces of garbage. “Gimme chaff and flares, Bear. Find the missile!”
“I can’t see it!” Blevin shouted. His oxygen mask was flattened against the right side of the canopy as Povik tightened up his left turn and the G-forces increased. “I can’t see it!” He continued to hit the chaff-and-flare buttons; he could see each flare cartridge flying into the darkness, burning as bright as a welder’s torch, but not the enemy missile. His F-14 was equipped with one ALE-29 pod loaded with thirty infrared missile-decoy flares and one ALE-39 box loaded with sixty chaff cartridges to decoy radar-guided missiles. The pods were supposed to be slaved to the AAR-47 IR warning sensor and the ALR-45 radar threat-warning receiver so cartridges would eject automatically, but the system had so many false alarms that the decoy dispensers were left on manual all the time.
“Hitman!” his wingman shouted. “On your left! Missile turning inside you! Hit your burners!” Blevin fought the G-forces and stared out the left side. He saw the missile immediately — a tiny yellow phosphorescent dot, growing larger as it spiraled in on them.
Povik didn’t hesitate — he jammed both throttles to max afterburner and felt the satisfying kick as eight gallons of raw fuel a second were dumped into the burner cans, creating a flame a hundred feet long behind the Tomcat. It was a last-ditch move to defeat a heat-seeking missile that was locked onto your aircraft instead of on a decoy flare — light the afterburners and hope the long flame steered the missile away in time…
Blevin cried out, “Jesus, oh Jesus…” But just as he expected the missile to hit, he could see it veer to the right and pass behind them. “It’s turning away! Burners off, increase left break!” Blevin was thrown against his shoulder straps as Povik yanked the throttles out of afterburner and into 80-percent power, and he continued to hit the flare eject button until the Chinese missile was lost from sight. Thankfully, the missile did not explode after sensing it had missed — it had passed close enough that its warhead would have done considerable damage. “God
