Men were “dying” because the Happy Hooligans from Fargo, North Dakota, were having an exceptionally good day. The 119th Fighter Interceptor Group was out in force, with four F-16 ADF Fighting Falcon air-defense fighters and two F-23 Wildcat advanced tactical fighters rotating shifts, plus two KC-10 aerial refueling tankers, and they were running rampant through the wide-open expanse of sky under Powder River MOA (Military Operating Areas) A and B.
The training sorties, which they had been running for the past several weeks, were all a part of General Calvin Jarrel’s Strategic Warfare Center program designed to train the aircrews that made up the newly integrated First Air Battle Wing.
Late on this particular afternoon, two F-23 Wildcat fighters were patrolling the Powder River MOA. In the lead was Colonel Joseph Mirisch, the deputy commander of operations of the 119th Fighter Interceptor Squadron from Fargo; his wingman was a relatively low-time Wildcat fighter named Ed Milo. After checking his wingman in, Mirisch took him over to the tactical intercept frequency and keyed his mike: “TOPPER, this is raider Two-Zero flight of two, bogey-dope.”
No reply.
“TOPPER, how copy?” Still no response. They were within range — what was going on here?.
On interplane frequency, Mirisch said, “I’ve got negative contact with the GCI controllers. Looks like we might be on our own.”
“Two,” was Milo’s response.
Mirisch tried a few more times to raise TOPPER, the call sign of their ground radar intercept team in the Strategic Range Training Complex, at the same time steering the formation toward the entry point of the military operating area. When they were at the right spot, Mirisch called out on an interplane, “Raider flight, still negative contact with GCI. Go to CAP orbit… now.”
“Two,” Milo said. On Mirisch’s order, Milo made a hard left bank and executed a full 180-degree turn until he was heading southeast toward the center of the MOA, while Mirisch continued heading toward the entry point of the MOA. They would continue to orbit the area in counterrotating ovals, offset about twenty miles apart, so that their radars would scan a greater section of sky at one time. When radar or visual contact was made, the other plane would rendezvous and press the attack.
There was only one more training sortie scheduled that day, call-sign Whisper One-Seven, that was not identified by type of aircraft. That didn’t matter, of course — it was a “bad guy,” it was invading the territory of the Happy Hooligans, and it was going to go down in flames.
That is, as soon as they could find it.
For some reason, both the VIP VO GCI radar sites at Lemmon and Belle Fourche had failed to report the position of any attackers — and now the sites were off the air, which in General Calvin JarrePs make-believe world on the Strategic Training Complex meant that the sites had been “destroyed.” But someone was out there, and the Happy Hooligans were going to find them…
“Twenty minutes to first launch point, Henry,” Patrick McLanahan announced. “Awaiting final range clearance.”
The B-2 Black Knight stealth bomber pilot, Major Henry Cobb, replied with a simple “Rog” on the interphone.
Patrick McLanahan looked over at his pilot. Cobb was not young — he had spent nearly seventeen years in the Air Force, most of it as a B-52 or B-l aircraft commander — and had been with the HAWC at Dreamland for only a year, specifically to fly HAWC’s B-2 bomber test article. Cobb was a most talented but, to McLanahan’s way of thinking, unusual pilot. Except to push a mode button on the main multi-function display, Cobb sat silently, unmoving, with one hand on the side-stick controller and the other on the throttles, from takeoff to landing. He flew the B-2 as if he, the human, were just another “black box,” as integral a part of the massive four-engine bomber as the wings. If he hadn’t been in a military aircraft with the threat of an “enemy” attack so imminent, Cobb seemed so calm and relaxed that it would have looked natural for him to cross his legs or recline in his seat and put his feet up.
