With the fighter’s attack radars in standby or in intermittent use, the B-2’s most powerful sensor was the ALQ-158 digital tail-warning radar, a pulse-Doppler radar that scanned the skies behind the bomber and presented a picture of the positions of the fighters as they prosecuted their attack. Each time the fighters began to maneuver close enough for a gun shot, McLanahan called out a warning and Cobb jinked away, never in a predictable pattern, always mixing sudden altitude changes in with subtle speed changes. Without their attack radar, the F-23 pilots had to rely on visual cues to decide when to open fire. If nothing else, they were losing points or wasting ammunition — at best, the B-2 might escape out of the MOA before the fighters closed within lethal range.
Plus, they had one more ace in the hole, but they were running out of time. “Guardian must be around here close to be blotting out the radios like this,” McLanahan told Cobb and Ormack, “but I have no way of knowing where he is. He might be only a few minutes away…”
“Fox three, Fox three, Raider Two-Zero, guns firing,” Mirisch cried out on the primary radio. The B-2 had finally remained steady for the first time in this entire chase, long enough for Milo to safely join on his wing and for Mirisch to get his first clean “shots” off at the big bomber’s tail. The B-2 had accelerated,
Suddenly the threat scope fit up like a gaudy Christmas wreath. There was a powerful fighter radar somewhere up ahead,
Mirisch had no choice. He couldn’t see his attackers, he had no radio contact or data link with GCI to tell him what was out there, he was less than two thousand feet above ground, and the loud, incessant noise of the jamming on all channels, bleeding through the radios into the interphone, was beginning to cause disorientation. He checked to be sure where Milo was — the kid had managed to stay in formation with him, thank God, and had not yet moved into the lead position — then called out on the emergency Guard channel, “Powder River players, this is a Raider flight, knock it off, knock it off, knock it off!”
Whoever was jamming him obviously heard the call, because the noise jamming stopped immediately. Mirisch leveled off at two thousand feet, waited until Milo was back safely in position on his wing, then scanned the skies for the unknown attacker.
He spotted it that instant. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
It was a damned B-52 bomber. But it was like no B-52 he had ever seen before.
As it banked right, toward the center of the Powder River MOA, Mirisch saw a long pointed nose, a rounded, swept- back V-tail, eight huge turbofan engines, and twin fuel tanks on each wingtip. But the strange bomber also sported a long wedge-shaped fairing on its upper fuselage resembling a specialized radar compartment, and… he saw pylons between the fuselage and the inboard engine nacelles, with what looked like AIM-120 air-to-air missiles installed!
“Lead, I’ve got a tally on an aircraft at our eleven o’clock high, five miles…”
“I see it, Two, I see it,” Mirisch replied. Dammit, Mirisch cursed to himself, why didn’t you pick that sucker up two minutes ago? But it was too late to blame anyone else. Whatever that plane was out there, it had “killed” them both. “I don’t know
General Ormack strained against his shoulder harness to look out the B-2 bomber’s cockpit windscreens just in time to see the huge EB-52 Megafortress do a “wing wag” and then bank away to the north. “Jesus, what a beautiful plane. We could use a hundred of those.”
McLanahan laughed. “Well, it just sent those F-23s running, didn’t it? That thing is tailor-made for the Air Battle Force. You give every heavy bomber going in a Megafortress to provide jamming and air-defense support, you’ve got an awesome force.”
