“That damn thing was locked onto
“Bullet Four, bandits turning right away from you, range eleven miles,” the AWACS controller reported. “Bullet Five, bandit moving across your nose at six miles… Four is well clear at your five o’clock position low.”
“Bullet Five, fox two,” Povik’s wingman cried out. He looked up just as an eerie streak of light flashed out above them. A second streak lashed out — Povik’s wingman was going for the jugular, not just to scare anyone off. The heat-seeking AIM-9R Sidewinder missiles curled to the right and dipped lower, chasing the fighters. Seconds later there were two explosions; the second explosion was much larger and more sustained as the damaged Chinese fighter began to cartwheel to the ocean. They caught the Chinese fighter in a perfect pincer maneuver, with the bandit so intent on killing the guy in front of him that he forgot about the second Tomcat slashing in from above. Luckily, the second Chinese bandit didn’t try his own pincer move — it might have worked, because Povik’s wingman was definitely tunnel-visioned in on his own quarry, and Povik’s Tomcat was on the wrong side of the energy curve and probably didn’t have the speed to defend.
“Bullet Five, splash one,” the AWACS controller reported. “Second bandit at your two o’clock position, high, looks like he might be extending. Heading zero-two-five to intercept. Additional bandits now at your eleven o’clock position, high, Blue plus thirty miles. Be advised, bandit number two heading northwest now, decelerating and descending rapidly, looks like he might be CAPing for his buddy.” The second Chinese fighter was apparently going to set up an orbit over his damaged wingman to help out in a search and rescue effort — he was out of the fight for now. “Will advise if he tries to re-engage. Bullet flight, say bingo.”
That reminded Povik to check his own fuel state, and it was worse than he figured — even those few seconds in afterburner sucked up a lot of precious fuel. He was two thousand pounds below his bingo fuel level — he would be in emergency fuel levels in just a few minutes. They were in big trouble even without four more bad guys on their tail. “Bullet Four is bingo, give me a vector to home plate.”
“Bullet Five is three minutes to bingo,” Povik’s wingman added..“I can take a vector to Bullet Two flight if they need help.”
“Don’t think that’ll be necessary, Bullet Five,” the AWACS controller said. “Bullet Two flight is engaging, Bullet Six flight is airborne, and Bullet Eight flight is reporting ready. Home plate wants you to RTB. Heading one-three- two, stand by for your approach controller.”
“Copy, Basket,” Povik replied. That was perfectly fine with him, Povik thought. There was a time to fight and a time to run, and there was nothing ignoble about running now.
“Take the shot, Banger!” Lieutenant Commander Carl Roberts shouted. “Take the damned shot!”
Chasing down the four Chinese fighters — they still did not know what kind of fighters they were dealing with — was getting deadly serious. While continuing warning messages on the Guard channel, the four Chinese fighters continued barreling straight for the RC-135, not bothering to perform any diversionary jinks or heading changes. Although the four aircraft had split into two groups, with one group going high and the others a few thousand feet lower, they were just barreling in on the four Tomcats, not trying to maneuver or jink around at all. They were simply going balls to the wall — the higher group nearly at five hundred and fifty knots, the lower jets about five hundred knots.
The threat to the Air Force plane was obvious to Carl Roberts, the radar intercept officer on Bullet Two. He had locked up the bandits on radar immediately, hoping that the squeal of the AWG-9 radar on the Chinese fighter’s threat warning receivers might make them turn away. No such luck. The Chinese fighters kept coming. “You got no choice, Banger,” Roberts shouted again to his pilot, Lieutenant James Douglas. VThese guys will blow past us unless we slow ’em down, and a missile launch is the only way.”
