Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (2 page)

 
 
 
         
T
he Strategic Air Command B-52 was
ready to begin its final assault. Though half its bomb load had already been
expended, one gravity bomb and four Short-Range Attack Missiles (SRAMs) still
stood in the bomb bays. So far, the crew of six had successfully guided their
aged bomber through a crucial air refueling; a high-altitude bomb run from
thirty-seven thousand feet, with a surprise SA-2 surface-to-air missile attack
shortly afterward; and three subsequent bomb runs through a maze of hills and
valleys.

 
          
Up
ahead, closing in on them at a speed of six miles per minute, was the target
area—defended by surface-to-air missile sites, radar-guided antiaircraft
artillery, and prowling patrols of the most advanced interceptors in the world.

 
          
“IP
inbound in three minutes, crew,” First Lieutenant David Luger announced over
the interphone. He was following the B-52’s course on a narrow cardboard chart,
mentally measuring the distance and computing the time to the IP, or “initial
point,” the start of a low-altitude nuclear bomb run. Time to start reviewing
checklists, Luger thought. The action was going to start soon.

 
          
He
glanced down at the plastic-covered checklist pages, anticipating each step of
the “Before Initial Point” and “Bomb Run (nuclear)” checklists before he came
to it. Long years of training had enabled him to fix in his mind the exact
details of what he was about to do.

 
          
“SRAM
missile pre-simulated launch check, completed,” he said. “Computer launch
programming completed.”

 
          
No
one acknowledged him, but he had not expected a reply. The checklist had been
reviewed hours earlier. As Luger reread the checklist items over the interphone
to key everyone else that the busiest portion of the ten-hour sortie was about
to begin, he found himself squirming in his seat, trying to get comfortable.

 
          
“Radios
set to RBS frequency,” Luger said. He glanced at his chart annotations. “Two
seventy-five point three.”

 
          
“Set,”
Mark Martin, the copilot replied. “RBS bomb scoring plot is set in both radios.
I’ll call IP inbound when cleared by the radar.”

 
          
“Camera
on, one-to-four,” Luger announced, flicking a small black knob near his right
shoulder. A special camera would now record the bomb run and missile launches
on thirty-five millimeter film for later study. “E.W., start-countermeasures
point in sixty seconds.”

 
          
“Defense
copies,” First Lieutenant Hawthorne replied, double-checking his jammer and
trackbreaker switch positions. The same age as Luger,
Hawthorne
was the E.W., or electronic-warfare officer.
His job was to defend the B-52 against attack by jamming or decoying enemy
surface-to- air missile or artillery-tracking radars, and to warn the crew of
missile or aircraft attacks.

 
          
“Rog,”
Luger said. “Checklist complete.” He checked the TG meter, an antique
gear-and-pulley dial that showed the time in seconds to the next turnpoint.
Luger flipped the plastic-covered page over to the “Bomb Run (Synchronous)”
checklist, then glanced over at the radar navigator’s station beside him.
“About one-fifty TG to the IP, radar,” Luger said. “Got it together, buddy?”

 
          
“Uh
huh,” Patrick McLanahan said. He was bent over a pile of bomb run charts and
radar scope predictions, intently studying his bombing “game plan” as if this
was the first time he had seen it. His work area was littered with snippets of
paper, drawings and notes. A thermos, which lay underneath several books and
papers atop his attack radar set, was leaking coffee over the cathode-ray tube
display and the radar controls.

 
          
Luger
impatiently waited for his partner to begin. The two navigators, representing
their SAC bombardment wing in this important competition sortie, were a study
in contrasts. Luger was a tall, lanky Texan, with immaculately spit-shined
boots, closely cropped black hair, and a penchant for textbook perfection. He
was fresh out of B-52 Combat Crew Training after graduating top of his class
from both the
Air
Force
Academy
and Undergraduate Navigator Training, and
was easily the Wing’s most conscientious and professional navigator. He studied
hard, performed his duties to perfection, and constantly drove himself to
higher levels of achievement.

 
          
McLanahan
... was McLanahan. He was of medium height and husky build, a blond and tanned
Californian who looked as if he was fresh off the boardwalk at
Venice
Beach
. Despite McLanahan’s casual appearance and
disdain for authority, he was acknowledged as the best navigator in the Wing,
and quite possibly the best in SAC. Together he and Luger combined to make the
most effective bomber crew in the United States Air Force. And they were about
to go to work.

 
          
“Well,
let’s get this over with,” McLanahan said finally.

 
          
“Good
idea,” Luger said. He proceeded to run down the remaining items on the
checklist, pausing at intervals to check switch positions with the pilot,
Captain Gary Houser. Two minutes later, all switches had been configured and it
only remained to activate the bombing system and tie all of the individual
components together with the bombing computers.

 
          
“Master
bomb control switch.”

 
          
“Good,”
McLanahan said. “I mean, on, light on.”

 
          
“Bombing
system switch.”

 
          
“Auto.”
The bombing computers now had control of everything—the steering, when to
release the bomb, even when to open and close the bomb doors. McLanahan had
only to position a set of electronic crosshairs precisely on a preselected
aiming point on the radar scope, and the bombing computers would do the rest.

 
          
The
computers would translate the crosshair positioning into range and azimuth data
and display the target direction on the Flight Command Indicator (FCI) at the
pilot’s station. The computers fed altitude, heading, airspeed, groundspeed,
and drift through a set of precomputed ballistics data, and derived an exact
release point based on that information. Even if the airspeed changed slightly,
or if the winds shifted, the computers would recompute the exact point for bomb
release.

 
          
“Coming
up on sixty seconds to the IP, crew,” Houser announced. “FCI centered. Sixty
TG, ready, ready . . . now!”

 
          
“Got
it,” Luger said, starting a stopwatch as a backup. “Bomb run review.”

 
          
“Roger,”
McLanahan replied. “Rocket, rocket, bomb . . . uh, concrete blivet . . .
rocket, rocket. This is the live drop over the range. Let’s not fuck this one
up, ladies. Some joker is going to run out there with a tape measure to see how
we score. Nav?” McLanahan said, turning to Luger.

 
          
“SRAM
fixes will be on the Airport, fix number thirty; target Bravo, fix number
thirty-one; and the pumping station, fix number thirty-two. We are running
fully synchronous, all computers fully operational, with a drift rate less
than—”

 
          
“What
he means,” McLanahan said, “is that the SRAM is tighter than that virgin
lieutenant
Gary
’s been seeing.”

 
          
A
conspiratorial snicker could be heard over the interphone.

 
          
“Thirty
seconds to IP,” Houser announced. “Defense?”

 
          
“Electronic
warfare officer ready for IP inbound, pilot,” Mike Hawthorne replied.
“India-band radar is searching but hasn’t locked onto us yet.”

 
          
“Gunner
has back-up timing, radar,” Bob Brake, the crew gunner, replied. “Fire control
radar is clear. I’ll get back on watch after the bomb run and get set for those
Air National Guard fighters they told us about.”

 
          
“Twenty
seconds to IP,” McLanahan announced.

 
          
“Better
stay on watch, guns,” Houser said. “Sometimes those Air National Guard guys get
a little antsy. Remember last year’s Bomb Competition—they didn’t wait for the
bomb run to finish before they jumped us. The rules committee let them get away
with it, too. Realism, you know.”

 
          
“Okay,”
Brake said. “I’ll still be keeping backup timing until I see something.” He
flipped some switches and returned to his small five-inch square tail radar
display. At the tail of the huge bomber, the turret with
four fifty
-caliber machine guns slowly came unstowed
and began a preprogrammed search pattern.

 
          
“Guns
unstowed, system capable, radar-search, radar-track,” Brake reported.

 
          
“Ten
seconds to IP,” Luger said. “Next heading will be zero-one-zero. Airspeed
three-five-zero true. Clearance plane five hundred feet.”

 
          
He
turned to McLanahan. His partner had just removed his helmet and was rubbing
his ears, then snapping his neck hard from side to side.

 
          
“What
the hell are you doing?” Luger said.

 
          
“Loosening
up, Dave,” McLanahan replied. “My brain bucket is killing me.” Luger answered
calls for his partner until the radar navigator finally put his helmet back on.

 
          
Houser’s
FCI slowly wound down. “Coming up on the IP, crew . . . ready . . . ready . . .
now!”

 
          
“Right
turn, heading zero-one-zero, pilot,” Luger said. The huge aircraft banked in
response.

 
          
“Boy,
is it
flat
out there,” McLanahan
said, studying the radar scope.

 
          
“Roger,
radar,” Houser replied. “I guess that means we’re clear of terrain.” That
information was important to Houser—he was handflying the huge bomber only five
hundred feet off the ground at almost six miles per minute. Houser used the
EVS, or Electro-optical Viewing System, and terrain-avoidance computer to
provide a “profile” of the peaks and valleys ahead, but the best warning was
McLanahan’s thirty-mile range radar and his experience in guiding the huge
bomber around trouble. The “Muck”— McLanahan’s less-than-flattering
nickname—wasn’t always by the book, but he was the best and Houser trusted him
with his life. Everyone did.

 
          
“Ten
degrees to roll-out,” Luger reminded the pilot. “Drift is zero, so heading is
still zero-one-zero. Radar, I’ll correct gyro heading after rollout. Pilot,
don’t take the FCI until it’s displayed on the EVS scope.”

 
          
“We’re
IP inbound, crew,” Luger reported. “Pilot, center the FCI and keep it centered.
Pat, I’ll check your switches when you—”

 
          
“Pilot,
airborne radar contact at
two o’clock
!”
Hawthorne
yelled suddenly over the interphone.
“Possibly an F-15. Breaking apart now . . . there’s two of them. Search radar
on us . . . switching to target track . . . they’ve seen us.”

 
          
“Roger,
EW,” Houser said. The fighter-intercept exercise area was still over eighty
miles away, Houser thought.
Hawthorne
must be picking up signals from some other airplane engaging the
fighters. He put the EW’s warning out of his mind.

 
          
Hawthorne
tried to say something else, but he was
quickly interrupted as the action of the B-52’s bomb run began.

 
          
“Copilot,
call IP inbound,” Luger said. McLanahan had switched offsets and was now
peering intently at a radar return that was almost obscured by terrain features
around it.