Day of the Cheetah Read online

  ing the instrument panel in the aft cockpit. Without a stick,

  throttle, or pedals, Patrick could do nothing during takeoff but

  watch the engine instruments and hang on. He glanced at the

  large yellow-and-black-painted handgrip between his legs un-

  demeath the center of the instrument panel-the ejection han-

  dle-and mentally measured the distance to it . . .

  DreamStar shot forward like a dragster popping off the starting

  line. James commanded the engine to max afterburner, increas-

  ing thrust to well over eighty thousand pounds. At almost the

  same instant he also commanded activation of the auto-alpha

  Louvers on the top of the engine nozzle swung

  flight mode.

  open, diverting one-third of the engine thrust diagonally upward,

  compressing the rear main landing gear struts to their lowest

  72 DALE BROWN

  1

  position and allowing the nose-gear strut to extend fully.

  DreamStar was now pointing ten degrees upward, in full un-

  stick, takeoff attitude.

  The trailing edges of the two canards deflected downward.

  The engine, coupled with the foreplanes, was now shoving

  DreamStar's nose skyward-its computers controlling the ca-

  nards kept the one-hundred-thousand-pound fighter from flip-

  ping backward out of control. As speed increased and the canards

  began to fly the nose, the louvers diverting the engine thrust

  upward gradually swung downward, allowing the thrust to ac-

  celerate the fighter and lift the tail off the runway. At one hun-

  dred knots airspeed DreamStar's nose gear lifted off the runway.

  The pitch attitude increased to thirty degrees, held just below

  the stall by the computer-controlled foreplanes. At one hundred

  and fifty knots DrearnStar lifted off the runway, and because the

  wings, foreplanes and engine were commanded for maximum

  lift, she rose like an elevator.

  In just over one thousand feet, the same distance a small

  general-aviation plane used at takeoff, the fifty-ton jet fighter had

  left the ground. Once airborne, thrust again was automatically

  diverted to optimize climb performance. DreamStar was now a

  rocket, being propelled skyward at well over twenty thousand

  feet per minute. By the time it reached the end of the two-mile-

  long camouflaged runway, it was over eight thousand feet above

  the ground.

  JC. Powell's promise to keep up with DreamStar was kept for

  about five seconds.

  He and McLanahan saw James give the signal to release

  brakes. "Two good engines," McLanahan called out from the

  aft cockpit as eased both engines into max afterburner.

  "Roger. TWo good cookers."

  They saw DreamStar dash forward, then saw its forward fu-

  selage jut into the sky and its canard's trailing edges snap

  down-

  ward . . .

  Then DreamStar disappeared.

  JC. cursed. "Hang on. " But try as he did, Powell could not

  match DreamStar's spectacular liftoff or climb rate. While

  DreamStar's pitch, power, and thrust controls were automatic,

  Cheetah's were mostly hand-controlled, relying on reaction time

  rather than electronics to trim the aircraft. When DreamStar dis-

  DAY OF THE CHEETAH 73

  appeared from view, 's first reaction was to pull back on the

  stick to try to follow. But Cheetah had not reached unstick speed,

  and Cheetah's computerized canard pushed the nose down to the

  runway to gain speed.

  "Command override, " the computerized voice suddenly in-

  tedected as Cheetah's nose fell and the nosewheel struts com-

  pressed. "Stall warning. "

  "Damn, too much," murmured, and let the nose fall a

  few feet and watched the airspeed rise. "So much for a short

  takeoff record." He let the airspeed rebuild to one hundred

  eighty knots, then eased back on the stick. Cheetah glided gently

  off the runway. This time, with plenty of "smash," Cheetah's

  canards responded by pulling the nose higher into the air to take

  advantage of the extra speed.

  touched the computer interactive control on his stick.

  "Gear up."

  Three red "LANDING GEAR UNSAFE" lights illuminated, and

  Patrick could feel the rumble as the two main wheels and the

  nosewheel lifted through the slipstream. "Landing gear un-

  safe, " the computerized voice said. Five seconds later: "Land-

  ing gear up and locked. "

  "Gear's up," Patrick said. "TWo hundred knots. Passing six

  thousand feet. "

  began pulling the engines one by one out of afterburner

  to conserve fuel. "Left engine to MIL power . . . right engine

  to MIL . . . Okay, where is he?"

  "Four o'clock high, coming down-"

  D'reamStar had appeared out of nowhere; it was in a full-

  power descent, nose aimed straight at Cheetah's canopy.

  jammed both throttles back into max afterburner and

  began a hard roll to the fight.

  "Too late, he's gonna hit .

  Cheetah lunged forward but DreamStar kept on coming. Pat-

  rick could now see DreamStar's canards, deployed diagonally

  underneath the fighter's belly in their high-maneuverability po-

  sition. He could even see DreamStar's thirty millimeter Vulcan

  cannon muzzle screaming in closer and closer . . .

  But DreamStar did not hit. The closer it came, the more the

  fighter began to flatten its flight path. It resembled a giant eagle

  swooping in on its prey. The cannon muzzle never strayed off

  Cheetah's canopy, even as DrearnStar reached its prey's alti-

  74 DALE BROWN

  tude-it began to fly sideways, keeping the gun dead on target,

  paralleling Cheetah's right turn. As Cheetah began to accelerate,

  DrearnStar snapped out of its sideways flight path and maneu-

  vered into a right rear quartering missile-attack aspect.

  "He hosed us," Patrick said. "He's at our six. He made a

  gun pass on us on our climbout. He's in infrared missile-launch

  position. Roll out and get him back into fingertip formation.

  rolled wings level, paused, then rocked his wings twice.

  A few seconds later DrearnStar was tucked in on Cheetah's right

  wing, so close that they could have had overlapping wingtips.

  "Only got a glimpse of him," said, "but he looked like

  he was haulin' ass. Tell him to stay with the ROE."

  It was a JC. Powell trademark to push the rules of engage-

  ment to the limits; now he was complaining about someone else

  pushing the ROE. "He's in fingertip," Patrick reported to Pow-

  ell. "I'm sending him to the tactical frequency." Patrick ex-

  tended both hands in front of him, fists clenched, one on top of

  the other, the signal to switch to the agreed-on scrambled tac-

  tical frequency; hand signals, used as much as possible, pre-

  vented eavesdropping. James nodded that he understood.

  On the new scrambled VHF frequency, called, "Storm

  flight, check in."

  "TWo," a monotone voice immediately replied.

  "Nice moves, Ken," Patrick said. "Wit remember the ROE.

  No maneuvering and no closure rate greater than two hundred

  knots
within one mile of your target. I'd say you came close on

  both.

  "Yes, Sir. " The metallic-sounding voice was James' altered

  by the computer. It sounded almost sarcastic. Or was Patrick

  imagining that?

  "Okay, forget it," Patrick said, imaging Powell's face.

  didn't like being upstaged. He wouldn't be sore because he had

  been upstaged by a younger pilot but that he had been hosed by

  a machine called ANTARES. "Ken, ready to start so7e dog-

  fighting? "

  "Affirmative.

  "Roger. Lead will come left, heading three-one-zero to stay

  inside our airspace. On roll-out, Ken, you are the fox. We'll

  give you fifteen seconds, then we're coming after you. Block is

  ten to fifty thousand feet, keep it under the Mach, please, or the

  camera telemetry won't keep up with you. And stay within the

  DAY OF THE CHEETAH 75

  ROE, gents. We're all on the same team ... Lead, come left

  heading three-one-zero. Head's up."

  11TWo's in."

  started a hard left turn to Patrick's assigned heading. The

  roll was a bit more abrupt than it should have been but it didn't

  seem to faze James-he stayed right in there, perhaps a few feet

  farther out, but still in tight fingertip formation. The instant

  rolled out of his turn, DreamStar merely dropped straight down

  out of sight.

  "There he goes," Patrick said. "Straight down, I can't see

  him. "

  "Fifteen seconds," Powell complained dryly. "He could be

  in the next state in fifteen seconds."

  "That's why he only gets five seconds. Go get 'em."

  Powell rolled inverted, then pulled hard on the stick. Cheetah

  did a tight inverted turn, losing five thousand feet. Patrick was

  straining against the G-forces shoving him deep into his seat,

  trying to look up through the canopy to where he thought

  DreamStar would be.

  I "Tally ho," sang out. "Coming up on our twelve

  0 clock. Right where I thought he'd be." Patrick fought a wave

  Of vertigo as he searched for DreamStar on radar. Normally the

  back-seater on an F-15E fighter-bomber would use his radar and

  process the attack for the pilot, but Patrick was only along as a

  camera operator and observer- would have to find and pro-

  cess his own targets. But already had very unconventional

  help, and he quickly began working on his kill.

  He hit the voice-command button. "Attack radar transmit,

  target report. " Patrick watched as the attack radar went auto-

  matically from "STANDBY" to "TRANSMIT" and began a

  wide-area scan.

  "Radar transmit, " the computer responded. Almost imme-

  diately, the computer reported, "Radar contact, range fifteen

  miles. "

  "Heads up display."

  's windscreen was filled with symbols and numbers,

  seemingly floating in space. Unlike regular HUDs, heads-up dis-

  plays-pieces of plate glass that reflected up from the instrument

  console to the pilot-Cheetah's consisted of large banks of high-

  resolution laser projectors that created three-dimensional images

  that hung in space. Unlike a reflected HUD system, which relied

  76 DALE BROWN

  on the pilot orienting himself directly behind the glass, Chee-

  tah's laser-projected images were visible no matter how the pilot

  moved in his seat, and even bright sunlight or glare on the wind-

  shield could not wash the images away. The laser images showed

  an icon of DreamStar with a diamond symbol around it, indi-

  cating that Cheetah's attack radar was locked onto it. Columns

  of numbers surrounding the icon showed DreamStar's heading,

  airspeed, range and closure rate.

  "Target designate . . ." Powell said. Instantly micro-wattage

  laser projectors in his helmet scanned his eyeballs, and a holo-

  graphic circle and crosshairs was projected up onto the wind-

  screen corresponding to exactly where he was lookin . He

  centered the crosshairs on the icon, ". - . now." 9

  "Target radar lock, " the computer reported.

  "Laser slave to radar," ordered.

  "Target laser lock. " A four-pointed star superimposed itself

  on DreamStar's icon. Unlike Cheetah's attack radar, the laser

  rangefinder was undetectable by any of DreamStar's radar-

  detecting threat-warning receivers. Cheetah could carry a dozen

  laser-guided ATM-12 Cougar hypervelocity missiles, which were

  high-speed, nonexplosive, relatively inexpensive guided mis-'

  siles. Fired from very short to very long ranges-it had no war-

  head and therefore no minimum-range requirements-the Cougar

  missile could be used to attack both air and ground targets,

  destroying its target by sheer force of impact.

  DreamStar was still cruising along on the same heading. He

  hadn't been detected-yet. As James drove in closer he would

  eventually pick up Cheetah's radar emissionsJ JC. had to control

  his excitement and steady his voice to issue more commands to

  the computer.

  "Radar standby."

  "Radar standby. " The laser rangefinder would now process

  the entire kill without danger of detection.

  took a deep breath. "Arm laser missile."

  "Arm laser missile, warning, practice missile armed. " The

  weapons multi-function display showed Cheetah's ten weapons

  stations, the belly-mounted Cougar missile rack illuminated with

  the number 12 on it, signifying the number of hypervelocity

  missiles remaining.

  "Launch laser missile."

  DAY OF THE CHEETAH 77

  "Launch ... Warning! Collision warning. Collision warn-

  ing. "

  barely had time to react. DreamStar had just frozen in

  mid-air, still on its original heading, and let Cheetah drive right

  at him, chopping the distance between the two advanced fighters

  from ten miles to practically zero in the blink of an eye. Powell,

  with no choice, rolled hard behind DreamStar and dived past

  him. The computer had processed the launch conimand, but

  Powell doubted very much if he'd ever be credited with a "kill"

  with a closure rate and maneuver like that.

  "God . . ." McLanahan breathed. He remembered how they

  had used the same maneuver in the B-52s in the past. Especially

  one particular B-52, his Old Dog Zero One, on that mission

  over Russia that seemed like a million years ago. "Now I know

  what it feels like to get sucked in . . . "

  "He knew we'd try that dive on him," Powell said. "He was

  waiting for us. The minute he detected our attack radar was off

  he knew we were committed. He just put DrearnStar on max

  alpha hover and chopped his power." But JC. didn't linger on

  James' maneuver. He knew DreamStar could accelerate back to

  combat speed and pull in right behind him just as fast as he had

  slowed down. So selected full afterburner and yanked the

  nose skyward, throwing Cheetah into a near-vertical climb.

  "You mean ANTARES outguessed you?" Patrick taunted as

  he clung to his handlebars in the steep climb.

  didn't take the bait. "That was my fault. I performed

  like any pilot would if he sees a bogey
below him. Well, enough

  of that. No more predictability."

  Fighting in the horizontal, DreamStar, it seemed, was un-

  beatable-but DreamStar had only one engine and was less pow-

  erful when fighting in the vertical. In spite of Cheetah's weight

  penalties she was still a powerhouse when it came to dogfighting

  in two dimensions.

  "Laser to standby. Radar to transmit," Powell spoke into the

  voice-recognition computer. It acknowledged his commands and

  gave presentations of his emitter and weapons status on the dis-

  plays in the cockpit.

  Cheetah was nearing the top of the altitude block when

  suddenly rolled her into a wild backward loop. "I'm betting he

  didn't have time to break out of that hover and follow us up

  here. I'm betting he's still right where we left him . . . "

  78 DAIE BROWN

  JC. had let the nose just barely fall through the horizon when

  the holographic diamond again appeared on the windscreen.

  "Tally ho. " He didn't wait for the computer to acknowledge the

  radar lock-on but centered the electronic crosshairs on the icon.

  "Target, now. Ann missile. Launch missile."

  The computer acknowledged. "Radar missile launch.

  "Fox two, fox two for Storm One," Powell called over the

  interplane frequency. "Storm One descending through forty

  thousand. Head's up, partner."

  "Fox four for Storm Two," came the reply. "Seven o'clock,

  one-half mile . And then the voice added, "Partner. Heads-

  up.-

  Still inverted, Powell looked to his left, and right off his tail,

  also inverted, following as if it was Cheetah's shadow, was

  DreamStar!

  "But I've got a lock-on .

  "On a cloud of chaff," Patrick said. "When you made your

  zoom, he mustve popped a dozen bundles of chaff and climbed

  up with you and stayed on your tail. You just shot a Sparrow

  missile into a bunch of tinsel."

  rolled wings-level and lowered his oxygen visor with an

  exasperated snap. "The guy's right on today."

  Patrick checked the fuel readouts, did a quick check of his

  equipment and warning lights. "Looks like forty minutes to go,