A New Challenge(chapter 1)

Hello everyone. This is something that I was just working on in school and stuff. What do you all think? I am probably going to make this my first chapter for this "novel". Feedback is VERY appreciated!


Captain John Perry scanned his instruments one more time before he peered back out the canopy. All systems looked good and he was perfectly aligned with the artificial horizon. His F-15E cruised along at 620 knots indicated, and his fuel was at around seventy eight percent full.

“What do you think, Blizzard?” he asked his WSO.

The WSO, or weapons system officer, studied his threat receiver and determined that it was for sure empty before he replied “Looks bare as your mama’s ass,” with a grin tugging at his lips.

John glanced at his rear-view mirror and saw that menacing grin across his good friends face and wished that he could have rocked the aircraft, but decided not to. With a look to the right, he saw his wingman just a few feet off the starboard wingtip. Raven flew that boat with a newbie as the WSO in the back. If Perry would have shook the plane to give Blizzard a lesson, he would have messed up the formation, so for now, the two Eagles flew along at 18,000 feet.

The captain scanned the horizon again only to find perfectly clear skies around him, but they were slowly advancing towards some large cumulonimbus clouds. Those clouds were his favorite to fly in, just because you could weave in and out of them and let all of your worries in the world just eat your dust. Or well, in this situation, your contrails. However, the ROE’s prevented him from doing so in this little mission. The Rules of Engagement strictly state that dogfighting is prohibited in the clouds. However, John knew that every once in a while, these regulations could be pulled...

“Sir! I have got a single contact at one o’clock, 60 miles and closing fast.” Blizzard said.

“Shadow, I have-” Raven began to say.

“I know, lets turn and burn, baby!” John shouted with glee.

The two aircraft turned simultaneously towards the contact and threw the throttles forward. John asked if Blizzard still just had a single contact, and it was confirmed. John saw that the contact was slowing its speed. He then knew exactly what was going on. Perry had seen this a few times before and he had come up with just a few ways of defeating this technique.

“Raven, you’re looking good. I’m leaving your wing, make sure you engage that target.” John said as he pulled back his throttles to idle. He set the best glide speed, and deployed the air brake as well. This made him drop out of the sky like a rock.

“What are you up to, sir?” his wingman asked.

“To take out the other target who will be popping out of those clouds behind us in a few seconds. Your target is luring us in getting all of our attention while his wingman will come out from behind and save the day. I’m not going to let that happen.”

Raven knew that Shadow was a much better pilot than he or anyone else he knew could ever be, so he decided not to second guess his idea.

Perry’s plane was now in a flat dive, and the stall warning now just started to blare in his ears. John sensed that his WSO had no idea what he was doing, so over the intercom, he explained it.

“The contact doesn’t have his radar activated, so he doesn't know that we just dropped from out of the sky. The only way he would know is if he saw us visually, which isn’t too hard, especially with this bird.” The F-15 was notoriously known for being large and spottable at large distances. John finished saying: “We are going to drop to the desert floor and engage the enemies wingman from beneath.”

“Crash and burn!” Blizzard laughed.

“You got it.”

As they passed eight thousand feet, John
shoved the stick forward and the wings resumed creating lift again. The throttle came up and they executed an 180 degree turn. Suddenly radar came to life and showed a contact directly ahead, just out of the clouds at 15,000.

Blizzard read Perry’s mind and shut down the radar. He switched it to the FLIR, or Forward Looking Infrared sensor. This came up on both John’s Multi-function screen, and his HUD. The Heads Up Display showed an icon dead in the sights, since John now had the aircraft pitched up, on an intercept course. The FLIR allowed them to remain stealthy since the enemy would hear the radar painting them.

The distance between the two aircraft was quickly dwindling away. John decided to switch to the twenty millimeter gatling gun located in his left wing root. He watched the distance close descend below two thousand feet. When it hit fifteen hundred, he ordered his WSO to flip on the radar. John knew that the enemy would be freaking out as a result of the high pitched shrill that they were hearing in their helmets. However, there were no bullets spit when he squeezed the trigger.

“Son of a bitch! Is that you, Shadow?” was blared on the radio.

“You know it!” shouted John, as his aircraft blew past his good friend Jackal.

John leveled off and executed a loop to swing back around to meet up with Jackal’s port wing. He didn't exactly meet up with him. Perry threw the throttles forward and broke the sound barrier just after he passed the “enemy”. It rocked the crap out of Jackal’s F-15, as he disengaged from the fight.

“Alright Raven, where’s the fight?” John asked as he sped towards his wingmen’s last known position.

“The fights right on my freaking tail!” replied a panicked voice.

“Blizzard, you know where he is?”

“Got him at two o’clock forty miles!”

“Raven, I am coming for you. Don't let him lock on ya, ‘bud, got it? Turn away from my position, so I can fall in behind him.” John instructed.

“Aghh, I’m trying! Just hurry up and get your ass out here!”

John pushed the throttles even further forward and watched the Mach indicator climb past two. Again, John was speeding towards the target, but this time, he wasn't sure if he could slow down in time to fire the missile, so he dropped the afterburners. He checked his fuel situation, and saw that the tanks had dropped a considerable amount. The engines chugged three gallons per second when on full afterburner, so it was to be expected.

The aircraft’s speed was still too high, so John deployed the speed brake, located on the Eagle’s spine. It was a large sheet of metal, that when raised into the slipstream, it slowed down the aircraft at a startling rate. The speed dropped below the acceptable missile firing range, so he then activated the radar. The LANTIRN pod came on line and showed the two contacts ahead of him on the HUD.

“Can you get a lock on the bastard, Blizzard?”

“Negative, Raven is jinking and jiving way too much. The other guy is doing the same thing.”

“You know who he is? He moving pretty
well.”

“No idea, Cap.”

John studied the enemies movements, but couldn't tell who was piloting the aircraft. It was starting to bug him too. John saw that it was an F-15C, with just one seat in the cockpit.

Perry finally got a radar lock, but the missile still refused to do the same. John knew that these computers for the simulated dogfights were not very accurate. He decided to bring it in closer and see if he could get a lock on then. Suddenly, the fighter did a precision roll to the right and deployed a speed brake and pulled back, almost coming back towards John. John at first couldn't believe his eyes, because he knew that the pilot in there would be pulling major gees. He had never seen any of the pilots he knew fly that precise, so he watched the fighter and then matched his move with his own to come into gun range behind the Eagle. The LANTIRN finally locked on, and counted the trigger pull as a kill. John knew that part of it was luck, but he fell in on the enemies left wingtip and looked over into the C’s cockpit. There he saw a figure with a matte black helmet, and the sun visor pulled down. The figure faintly made a nod, and rolled over onto his back and disengaged from the area.

“Raven, how are you doing?”

“Pretty good, considering I pissed my pants two or three times.” He laughed. “ Thanks a lot for saving my butt back there.”

“Hey, what are wingmen for, right?” John asked. “Well, what do you say we RTB, eh?”

“Roger that, you have the lead.”

John pulled his aircraft around to the runway’s heading and sped up into the max conserve cruising speed. He glanced to his right, and saw that his wingman was right along with him. The long slap of concrete was slowly creeping up in his windscreen. The Olympics were off to the left and towered over the desert floor that the runway was located. He knew that the enemy had already landed, so he searched the strip for them. Perry spotted the two enemy F-15’s taxiing off towards the hangars. John lowered his aircrafts altitude and speed, as well as the flaps. The Eagle slowed down to landing configuration and dropped the gear.

He made a greaser landing and engaged the speed brake. The plane slowed to taxi speed right before the first taxiway. He was soon followed by his wingman who made a nice landing as well. As soon as his plane was chocked, and all systems were shut down properly, he popped the canopy and stood in the cramped cockpit.

Inside the large hangar, there were three other F-15 Strike Eagles. Two belonging to his “enemies” and the other one was Raven’s aircraft. Jackal and his wingman were no where to be seen. John stowed his flight gear and slipped out of the G-suit before heading to the de-breifing room.

John was twenty-seven and still single. He just graduated from the United States Air Force Academy a few years ago, and graduated as the best pilot in his class. His studies weren’t outstanding, but they were respectable. In his off time, he was commonly seen going for long runs and he also played some pick-up hockey. Once in a while he will participate in some locker-room boxing matches, and take on bets. But it was rather rare that someone would challenge him. Perry stood six foot two and wandered around 190 pounds. He was ripped from head to toe because he lifted in the gym every day. It made it difficult to move around in the cockpit, but John thought it was worth it. When put up against high gee maneuvers, he could move around much easier than any other pilot. Also, he trained and toned many muscles groups so he could flex them while flying and keep the blood flow going to his brain extremely efficiently.

One event that got him a lot of attention was when he had just gotten out of the AFA. He was dogfighting an instructor who had just dropped onto his tail. John pulled an eight and a half gee turn and got around behind him. He nearly blacked out when his tunnel vision got so bad and lost all hearing for the next hour or so. Unbelievably, he was still able to shoot down his own instructor and safely land his aircraft.

All of John’s accomplishments have earned him loads of respect that any other person would take a lifetime to achieve. Even some of his superiors refer to him as “sir”.

John and his wingman opened the door to the debriefing room and stepped into the dimly lit room and inhaled the cigar laiden atmosphere. There seated across the room were Jackal and another man.

Perry set his jacket on the armrest and sat down in the thick leather chair. “Nice flying out there sweetie,” he joked with Jackal with a grin. His attention was then set on the man next to him. He was roughly six foot with a thin build. His hair was cropped military short and he wore a look that stared straight ahead and didn't acknowledge anyone. John glanced at his shoulder and observed that they both were of equal rank.

“I don't believe that we have met. I’m Perry. Nice flying out there today. Not too many pilots pull a maneuver like that one.”

“You did.”

John dismissed that and asked “Who are you?” as he reached over the table to shake the mans hand.

“Raptor” and their hands met. John felt a firm calloused hand grip his own and sat back down.

This will be an interesting next month of flying with this man, he thought to himself...