“But I might have my missiles in the air by then,” Patrick said. “If not, I sure as heck will not stay high over a target area. I’ve got an infrared camera that can see the ground, and the pilots have windows — those boys better be flying in the dirt with fighters on my tail. Even the F-23 advanced tactical fighter can’t fight close to the ground — they have to rely on taking ‘look-down’ shots from higher altitudes. That’s where a stealthy plane has the advantage.”
Ormack didn’t have a reply right away — he was thinking hard about McLanahan’s arguments. “You bring up a few good points, Patrick,” Ormack admitted. “You know what this calls for, don’t you?”
“RED FLAG,” McLanahan replied. “No — better yet, the Strategic Warfare Center. General Jarrel’s little playland up in South Dakota.”
“You got it,” Ormack said. “We’ll have to put an EB-2 up against a few fighters on Jarrel’s range and see what happens. Maybe even have them fly along with other aircraft on the range to see if our escorts can be effective with other strike aircraft.” He smiled at McLanahan and added, “I think that can be arranged. We can send you out to the Strategic Warfare Center for some operational test flights when the 393rd Bomb Squadron goes to the SWC in a few months. I’ll bring it up to General Elliott, but I think he’ll go for it. You might have just found yourself a new job, Patrick — developing penetration and attack techniques for Black Knight stealth escort crews.”
“Throw me in the briar patch,” McLanahan said as they moved forward to the entry hatch.
McLanahan’s new bird was AF SAC 90-007, the seventh B-2 bomber built. He found the plane’s nickname, “License to Kill,” stenciled on the entry hatch as he and Ormack walked to it and opened it up to climb inside — it was a perfect nickname. Patrick checked that the “Alert Start” switch was off and safed — the B-2 had a button in the entry hatch that would start the bomber’s internal power unit and turn on power and air before the pilots reached the cockpit. With this system, the B-2 could have engine started, the inertial navigation system aligned, and the plane taxiing for takeoff in less than three minutes, without any external power carts or crew chiefs standing by. Ormack did activate the “Int Power” switch in the entry way, which activated internal power on the plane.
Unlike the B-l bomber, whose offensive and defensive stations seemed to have been put in reluctantly, almost haphazardly, the B-2’s cockpit was massive. There was almost enough room for McLanahan to stand up straight as he slid into the right seat and began to strap in.
Ormack looked at the young navigator with amusement as he set his seat and even put on a pair of flying gloves. “Going somewhere?”
“You want a redesigned cockpit, sir, then you gotta do it with the crew dog strapped into position,” McLanahan replied. “The reach is much different. If I had a helmet, I’d put it on.” Ormack nodded his agreement and smiled — as usual, McLanahan was getting right down to business.
The bomber’s left instrument panel was like a television director’s console. Four color MFDs, or multi-function displays, dominated the instrument panel; each MFD was encircled with buttons that would change the screen’s function, allowing hundreds of different displays on each screen. The bomber used small sidestick controllers, like a fighter plane, with throttle quadrants to the left of each seat and the button-festooned control stick to the right. Each seat also had a wide, oval-shaped heads-up display, or HUD, that would project flight and attack information on the windscreen.
“Where’re all the instruments?” McLanahan exclaimed with obvious surprise. “There’s hardly anything installed in here. Did they give us a stripped-down test article or what?”
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“But I don’t see any flight-control system switches,” McLanahan persisted. “What about a flap lever? Gear handle? How do you raise the landing gear — haul it up with a rope?”
“This is almost the twenty-first century, my friend,” Ormack replied. “We don’t move levers — we tell the plane what to do and it takes care of it.” He pointed to the right- hand MFD at each station, which showed a simple five-line menu: BATT POWER, APU POWER, ALERT START, NORMAL START, and EMER START. Each item was located next to a corresponding button on the screen. -
