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, the JS-7 pilot immediately broke right and climbed away.
“Get back here!” the pilot of the A-5K shouted furiously on the radio. “I have no more heat-seekers. You have to engage!”
“Zero-Nine is lost-wingman, no contact with the terrain,” the JS-7 shouted. '7 do not have a TV camera to watch for terrain. I will re-acquire. Stand by…”
“EGT is back below redline,” McLanahan said. “Try a restart.” Cobb pushed the fuel cutoff T-handle back in to reopen the fuel lines, selected the “Engine Status” menu on his left MFD, selected “Restart,” and advanced the number- one throttle when directed by the computer.
It was a mistake. As soon as the engine began spooling up, the bright-red “Fire” light came on. The computer immediately began shutdown procedures, and this time Cobb manually activated the fuel cutoff T-handle himself and hit the number-one engine’s fire extinguisher system to make sure the fire was out. The “Fire” light extinguished immediately, and all other systems remained normal.
“Must be hydraulic fuel leaking into the engine or a serious fuel leak,” Cobb said. “Looks like we finish this mission on three engines.” He put the B-2’s infrared scanner image on his right MFD and resumed his usual position, staring straight ahead, unmoving. “Where are those fighters?”
“One still on our tail; he’s dropped back to eight miles, and he hasn’t taken another shot yet,” McLanahan said. “The other guy broke off to our five o’clock position and went high — he might be setting up for a high gun pass or a home-on-jam missile shot if they got a missile that’ll do it. All trackbreakers are still active.” He quickly switched to the data-link channel for the SLAM missiles, but the screen on the left side of his SMFD was blank. “Shit, looks like we lost contact with the missiles when the power dropped out. I’ll try to reacquire it…
“What do we do when we reach Mount Apo?”
“Fly around it… and pray,” McLanahan said. “It’s our only hope of losing these jokers.” McLanahan expanded his SMFD display back to its normal God’s-eye display — and then he saw them. “Henry!” he called over to Cobb. “Turn right to one-two-zero and climb to nine thousand seven hundred feet. Fly right over the peak of Mount Apo.” “Nine thousand feet!” Cobb said. “We’ll be exposed! Half the Chinese fleet will be able to see us!”
“But we’ll have some help if we make it on time,” McLanahan said. “Do it.” Cobb pulled back on the control stick and maintained as steep a climb as the stricken bomber could manage. The Black Knight barely held two hundred and fifty knots as Cobb put the nose right on the infrared image of the radar dome atop Mount Apo and headed straight for it…
