Sky Masters Page 9

  software to do so. "It'll make a great battleship escort, " McLanahan

  said. "I think the boss is right-it's a waste to have these babies

  sitting on the sidelines with nukes on board while we're getting

  hammered in some non-nuclear dogfight. Air Force talks about 'global

  reach, global power, ' but they don't talk much about how long-range

  bombers can defend themselves in a hostile environment without an

  initial nuclear laydown. They talk about sending B-52s from Guam, Diego

  Garcia, or Loring to anywhere else in the world in twelve hours, but

  they don't explain how the bomber is supposed to survive its attack.

  With the Black Knight configured as a counterradar escort, it can do it.

  It has the range to fly just as deep as the strike bombers, and it

  carries as much firepower as a B-52. We'll put that new PACER SKY

  satellite data stuff on it, maybe an ISAR radar, smart bombs..." "We've

  tested every possible weapon on a B-2, " Ormack acknowledged, "from

  AGM-130 Striker glide-bombs-your personal favorite, I know-Harpoon

  antiship missiles, sea mines, MK 82 iron bombs, AMRAAM missiles,

  Sidewinder missiles, the TACIT RAINBOW antiradar cruise missiles,

  Durandal runaway-cratering bombs, AGM-84 SLAM TV-guided missiles, hell,

  even photoreconnaissance pods. At half a billion dollars a pop,

  Congress didn't want to buy a nuclear-only plane, so we're going to

  demonstrate that the B-2 could be flexible enough for any mission."

  Ormack shrugged, then added, "I'm not convinced myself that the B-2 can

  make a good defensive escort plane. If a fighter or ground missile site

  gets a visual on this thing, you're dead."

  "I don't know about that, " Patrick said. "I think it'd be tough to

  kill in a tactical battle." "Yeah? Most of the Air Force would

  disagree, " Ormack replied. "Look at these wingsthis thing is huge, even

  when seen from several thousand feet up. It's subsonic, which makes it

  a more inviting target and less elusive. No, I think the Air Force

  would forgo risking B-2 on a conventional raid." He looked at McLanahan

  for feedback and was surprised when the young navigator gave him an

  unsure shrug in reply. "You still disagree?"

  "I haven't flown fighters as long as you, sir, " McLanahan said, "but I

  have a tough time finding an airport from five thousand feet in the air,

  much less a single plane. At five thousand feet, a pilot is looking at

  almost four hundred square miles of ground. If he's flying, say, eight

  miles per minute on a low combat-air patrol, forty square miles zip

  under his wings every ten seconds-twenty on each side of his cockpit. If

  he can't use a radar to at least get himself in the vicinity, his

  detection problem is pretty complicated."

  "If a combat air patrol always had that wide an area to search, I might

  agree with you, " Ormack said. "But the field of battle narrows down

  rapidly. One lucky sighting, one squeak of a radar detector or one blip

  on a radar screen, and suddenly the whole pack's on top of you."

  "But I might have my missiles in the air by then, " Patrick said. "If

  not, I sure as heck will not stay high over a target area. I've got an

  infrared camera that can see the ground, and the pilots have

  windows-those boys better be flying in the dirt with fighters on my

  tail. Even the F-23 advanced tactical fighter can't fight close to the

  ground-they have to rely on taking 'look-down' shots from higher

  altitudes. That's where a stealthy plane has the advantage." Ormack

  didn't have a reply right away-he was thinking hard about McLanahan's

  arguments. "You bring up a few good points, Patrick, " Ormack admitted.

  "You know what this calls for, don't you?"

  "RED FLAG, " McLanahan replied. "No-better yet, the Strategic Warfare

  Center. General Jarrel's little playland up in South Dakota."

  "You got it, " Ormack said. "We'll have to put an EB-2 up against a few

  fighters on Jarrel's range and see what happens. Maybe even have them

  fly along with other aircraft on the range to see if our escorts can be

  effective with other strike aircraft." He smiled at McLanahan and

  added, "I think that can be arranged. We can send you out to the

  Strategic Warfare Center for some operational test flights when the

  393rd Bomb Squadron goes to the SWC in a few months. I'll bring it up

  to General Elliott, but I think he'll go for it. You might have just

  found yourself a new job, Patrick-developing penetration and attack

  techniques for Black Knight stealth escort crews."

  "Throw me in the briar patch, " McLanahan said as they moved forward to

  the entry hatch. McLanahan's new bird was AF SAC 90-007, the seventh B-2

  bomber built. He found the plane's nickname, "License to Kill, "

  stenciled on the entry hatch as he and Ormack walked to it and opened it

  up to climb inside-it was a perfect nickname. Patrick checked that the

  "Alert Start" switch was off and safed-the B-2 had a button in the entry

  hatch that would start the bomber's internal power unit and turn on

  power and air before the pilots reached the cockpit. With this system,

  the B-2 could have engine started, the inertial navigation system

  aligned, and the plane taxiing for takeoff in less than three minutes,

  without any external power carts or crew chiefs standing by. Ormack did

  activate the "Int Power" switch in the entryway, which activated

  internal power on the plane. Unlike the B- 1 bomber, whose offensive and

  defensive stations seemed to have been put in reluctantly, almost haphaz

  ardly, the B-2's cockpit was massive. There was almost enough room for

  McLanahan to stand up straight as he slid into the right seat and began

  to strap in. Ormack looked at the young navigator with amusement as he

  set his seat and even put on a pair of flying gloves. "Going

  somewhere?"

  "You want a redesigned cockpit, sir, then you gotta do it with the crew

  dog strapped into position, " McLanahan re plied. "The reach is much

  different. If I had a helmet, I'd put it on." Ormack nodded his

  agreement and smiled-as usual, McLanahan was getting right down to

  business. The bomber's left instrument panel was like a television

  director's console. Four color MFDs, or multi-function displays,

  dominated the instrument panel; each MFD was encircled with buttons that

  would change the screen's function, allowing hundreds of different

  displays on each screen. The bomber used small sidestick controllers,

  like a fighter plane, with throttle quadrants to the left of each seat

  and the buttonfestooned control stick to the right. Each seat also had

  a wide, oval-shaped heads-up display, or HUD, that would project flight

  and attack information on the windscreen. "Where're all the

  instruments?" McLanahan exclaimed with obvious surprise. "There's

  hardly anything installed in here. Did they give us a stripped-down

  test article or what?"

  "This is a fully functional production model, Patrick, " Ormack replied.

  "Everything is done on the MFDs or using switches on the throttles and

  control stick. The screens show menu choices for selecting options for

  each piece of equipment, and you just push a butt
on to select it or use

  the set button on the stick."

  "But I don't see any flight-control system switches, " McLanahan

  persisted. "What about a flap lever? Gear handle? How do you raise

  the landing gear-haul it up with a rope?"

  "This is almost the twenty-first century, my friend, " Ormack replied.

  "We don't move levers-we tell the plane what to do and it takes care of

  it." He pointed to the right-hand MFD at each station, which showed a

  simple five-line menu: BATT POWER, APU POWER, ALERT START, NORMAL START,

  and EMER START. Each item was located next to a corresponding button on

  the screen. "To start engines, you simply press the button and advance

  the throttles to idle, " Ormack explained. "The computer takes care of

  everything else. Start engines, and up comes a different menu of items.

  Select TAKEOFF. The computer configures the plane for takeoff and

  continues to configure the plane during the climbout and all the way to

  level off-it'll raise the gear and flaps, monitor the power settings,

  everything. Once at cruise altitude, you select CRUISE and it'll fly

  the plane, manage the fuel, and report any errors. It has several

  different modes, including LANDING, LOW LEVEL, GUST for bad weather

  conditions, GO AROUND, and ATTACK modes."

  "Computerized flying, huh?" McLanahan muttered. "Pretty slick. You

  almost think they could do away with the pilot and nav. "It's advance

  hardware, but not totally foolproof, " Ormack said. "The pilot in the

  loop is still important."

  "And the nav in the loop as well, " McLanahan said with a smile,

  examining the right-hand seat. "Or should I say, 'mission commander'? I

  like the sound of that." The right-hand instrument panel had boles and

  slots for the same size and number of color MFDs as the pilot's side,

  but technicians had already removed the monitors themselves. "This

  looks like a duplicate of the pilot's side, " McLanahan observed. "I

  think it is, " Ormack said. "The original idea was to have two pilots,

  remember. They decided it-" As Ormack watched, Patrick suddenly reached

  down to an awkwardly mounted keyboard on the right bulkhead and pulled

  it out of its slot. "Hey-!"

  "Sir, having these nice color MFDs on the right side for the nav would

  be fine, " McLanahan said, "but it would also be a huge waste. Small

  MFDs are nice, but they're old technology... "Old technology? These

  MFDs are the latest thing-highresolution, high-speed, one twenty-eight K

  RAM per pixel, the whole nine yards... "Compare it with pilot's side, "

  McLanahan said. "Look here. The pilot can sit back, set up a scan, and

  fly his plane with complete ease and confidence. What does the nav

  have? The nav has got to focus on one screen at a time to do his job.

  His eyes lock on one screen-they have to, because you got one screen

  that displays only one set of information. What happens then? He loses

  track of what's going on around him. He loses situational awareness.

  Something important might be happening on one of the other screens, but

  he doesn't know that because he's got to stare at this screen for

  several seconds. The setup forces him to divert his attention in

  several different directions at once, and by doing so you make him less

  effective, not more. "These are the best MFDs available, " Ormack said

  wryly. "You can swap displays around on each screen, split the screens

  and have two displays on one screen, even have the computer shift

  displays for you-sort of an autoscan. What's wrong with all that?"

  "They're great, but they're outdated, " McLanahan repeated. "We can get

  something better." He shook the keyboard at Ormack, then tossed it over

  his shoulder. "And no important keyboards on the side instrument

  panels. If the nav has to take his eyes off the scope on the bomb run,

  it's no good and it shouldn't be in the plane. That's what gets crews

  killed."

  "We can rig up a swivel arm for the keyboard.. ." Ormack began, but

  McLanahan was clearly unimpressed. "I don't know exactly what you have

  in mind, Patrick, but I don't think you can just decide to replace the

  entire avionics suite . "You want my recommendations, you'll get them, "

  McLanahan said. "You didn't mention any restrictions or specifications,

  so I'll build you the best cockpit I can think of." He paused for a

  moment, then said, "And we'll start with the Armstrong Aerospace Medical

  Research Laboratory at Wright-Pat."

  "Armstrong? What... ?" And then he realized what Patrick was getting

  at: "The Super Cockpit program? You want to put one of those big

  six-square-foot screens in the B-2?"

  "Sir, it's tailor-made for the Black Knight, " McLanahan said excitedly.

  "The screen would fit perfectly in this big cockpit, and they can

  rewrite the software in a matter of months. We can bring it in within a

  few weeks and have a demo flight within four months, I guarantee it." He

  paused for a moment, then added, "And once we get Super Cockpit

  installed, we can install that Sky Masters PACER SKY system General

  Elliott is working on-real-time satellite target reconnaissance. That'd

  be awesome. A satellite sending you real-time pictures of a target

  area, a computer drawing your route of flight, and having it displayed

  on a huge mother Super Multi-Function Display? Oh, man, this is gonna

  be great!" John Ormack thought about the idea for several long mo ments.

  He knew McLanahan was nothing if not a walking idea machine, but he

  never expected him to devise two such radical ideas in so short a time.

  It was an interesting combination: Super Cockpit was a 1 980s technology

  demonstration program that had never been implemented in any tactical

  aircraft, and PACER SKY was a brand-new idea that was just now being

  operationally tested. Ormack knew Sky Masters' NIRTSats could make

  combined synthetic radar, infrared, and visual photographs of a

  geographic area in one pass, uplink it to a satellite, then download it.

  But uplinking it to a TDRS satellite (Tactical Information Distribution

  System used by the Army and Air Force) then downloading it to a

  targeting computer on a strike aircraft was brilliant. The computer

  would be able to classify each return with known or suspected targets,

  measure the precise target coordinates, and load them into the crew's

  bombing computers. The crews could then call up each target, evaluate

  the information and direct a strike against the targets in virtually

  real-time. It would be the first time crews would have access to virtual

  real-time imagery during a conflict. Leave it to McLanahan, Ormack

  thought proudly. "Jesus, Patrick, " Ormack said, "you've already come

  up with six months' worth of work and you haven't been in the seat five

  minutes-and you've probably busted the bank as well."

  "Well, we can eliminate a lot of this stuff, then, " McLanahan said,

  gesturing to a small shelf under the glare shield. "We can ditch this

  attempt at a work desk-with the Super Cockpit installed, we won't need

  charts and books out cluttering the cockpit-but we'll need coffee-cup

  holders, of course "Coffee-cup holders!" Ormack cried. Mc
Lanahan's

  extraordinary capacity for coffee was well known throughout Dreamland.

  "On a B-2? Get outta here!"

  "You think I'm kidding, sir?" McLanahan replied. "I'll bet you lunch

  for a week that there's not only coffee-cup holders for the pilot over

  there, but a pencil-holder and maybe even an approach-plate holder. How

  about it?"

  "You're on, buddy, " Ormack said. "Coffee-cup holders on

  multimillion-dollar warplanes went out with khaki uniforms and nose art.

  Besides, everything on this plane is computerized-why would the pilots

  need pencils and approach plates when everything's on the multi-function

  displays in living color?" Ormack searched the aircraft commander's

  station for a moment as McLanahan confidently sat back in his seat and

  waited. A few moments later he heard a muttered, "Well, I'll be

  damned..."

  "Find something, General?"

  "I don't believe it!" Ormack shouted. "Chart holders, pencil holders,

  coffee-cup holders-no ashtray, hotshot... unbelievable."

  "Let me guess, " McLanahan teased, "there's a space up there for an

  inflight lunch box?"

  "Box lunches and even a stopwatch holder. I just don't believe it.

  There are twenty systems on this plane that'll give you a countdown. The

  plane practically flies itself, for God's sake! If you want, a female

  electronic voice'll even give you a countdown over interphone. But they

  went ahead and put in a black rubber stopwatch holder anyway. "The Air

  Force probably paid a thousand dollars for it, too, " McLanahan added

  dryly. "The more things change, the more they stay the same. We'll

  have developed a hypersonic bomber that can circumnavigate the globe in

  one hour, and someone'll still put a stopwatch holder in the cockpit."

  Ormack tried to ignore McLanahan's smug smile. "Well, you've got your

  work cut out for you over here, that's for sure, but you've made a

  terrific start. When can you get to work?"

  "Right away, General, " McLanahan replied. "The F-15F Cheetah project