Flight of the Old Dog Read online

  SYNOPSIS:

  The Soviets have developed the world’s most powerful laser installation.

  They have already killed an American satellite and a RC-135 aircraft and now they’re after the space shuttle. General Brad Elliott, head of a super-secret installation called

  “Dreamland’ has the responsibility of stopping them. He puts together an intrepid crew and a specially modified B-52 bomber to do the job. Modern military fiction at its page-turning best.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

  DALE BROWN, a former United States Air Force Captain, served as a navigator from 1978 to 1986, logging thousands of hours aboard both B-52s and FB-111 bombers.

  During his service, he participated in numerous strategic combat exercises designed to simulate an actual strategic war. He is the recipient of the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Air Force Achievement Medal and the Combat Crew Award, among others.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents

  are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used

  fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This Berkley book contains the complete text

  of the original hardcover edition. It has been

  completely reset in a typeface designed

  for easy reading and was printed from new film.

  FLIGHT OF THE OLD DOG

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with

  Donald I. Fine, Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Donald I. Fine edition / June 1987

  Berkley edition / May 1988

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1987 by Dale F. Brown.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,

  by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 0-425-10893-7

  BERKLEY ®

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name “BERKLEY” and the “B” design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to extend my gratitude to George Wieser and Donald I. Fine, who took a chance on me; to Rick Horgan, senior editor at Donald I. Fine, Inc with whom I spent many long hours hammering this story into shape; and to my wife Jean, who gave me the support to get the job done. Thanks.

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to the thousands of men and women of the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command who assure the quality of our nation’s strategic deterrent force. I was proud to serve in SAC for seven years, and I know it is a thankless, lonely, sometimes frustrating job. They work in old alert shelters, underground launch centers, dark command posts, and cold hangars—and they are the nation’s best. More Sol than any high-tech machine, it is the dedication and professionalism of these men and women that insure the peace and security of the United States.

  To all the bomber pukes, tanker toads, missile weenies, sky cops, knuckle-busters, and BB stackers of the Strategic Air Command—this one’s for you.

  ABOARD A B-52 BOMBER

  The Strategic Air Command B-52 was ready to begin its final assault. Though half its bomb load had already been expended. one gravity bomb and four Short-Range Attack Missiles ISRAMs) still stood in the bomb bays. So far, the crew of six had successfully guided their aged bomber through a crucial air refueling: a high-altitude bomb run from thirty-seven thousand feet. with a surprise SA-2 surface-to-air missile attack shortly afterward: and three subsequent bomb runs through a maze of hills and valleys.

  Up ahead, closing in on them at a speed of six miles per minute, was the target area—defended by surface-to-air missile sites, radar-guided antiaircraft artillery, and prowling patrols of the most advanced interceptors in the world.

  “IP inbound in three minutes. crew,” First Lieutenant David Luger announced over the interphone. He was following the B-52’s course on a narrow cardboard chart, mentally measuring the distance and computing the time to the IP. or “initial point.” the start of a low-altitude nuclear bomb run. Time to start reviewing checklists. Luger thought. The action was going to start soon.

  He glanced down at the plastic-covered checklist pages. anticipating each step of the “Before Initial Point” and “Bomb Run (Nuclear)” checklists before he came to it. Long years of training had enabled him to fix in his mind the exact details of what he was about to do.

  “SRAM missile pre-simulated launch check, completed.” he said. “Computer launch programming completed.”

  No one acknowledged him, but he had not expected a reply. The checklist had been reviewed hours earlier. As Luger reread the checklist items over the interphone to key everyone else that the busiest portion of the ten-hour sortie was about to begin, he found himself squirming in his seat, trying to get comfortable.

  “Radios set to RBS frequency.” Luger said. He glanced at his chart annotations. “Two seventy-five point three.”

  “Set,” Mark Martin, the copilot replied. “RBS bomb scoring plot is set in both radios. I’ll call IP inbound when cleared by the radar.”

  “Camera on, one-to-four,” Luger announced, flicking a small black knob near his right shoulder. A special camera would now record the bomb run and missile launches on thirty-five millimeter film for later study. “E.W., start-countermeasures point in sixty seconds.”

  “Defense copies,” First Lieutenant Hawthorne replied, double-checking his jammer and trackbreaker switch positions. The same age as Luger, Hawthorne was the E.W. , or electronic-warfare officer. His job was to defend the B-52 against attack by jamming or decoying enemy surface-to-air missile or artillery-tracking radars, and to warn the crew of missile or aircraft attacks.

  “Rog,” Luger said. “Checklist complete.” He checked the TG meter, an antique gear-and-pulley dial that showed the time in seconds to the next tumpoint. Luger flipped the plastic-covered page over to the “Bomb Run (Synchronous)” checklist, then glanced over at the radar navigator’s station beside him. “About one-fifty TG to the IP, radar,” Luger said. “Got it together, buddy?”

  “Uh huh,” Patrick McLanahan said. He was bent over a pile of bomb run charts and radar scope predictions, intently studying his bombing “game plan” as if this was the first time he had seen it. His work area was littered with snippets of paper, drawings and notes. A thermos, which lay underneath several books and papers atop his attack radar set, was leaking coffee over the cathode-ray tube display and the radar controls.

  Luger impatiently waited for his partner to begin. The two navigators, representing their SAC bombardment wing in this important competition sortie, were a study in contrasts. Luger was a tall, lanky Texan, with immaculately spit-shined boots, closely cropped black hair, and a penchant for textbook perfection. He was fresh out of B-52 Combat Crew Training after graduating top of his class from both the Air Force Academy and Undergraduate Navigator Training, and was easily the Wing’s most conscientious and professional navigator. He studied hard, performed his duties to perfection, and constantly drove himself to higher levels of achievement.

  McLanahan … was McLanahan. He was of medium height and husky build, a blond and tanned Californian
who looked as if he was fresh off the boardwalk at Venice Beach. Despite McLanahan’s casual appearance and disdain for authority, he was acknowledged as the best navigator in the Wing, and quite possibly the best in SAC. Together he and Luger combined to make the most effective bomber crew in the United States Air Force. And they were about to go to work.

  “Well, let’s get this over with,” McLanahan said finally.

  “Good idea,” Luger said. He proceeded to run down the remaining items on the checklist, pausing at intervals to check switch positions with the pilot, Captain Gary Houser. Two minutes later, all switches had been configured and it only remained to activate the bombing system and tie all of the individual components together with the bombing computers.

  “Master bomb control switch.”

  “Good,” McLanahan said. “I mean, on, light on.”

  “Bombing system switch.”

  “Auto.” The bombing computers now had control of everything—the steering, when to release the bomb, even when to open and close the bomb doors. McLanahan had only to position a set of electronic crosshairs precisely on a preselected aiming point on the radar scope, and the bombing computers would do the rest.

  The computers would translate the crosshair positioning into range and azimuth data and display the target direction on the Flight Command Indicator (FCI) at the pilot’s station. The computers fed altitude, heading, airspeed, groundspeed, and drift through a set of precomputed ballistics data, and derived an exact release point based on that information. Even if the airspeed changed slightly, or if the winds shifted, the computers would recompute the exact point for bomb release.

  “Coming up on sixty seconds to the IP, crew,” Houser announced. “FCI centered. Sixty TG, ready, ready … now!”

  “Got it,” Luger said, starting a stopwatch as a backup. “Bomb run review.”

  “Roger,” McLanahan replied. “Rocket, rocket, bomb . uh, concrete blivet … rocket, rocket. This is the live drop over the range. Let’s not fuck this one up. ladies. Some joker is going to mn out there with a tape measure to see how we score. Nay?” McLanahan said, turning to Luger.

  “SRAM fixes will be on the Airport, fix number thirty; target Bravo, fix number thirty-one; and the pumping station, fix number thirty-two. We are running fully synchronous, all computers fully operational. with a drift rate less than—”

  “What he means,” McLanahan said, “is that the SRAM is tighter than that virgin lieutenant Gary’s been seeing.”

  A conspiratorial snicker could be heard over the interphone.

  “Thirty seconds to IP,” Houser announced. “Defense?”

  “Electronic warfare officer ready for IP inbound, pilot,” Mike Hawthorne replied. “India-band radar is searching but hasn’t locked onto us yet.”

  “Gunner has back-up timing, radar.” Bob Brake, the crew gunner, replied. “Fire control radar is clear. I’ll get back on watch after the bomb run and get set for those Air National Guard fighters they told us about.”

  “Twenty seconds to IP,,” McLanahan announced.

  “Better stay on watch, guns,” Houser said. “Sometimes those Air National Guard guys get a little antsy. Remember last year’s Bomb Competition—they didn’t wait for the bomb run to finish before they jumped us. The rules committee let them get away with it, too. Realism, you know.”

  “Okay,” Brake said. “I’ll still be keeping backup timing until I see something.” He flipped some switches and returned to his small five-inch square tail radar display. At the tail of the huge bomber, the turret with four fifty-caliber machine guns slowly carne unstowed and began a preprogrammed search pattern.

  “Guns unstowed, system capable, radar-search, radar-track,” Brake reported.

  “Ten seconds to IP,” Luger said. “Next heading will be zero-one-zero. Airspeed three-five-zero true. Clearance plane five hundred feet.”

  He turned to McLanahan. His partner had just removed his helmet and was rubbing his ears, then snapping his neck hard from side to side.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Luger said.

  “Loosening up, Dave,” McLanahan replied. “My brain bucket is killing me.” Luger answered calls for his panner until the radar navigator finally put his helmet back on.

  Houser’s FCI slowly wound down. “Coming up on the IP. crew … ready … ready … now!”

  “Right turn, heading zero-one-zero, pilot,” Luger said. The huge aircraft banked in response.

  “Boy, is it flat out there,” McLanahan said, studying the radar scope.

  “Roger, radar,” Houser replied. “I guess that means we’re clear of terrain.” That information was important to Houser—he was handflying the huge bomber only five hundred feet off the ground at almost six miles per minute. Houser used the EVS, or Electro-optical Viewing System. and terrain-avoidance computer to provide a “profile” of the peaks and valleys ahead, but the best warning was McLanahan’s thirty-mile range radar and his experience in guiding the huge bomber around trouble. The “Muck”—McLanahan’s lessthan-flattering nickname—wasn’t always by the book. but he was the best and Houser trusted him with his life. Everyone did.

  “Ten degrees to roll-out.” Luger reminded the pilot. “Drift is zero, so heading is still zero-one-zero. Radar, I’ll correct gyro heading after roll-out. Pilot, don’t take the FCI until it’s displayed on the EVS scope.”

  “We’re IP inbound, crew,” Luger reported. “Pilot, center the FCI and keep it centered. Pat, I’ll check your switches when you—”

  “Pilot, airborne radar contact at two o’clock!” Hawthorne yelled suddenly over the interphone. “Possibly an F-15. Breaking apart now … there’s two of them. Search radar on us … switching to target track . they’ve seen us.”

  “Roger, E.W..” Houser said. The fighter-intercept exercise area was still over eighty miles away, Houser thought. Hawthorne must be picking up signals from some other airplane engaging the fighters. He put the E.W’s warning out of his mind.

  Hawthorne tried to say something else, but he was quickly interrupted as the action of the B-52’s bomb run began.

  “Copilot, call IP inbound,” Luger said. McLanahan had switched off-sets and was now peering intently at a radar return that was almost obscured by terrain features around it.

  “Pilot,” Hawthorne said nervously, “this is not a simulation .

  “Glasgow Bomb Plot. Glasgow Bomb Plot. Sabre Three-three. India Papa, Alpha Sierra,” Martin radioed.

  In a small trailer complex located at a municipal airport fifty miles from the ground-hugging bomber, a set of four dish antennas swung southward. In a few seconds, they had found the speeding B-52 and had begun to track its progress toward the target on a mapping board. Other antennas began emitting jamming signals to the B-52’s radar, and other transmitters simulated surface-to-air missile site tracking radars and antiaircraft guns. The scoring operator insured that they had positive lock-on, then turned to his radio.

  “Sabre Three-three, Glasgow clears you on range and frequency and copies your IP call. India band is restricted. Do not jam India band radar. Range is clear for weapon release.” Just then, the scoring operator noticed two extra targets on his tracking display. He immediately called his range supervisor.

  “They’re at it again, sir,” the operator explained, pointing to the two newcomers.

  “Those National Guard hot-dogs,” the supervisor muttered as he studied the display. He shook his head, then asked. “Has the next competition plane called IP yet?”

  “Yes, sir,” the operator replied. “Sabre Three-three, a Buff out of Ford.”

  “Ford, huh.” The supervisor smiled at the mention of the B-52’s nickname. Once, decades earlier, calling a B-52 a “Buff”—short for Big Ugly Fat Fucker—was a sign of respect. Not any more. “You got a positive track on the Buff’? No chance of the fighters interfering with the bomb scoring?”

  “I don’t think so, sir.”

  He thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Let ‘em
go. I like watching a duck shoot.”

  “Yes, sir,” the operator said.

  Mark Martin switched to interphone. “We’ve been cleared onto the range, crew. Patrick. you’re cleared for weapon release.”‘

  “Rog, double-M,” McLanahan replied. He opened the plastic cover of the release-circuits-disconnect switch and closed the circuit. “Let’s go bombin’!” he yelled.

  “India band restricted. Mike,” Martin called down to Hawthorne over interphone.

  “Copy.” Hawthorne replied. “Crew, we are under attack.

  Airborne interceptors at two o’clock and closing fast.”

  “Mike, are you sure they’re on us?” Houser asked. “Positive.”

  “Mark, switch radio two to the fighter control frequency and—”

  “We can’t do that,” Luger said. “We need both radios on plot frequency.”

  “Well, we’ll call the site and tell them to chase the fighters off the bomb range.” Houser replied. irritation showing in his voice. “They can’t do this.”

  “Bob can take ‘em,” McLanahan said. “Go get ‘em. guns.”

  “You’re crazy, radar,” the gunner replied. “It’ll mean maneuvering on the bomb run …”

  “Shoot the bastards down.” McLanahan said. “Let’s give it a try. If it gets dicey, we’ll call a safety-of-flight abort.”

  “Now you’re talkin’,” Brake said, turning to his equipment.

  “Are you sure, Pat?” Houser asked. “This is your bomb run …”

  “But it’s our trophy,” McLanahan said. “I say let’s stick it to ‘em.”

  “All right,” Houser replied, flipping switches on the center instrument console. “I’m taking steering away from the computers.”

  “The fighters are moving to four o’clock,” Hawthorne reported. “They’re staying out of cannon range so far.”

  “Infrared missile attack,” Brake said, studying his tracking radar and waiting for the fighters to appear. “Simulated Sidewinders.”