Battle Born pm-8 Page 9

  “The EB-1 Megafortress uses LADAR — laser radar,” Samson replied. “It’s what I told you about just before the launch, when you were looking at the display. The emitters are tiny. They’re in the nose, fuselage, and tail. They scan electronically in any direction, up or down, out to about fifty miles. In effect, the laser ‘draws’ a picture of everything it sees in a fraction of a second, in three dimensions and with terrific precision and definition. The system ‘draws’ a picture about twenty times a second, so the ‘drawing’ is updated as the bomber moves through the sky and the objects in each image become three-dimensional. The images are transmitted to the crew via helmet-mounted visors, and they change when the crew members move their heads — in essence, the crew can ‘see’ what the radar sees just by looking outside, even if the image is behind or underneath them. To the crew, it’ll feel as if they’re floating in midair but able to see up to fifty miles all around them.

  “Laser radar is not only more precise than standard radar, it can’t be jammed, it can’t be detected by standard radar detectors, and it’s not affected by weather. We use LADAR for navigation, bombing, tracking — it’s even precise enough for night formation flying. We retain all radar attack modes, including automatic terrain-following and radar bombing capabilities, and we’ve added long-range air target search, track, and weapons uplink.”

  “This thing’s like a really big Strike Eagle or an F/A-18 Hornet,” Hayes commented.

  “But it has four times the weapons load, five times the loiter time, and six times the range of any other tactical strike aircraft in the world,” Samson said. “The B-52 was number one until Congress made the decision to send ’em all to the boneyard. Now the B-1 is the most powerful bomber in the fleet. But we’re changing the mission of the heavy bomber. We want big bombers to be able to do tactical missions — precision-kill, close-air-support, ‘tank-plinking,’ even air superiority, as well as antiship and saturation bombing.”

  They climbed the tall nose landing-gear strut entry ladder up into the Megafortress. Samson started to crawl forward, but Hayes immediately noticed the big change inside: “Okay, Earthmover,” he called, “where are the systems officer positions?”

  “Oh yeah. Missing, aren’t they?” Samson grinned. “C’mon up to the front office and I’ll show you.”

  Hayes crawled forward through the tunnel to the cockpit and slid into the open aircraft commander’s seat on the left side. This looked very much the way he remembered a Bone’s cockpit — but not the right side. Instead of the copilot’s side being almost identical to the pilot’s, it was now a sleek, uncluttered array of six large multifunction displays, with almost no analog round or tape instruments. “Made some changes, I see,” he remarked.

  “The Bone now joins the ranks of the rest of the bombers in the fleet that only have two crew members,” Samson explained. “Meet the new automated Bone. I’d always heard that a B-1 is nothing more than a really big F-111 bomber — well, we took that description to heart and built exactly that. Like the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, we combined the copilot and navigator-bombardier into the mission commander’s position, sitting in the right cockpit seat. The big exception is, we use a pilot-trained bombardier as mission commander, instead of a bombardier-trained pilot.”

  “Why’d you decide that?”

  “Mostly because of my deputy commander, chief program director, and chief of flight operations — a navigator, of course,” Samson responded.

  “McLanahan.”

  “The very one,” Samson said proudly. “He’s the one who conducted today’s tests and dropped the weapons you saw. He knows what he’s talking about, and when he talks, everyone listens.” Victor Hayes merely nodded. Samson’s deputy commander was indeed well known and highly respected within the Air Force and throughout the U.S. government. Patrick McLanahan had almost attained the status of legend, like HAWC’s first commander, Brad Elliott.

  “The mission commander controls everything with voice and touch-screen commands and a trackball,” Samson went on. “Two CD-ROMs have the entire mission, weapons ballistics, and computer software, along with maps and terrain features for the entire planet, and it’s all fed into the strike computers before launch. Everything’s completely automatic, from preflight to shutdown.

  “But we went one step further, sir,” Samson continued. “The two-person crew isn’t exactly alone. We use real-time high-speed satellite communications and datalink technology to create a ‘virtual crew’ onboard the EB-1C Megafortress…”

  “A what? You mean, a robot crew, like an autopilot or computer?”

  “Not exactly,” Samson said. “The bomber crew and the plane are tied into a ground-based cockpit by satellite. We have a pilot, an engineer, a weapons officer, and a tactics officer on duty, linked to the crew. They see and hear everything the crew does. They have access to all the bomber’s systems and can spot problems and take corrective action if necessary. They can advise the crew on tactics, keep an eye on systems, and sort of look over the crew’s shoulder all the time — even fly the plane for them if absolutely necessary, although the system probably can’t react fast enough to survive while under attack.

  “What’s more, this ‘virtual cockpit’ is transportable by cargo plane and can be set up in remote locations and run off a standard jet aircraft’s power cart. It’s the same technology we’ve been using for decades on manned spacecraft — we’ve just adapted the concept to manned bombers. And for bomber defense, we’ve replaced the ALQ-161 defensive management suite with the new ALR-56M and ALE-50 systems…”

  “Speak English, techno-geek.”

  “Yes, sir. Bottom line: fully automated, more maintainable, and overall a better electronic jamming and self-protection system, with a towed decoy system,” Samson said. “Antennas on the bomber still pick up enemy radar signals and process them, but now jamming signals are sent out via a robot emitter that’s towed several hundred feet behind the bomber. It’s a target decoy. It’s only a foot long and three inches in diameter, but it has an electronically adjustable radar and infrared cross section. The system automatically changes the electronic ‘size,’ depending on the threat. If the bomber’s just being scanned, the towed emitter is almost invisible. But if the enemy gets a lock-on and fires, its radar and infrared cross section can be changed to hundreds of times larger than the bomber.

  “The B-1 carries eight decoys on tail fairings. It can still transmit jamming signals and drop expendables if the towed decoys all get shot down, but the system makes it more survivable in a high-threat environment. We’ve replaced the standard chaff and flare expendables with tactical air-launched decoys, or TALDs, which are tiny electromagnetic emitters that work far better than chaff or flares in decoying enemy missiles. And since the new system is fully automatic, we simply eliminated the DSO’s station.”

  “Incredible, Earthmover, just incredible,” Hayes exclaimed. “I can’t believe we had anything in the budget to make design changes and upgrades like this.”

  “It’s been tough, sir,” Samson said. “We’ve eliminated the B-52 and grounded one-third of the B-1B fleet to get the money to make any upgrades at all. Give us a budget, and we can field a squadron of B-1 rocket killers in less than twelve months.”

  “Less than a year?” Hayes echoed. “How in the hell is that possible?”

  “Because HAWC has turned into scrounger’s central, sir,” Samson explained. “We suck up every gadget we can get our hands on. Everything we have on this beast is off-the-shelf, and in some cases the shelf the stuff came from is mighty dusty. It’s what we’re forced to do nowadays to build new weapon systems — instead of designing an antiballistic missile killing system from a clean sheet of paper, HAWC looks at what we’ve got lying around the boneyard and depot warehouses. Beyond that, it’s just the raw talent and imagination of the troops we have around here.”

  “So what’s your proposal going to look like, Earthmover?” Hayes asked, excited now.

  “I propos
e the formation of a rapid-response antimissile squadron,” Samson responded eagerly. “I’m looking for at least ten B-1B Lancer bombers sent here to Elliott Air Force Base, one per month. We modify the planes and train the crews simultaneously. My suggestion: get the B-1s from the National Guard, and use National Guard crewdogs. We train them, reequip them, then send them back to their home states to stand ready. That way, we have low acquisition costs, low personnel costs, and low upkeep costs.

  “But the trick,” Samson went on, “is going to be finding the right combination of crews to man these Megafortress-2s. The bombers’ll be operating behind enemy lines all the time, right in the bad guy’s face. They have to be hunters. They’ll have to hang around the forward edge of the battle area, expose themselves when a ballistic missile lifts off, then drive right down the enemy’s crotch to cut off his balls before his erection goes away. We need to pick the most aggressive, most fearless crewdogs in the service. I mean, they have to be real hard-core mud-movers.”

  For the first time that day, Hayes seemed concerned. “I don’t know if that kind of flier exists nowadays,” he said, “especially in the bomber force. Their entire career field has been raped so badly over the past six years that if we’ve got any heavy-iron aerial assassins anymore, it’ll be a miracle.”

  “Oh, they’re out there, sir,” Terrill Samson said confidently. “Let my deputy loose and he’ll find exactly who we’re looking for. They might seem ugly and unruly and not poster-child material, but they’ll happily drive a two-hundred-ton Bone down a bad guy’s throat and all the way out his asshole any day of the week. We’ll see to that.”

  The feelings of strength and urgency that had begun coursing through Victor Hayes when he stepped into the chase plane’s cockpit that morning now turned overwhelming. They came from the sense of direction, purpose, and urgency created by Terrill Samson and the men and women in this isolated, secret desert airfield. These people weren’t afraid of getting into trouble, rocking the boat, or busting the budget. All they cared about was doing the job. They identified a problem, devised a solution, and built the right weapon for the task. They never gave a thought to how what they did would look on an effectiveness report, evaluation, news article, or budget analysis.

  “Do it, Earthmover,” Hayes said excitedly. “Get started ASAP. I don’t know how I’ll find the money, but I’ll find it. Get your guy to find the hardware and the crewdogs, and I’ll back your play. I think we’re about to set the ballistic missile weenies of the world back on their asses big-time.”

  NEVADA AIR NATIONAL GUARD TRAINING

  CENTER, RENO, NEVADA

  LATER THAT DAY

  Tall, athletic, with dark brown eyes and brown hair, Lieutenant Colonel Rebecca “Go-Fast” Furness, commander of the 111th Bomb Squadron, Nevada Air National Guard, had the intelligence of a physician, the spirit and determination of a police officer, and the looks of a model. But her life had always revolved around flying. Men, career, a decent living, and excitement were all good things to have — but flying was her one and only true love.

  She had graduated from the University of Vermont with an Air Force ROTC commission and attended Air Force flight school at Williams Air Force Base, Arizona, graduating in 1979 at the top of her class. All top pilot graduates, including women, had their pick of assignments — just as long as the women didn’t choose any combat flying assignments. As a subtle sign of protest, Furness requested the FB-111A Aardvark supersonic bomber, but accepted the KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling tanker with the Strategic Air Command — she knew the bomber was never an option. She set out to show she was worthy of the best assignment and quickly proved her exceptional flying skills and dedication. She cross-trained to the coveted KC-10A Extender tanker-transport, the military version of the DC-10 airliner, and tore up the program there too, quickly becoming a flight commander and instructor pilot.

  It was Desert Storm that changed her life. Rebecca Catherine Furness was in command of a KC-10 tanker flight over Saudi Arabia when a call came in about an F-111 bomber suffering massive battle damage. The bomber had numerous fuel leaks, and its crew was only minutes away from having to eject over Iraq. Furness took her KC-10 more than a hundred miles inside Iraq, dodging fighters and surface-to-air missile sites to refuel the bomber, and gave its crew the chance it needed to fly into friendly airspace.

  As a reward, Furness achieved her lifelong dream — she became the Air Force’s first female combat pilot. She accepted a Reserve assignment with the 394th Air Battle Wing, Plattsburgh, New York, flying the RF-111G Vampire reconnaissance/attack fighter-bomber. Her unit was the first to see action in the Russia-Ukraine conflict when the Vampires were deployed to Turkey to help defend Ukraine from Russian imperialists seeking to reunite the old Soviet Union by force. She earned her nickname, “Go-Fast,” as a result of her tenacious, fearless flying over Turkey, the Black Sea, Ukraine, and Russia, including an attack on Moscow itself.

  The Air Force grounded the RF-111 bombers shortly thereafter, but they didn’t dare try to ground Rebecca Furness. She sat still long enough to complete Air Command and Staff College and the Army War College, then went after her next career dream — a flying command of her own. She commanded a B-1B Lancer flying training squadron in Texas, then was offered command of a T-38 Talon flying training wing in Arizona. That didn’t suit her one bit. She had had enough of training units and wanted a combat command.

  She found one in the Nevada Air National Guard. When the unit traded in its C-130 Hercules transports and became the third Air National Guard B-1 bomber unit in the United States, she applied for a job. She was by far the best-qualified applicant, and the state of Nevada made her ambition reality. In a very short time, her unit had won the Proud Shield Bomb Competition and was recognized as the best bomber unit in the United States military. Until now.

  “Well, well,” Lieutenant Colonel John Long exclaimed as he and Furness entered the B-1B Part-Task Training Facility with six crew members — two new ones, one DSO and one OSO, and two simulator operators. “Look who’s here, boss. Ejection boy.”

  “What?” Furness took a look at the man in the pilot seat of the simulator cab and felt her heart pounding.

  “We should welcome his ass back from the hospital,” Long said sarcastically. The air-conditioned room grew frostier still.

  Furness hesitated, happiness, concern, and fear tearing at her all at once. Here she was, her dreams of becoming the Air Force’s first female combat pilot and achieving a combat command not only realized but at the very finest level — and it had all begun to crumble. In the weeks since the B-1B bomber crash that took the lives of three good men, the 111th Bomb Squadron of the Nevada Air National Guard was tearing apart — and sitting in the simulator cab before her was the man they blamed for it.

  Major Rinc “Rodeo” Seaver was dressed in full flying gear, flight suit and boots, his short-clipped hair the only visible indication of his four weeks in the hospital after his ejection from the B-1B in April.

  “Hi, boss,” Seaver said. He did not stop what he was doing. “Okay, Neil,” he said on the intercom, “reset me back to the third target and get ready to plug in faults G-seventeen and E-twenty again.”

  “What the hell are you doing in here, Seaver?” Fur-ness demanded. “You’re not due back from sick leave for another two weeks. And what are you doing in the sim? You weren’t on the schedule.”

  “I feel pretty good, boss,” Seaver said. He flexed his right shoulder experimentally, trying hard not to grimace from the pain. His right shoulder had hit the edge of the upper escape hatch during the ejection sequence, causing him to tumble wildly as he left the stricken aircraft. The tumble had made him lose precious altitude during ejection. The rocket motor blasted him down instead of up, and he had hit the B-1’s right elevator at the attach point to the vertical stabilizer. Luckily, his steel ejection seat took most of the force of the collision, and his chute still opened properly. He underwent reconstructive surgery, three w
eeks of rest, and one week of in-hospital physical therapy; he was still undergoing daily physical therapy and doing as much swimming as his body could stand. But he was ready and anxious to get back on flying status.

  “I got tired sitting on my butt,” Seaver explained. “I couldn’t stand being cooped up in the house one more day. I called Neil and he said the box was free for a couple hours, so I thought I’d play around. We’ve been experimenting with various malfunctions that I think occurred on my last flight, and I think I got it.”

  John “Long Dong” Long, Furness’s squadron operations officer and second-in-command, looked daggers at Seaver. Arrogant as always, he thought.

  It was one way, and not an uncommon one, of seeing Rinc Seaver. He was tall, thin, wiry, with bony features and vivid green eyes, a second-generation American, born in Nevada, whose family had emigrated from Wales during the Depression. Seaver’s entire military career was a study in perseverance and raw determination, a series of ups and downs that would have crushed a lesser man. From childhood, his dream had been to fly the hottest military jets in combat, to lead a squadron of attackers to fight in a decisive battle that would decide the fate of nations and defend his homeland. Movies like Midway and TV shows like Baa Baa Black Sheep cemented that idea firmly in his head. He visualized strapping himself into his futuristic jet, lifting off a runway as the sneak attack was under way, then battling through waves of enemy defenders until the enemy command center was in his bombsights. He went to the annual Reno National Championship Air Races, where the dozens of vintage World War II fighters roaring overhead reinforced the thrill of flying, the thrill of the hunt, the thrill of victory.

  Rinc Seaver decided the road to fulfilling that dream was a civilian pilot’s license, so when he was fourteen, he began working to raise the money for flying lessons. He received his pilot’s license on his sixteenth birthday, and it was the happiest moment of his young life. But no one told him until it was too late that the way to the hot military jets was through good grades and good SAT scores, not hours in a logbook. Ask him any question about aerodynamics or FAA commercial pilot regulations and he could write a book or teach a class on it; ask him about elementary calculus and he was lost. His average grades and average SAT scores — he took the test three times — denied him his hope of admission to the Air Force Academy.