E3 Sentry

E-3 SENTRY - EXTREME SOUTHERN TURKEY

It had been a long night.  Major Susan Gwinn had started at ten the previous evening when she boarded the converted Boeing 707 with her retinue of radar controllers and flight crew totaling twenty. 

Another half hour on station and they could head for Ankara, Turkey, one hour to the north.  A debriefing, maybe a movie, a few hours of sleep, and then back into the aluminum tube for another flight.

Orbiting over the southern tip of Turkey near Samandagi, they flew lazy circles and monitored air and sea activity along the Syrian coast.  Radar controllers tracked the small Syrian navy as it paced the 6th fleet and kept a wary eye on the Syrian Air Force. 

Linked by microwave to the AGEIS cruiser Valley Forge, their airborne radar fed detailed information to the insatiable fire control computer. 

From a radar console on the E3, a young Lieutenant called for the Majors’ attention.  “Major, got another Mig making a run to the north for Halab.  Doing 1200 knots!”

“Yeah, it’s a hornets nest out there,” said Major Gwinn.

“I heard that, Major.  Look at that sucker go!  Wonder if there’s any windows down there that aren’t broken.”

“Let’s let the Syrians worry about that, Lieutenant.  I smell trouble, so keep your mind on your work.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

Down the cramped corridor, another radar operator kept an eye on the Damascus air space, one hundred seventy miles to the south.  “Major, I show twelve aircraft orbiting Ruhayyil field, and two more taking off.  Looks like a convention!”

“They’re sending us a message, Lieutenant.  If they move toward the coast call me immediately.”

Soon the endless hours of staring at glowing screens would be over, and they looked forward to a few hours off.  But for now it was business as usual, with little conversation in the compact and efficient confines of the Boeing aircraft.

Over the intercom, an excited controller called Major Gwinn.  “Inbound! Inbound!  Fast mover bearing oh nine five, 1400 knots, fifty five miles, ETA two minutes!”

Major Gwinn called the pilot, but she knew that if the Mig was going to attack they didn’t stand a chance.  “Pilot!  Make an immediate turn to the west!  We’re under attack!”  Switching from the intercom, she selected the guard frequency to call in their fighter escorts refueling to the north.  “Mayday!  Mayday!  Sentry One, under attack!  Hawk leader, get on the burners!  We’ve got a single Mig crossing the border, closing fast!”

Seventy-five miles to the north, two F-15 Eagles had just finished refueling from a KC-135 tanker.  “Sentry One, Hawk flight on the way.  ETA three minutes!”

Shooting away from the tanker, the two fighters were supersonic in fifteen seconds, but the race had been decided minutes earlier.  They were too far, and had too little time.

Banking sharply to the west, the pilot in the Sentry, his knuckles white, pushed on the control yoke  The nose fell through the horizon.  He pushed the throttles against the stops, clawing for airspeed in a desperate race against time.  Approaching the speed of sound, the Sentry raced toward the sea.

Diving from 40,000 feet, the attacking Mig-25 closed the gap at seven hundred knots.  A blizzard of white filled the radar screen, and static rasped in the fighter pilots head set.  The AWACS jammed his electronics but not his eyes, for the intercept was visual, the radar along for the ride. Screeching a lock on, the French built Super 530D missile begged for release.  He watched as the Sentry dove for the sea, approaching mach one in a race to safety, but he knew it could not escape.  A little closer and he is mine!

Major Gwinn held on as the aircraft bucked and bounced in the race to escape.  “Fredricks, I hope you’ve got that targeting radar jammed, ‘cause were meat on the table if you don’t!”

“Got the whole suite trained on him, Major.  We could fry him with the radio energy we’re beaming at him.” 

Jabbing at the chaff and flare buttons again and again, the E-3 pilot prayed that the burning magnesium and little clouds of aluminum foil would lure the hounds from the scent.  Major Gwinn had called for help, but the pilot knew that it would be too late—the hot breath of the beast was already breathing was down his back.  The pilot knew, and so did Major Gwinn; Only God could save them now.

Closing at eight hundred miles per hour, the Syrian pilot waited until the distance was under one mile.  The E-3 swelled in his sight as he squeezed the missile release button under his finger.  A single missile fell from the shackles under the wing, and an orange flame raced ahead of the fighter, a cloud of white smoke in its wake.

White smoke traced a spiraling arc toward the starboard engines of the AWACS and then a puff of bright orange and black bloomed under the wing.  The outboard engine exploded and fell away, a tumbling ball of flame and black smoke. 

Turbine blades exploded from the streamlined cowling of the inboard engine, shredding the bottom of the wing.  Bits of metal glinted in the sun, and a tiny river of aluminum tumbled in the air stream as the wounded jet rolled inverted.

Shooting by the spinning AWACS, the pilot's head twisted to follow the silver blur as it rolled and spun.  Pulling sharply on the stick, he sagged in the ejection seat as the heavy hand of six gravitites pushed on him in the sharp turn toward the Syrian border.  He pushed the throttle to the final indent, smiling inwardly at his first air combat victory.

In the Sentry, the pilot gripped the control yoke, his knuckles white.  Full deflection on the ailerons and the roll continued, the nose twisting under the off center thrust of the two remaining engines.  He pulled the power back to idle on the port side engines and mashed on the rudder pedal.  The inverted spin continued, the horizon twisting as charts and bits of debris fell to the ceiling.  With the airframe groaning and popping, the spin slowing, his breath came in gasps. “Mayday!  Mayday!  Sentry One, Mayday!” 

He had lots of altitude and most of an airplane.  He knew that he could pull the beast back under control, just roll upright and bring the nose up, he knew he could do it, he knew it with the confidence born of thousands of hours of flying.  Just a few more thousand feet, that’s all, and they would limp to a landing, probably laugh about it over a few beers.

Susan Gwinn hung suspended in her seat harness, pencils and notebooks falling to the ceiling, sliding and rolling forward, the nose steeply down, the rushing air screaming through the aluminum skin.

She was too surprised to be scared, too busy hanging on to scream as the radar dome above her tore loose, taking twenty feet of the cabin roof with it.  Suddenly she was in an incredible freezing maelstrom of paper and debris.  Then the floor buckled, and a sudden quiet surrounded her as the seat tore loose, and she fell into the void. 

Tumbling through the bitter cold air, her eyes screwed shut, still strapped to her seat, she was surprised that she was still alive.  Then she knew as she opened her eyes and watched the deep blue of the Mediterranean, four miles below, rush toward her.

E-2 HAWKEYE - 60 MILES SOUTH OF CVN LINCOLN

Phil Grayson had just made Lieutenant Commander.  They called him the ‘snake’.  On a previous deployment he had tried to smuggle a snake into the Air Group Commander’s cabin as a joke.  Roaring drunk, he was stuffing a defanged cobra under the covers of the CAG’s bunk when the door opened and the Air Group Commander walked in. 

Grayson stood up, still holding the writhing snake, a shit eating grin on his red face.  Eyes narrowed, the CAG glared, and without a word between them, Grayson shuffled out of the cabin, closing the door quietly behind him.  He still took heat from the CAG on his little joke, and the flights of fighters code named for poisonous snakes were a private joke between them..   

Grayson flew the E2 Hawkeye as his copilot read a dog eared copy of a lurid and explicit soft back handed down from flier to flier.  There were five men aboard, and all but two were very bored.

With twelve thousand hours in the twin turboprop Hawkeye, Grayson had applied for early retirement from the Navy.  Federal Express had made him an offer, and he looked forward to flying for a few hours and then home to the family.  Long months at sea made him yearn for civilian life and some time with his wife and kids.  Who knows?  He thought,  Might even be able to patch up the marriage.

Behind the cockpit, Lieutenant Mance, the radar intercept officer was busy.  The sky was filled with fighters, tankers, and confusion.  Syrian Migs dashed toward the fleet as he directed fighters to intercept before the Migs could turn away.  He wanted to look outside, but the radar was speckled with moving points maneuvering for an advantage.  It was his job to give the fleet interceptors the advantage, and it took concentration.  Lots of it.

They had been on station four hours and faced the possibility of four more.  The other Hawkeye and flight crew were in Nicosa, Cypress, forced to land with a single engine.  If the grounded bird didn’t fly in the next two hours, they would trap aboard, refuel, gag down a quick meal, and go again.
 
A single moving point of light on the radar screen caught Mance’s attention.  Off the Lebanese coast, down on the water, squawking the correct code on the IFF , a single aircraft headed toward them,.  It didn’t look right, but it was friendly, maybe out of Israel.

Air activity farther inland, over Ruhayyil field, was heating up.  More Syrians coming out to play, he thought.  “Mamba flight, turn oh eight oh, two bandits, inbound, sixty miles, Angels two five oh.  Texaco two two, hold station, two hungry tom cats inbound your nine o’clock.”

The cry of Mayday on the guard frequency drowned out the aerial chatter.  Mance called the pilot.  “Hey, Snake!  That’s an E-3 AWACS, ‘bout two hundred miles north, they’re under attack!”

Grayson cut him off on the intercom.  “Shit!  Looks like this aerial circus is heat’n up!  I’m head’n west.  Someone else can watch these crazy bastards up close!”

The single point of light in the lower right of the radar screen jumped ahead, leaping closer with every sweep of the wand in the glowing tube.  In the cockpit the threat receiver warbled as the targeting radar on the climbing F-14 locked on.

“I got a radar lock on up here, Mance!  What are you doing, pick’n your nose?”
“Turn due North, Snake!  Do it now!  Got a fast mover closing from the South!  Keep him looking at our rear, I’ll call in some help!”  Mance pushed button two on the radio console.  “Mongoose one, Frisbee one two.  We’re under attack!  Vector two five oh, four five miles, Angles two five, climbing!”

Mongoose flight, two F-14 Tomcat fighters, went to afterburner, turning toward the Hawkeye thirty miles to the South..  “Mongoose flight on the way!  Keep ‘em comm’in Mance!”

Garrison’s heart was beating so hard he could feel his chest pumping.  Those God Damn jocks think this is some sort of game!  What are we, bait?  Pushing the nose of the E-2 toward the sea, ‘Snake’ firewalled the throttles, and the air speed indicator wound through the yellow arc and into the red.  The Hawkeye was not going to go any faster and stay in one piece.

“Where is he, Mance!  Talk to me!”

“Twelve miles, your six.  Closing fast, Snake!  Step on it will ya?”

“We push this old bird any harder and the wings’ll come off!  The God damned threat receiver’s sceam’in and I’m about to shit my pants!  Where are those fighters?”

“Eleven o’clock, twenty miles, minute and a half!”

Purchased from Iran, the F-14 was old and tired, with a new paint job to match the dull gray of the US Navy.  Much of the avionics in the instrument panel did not work, but the jet was fast, very maneuverable, and the 20 millimeter Vulcan cannon was fully operative.  Squawking the current IFF code for the fleet on the transponder, the Syrian Tomcat was just one more navy fighter in a sky filled with trouble.

The pilot knew that the mission was risky, probably a one way flight, but to fly against the best in the business was a challenge he could not refuse.  There was no radar operator in the back seat to assist in the intercept or relieve him of some of the cockpit chores so he was busy.  He pushed the throttles all the way forward, pulled up slightly, and fired up the powerful Hughes built AN/AWG-9 radar.
 
On the radar screen, the twin engine turboprop turned into a bright point of light.  The targeting computer was just one more piece of junk in the cockpit, but if he centered the blip on the radar, he knew he would intercept the Hawkeye.  He banked sharply and brought the green point of light to the twelve o’clock position on the radar scope. 

He scanned the sky ahead.  Nothing, the dull gray color of the Hawkeye lost in the immense sky.  Banking slightly, he kept the glowing speck centered on the radar.

When the air speed had climbed to mach one point one, he pulled back sharply on the stick.  His face sagged and his arms turned to lead as the Tomcat rocketed upward toward the slowly moving target.  He scanned the airspace ahead.  There! Far off, a tiny dark speck in a brilliant blue sky, turning away and coming down!  He centered the growing speck in the gun sight, oblivious to everything but the target.  His body trembled with anticipation, impatient, a sly grin spreading beneath the oxygen mask.

There was less than ten seconds of ammunition for the Vulcan cannon, but he was confident that it would be enough.  He throttled back, slowing as he climbed, going subsonic, afraid he would overshoot with too great a speed advantage.  One pass, that was all he was going to get, and he was determined that it would be perfect.

Dead astern of the weaving Hawkeye, he banked and turned, following every movement of the swiftly growing silhouette.  From the rear of the Hawkeye clouds of silver chaff puffed and glinted in the sun and bright flares ejected, glowing like jewels on a string.

Now!  He squeezed the trigger on the stick, holding tightly, trying to squeeze more bullets from the weapon.  The stick shuddered with the vibration of the rotating cannon firing twenty-five rounds each second into the helpless aircraft.

Bright flashes came from the Hawkeye as the 20 millimeter slugs ripped the fuselage to shreds.  Snapping like a twig, the right wing separated, the engine still running, the wing spinning wildly.

Falling sharply to the left, the Hawkeye tumbled and twisted as yellow flames and smoke streamed from the ragged wing root.  Bits of debris pelted the plexiglass canopy as he pulled sharply to the right and shoved the throttles forward, rolling until he hung suspended above the canopy.  A sharp tug on the stick and he rocketed toward the sea, the altimeter unwinding in a blur, the airspeed climbing to supersonic.

When the altimeter read two thousand feet he pulled the fighter out of the dive and skimmed fifty feet above the waves toward the coast.  The air speed bled off, the air too thick and heavy to allow his passage in the supersonic.
 
In three minutes he was over the coast, the pursing fighters far behind.  He knew they could fire a Phoenix missile and destroy him, but he also knew that they would have to save their million dollar shots for the desperate fight headed their way.