Authors: Chris Stewart
Of course, he had assumed the tanker was going to be on time.
He tried another channel as he swore into his mask. In the front cockpit, Ammon stared out the side of his canopy and watched the cold sea down below.
WOLF 53
The KC-10 pilot nodded to the copilot, who then switched the radio frequency over.
“I hope they're up on this frcq,” the copilot said. “With all that weather going on back to our east, we really can't afford any delays.”
“Yeah,” the pilot agreed. “I'd really like to get this thing going, then head on back home.” The flight engineer in the aft seat nodded his head. They were all anxious to start heading back toward Spain. No one liked these mid-Atlantic air refuelings. Especially at night. Especially with bad weather at home base.
The copilot dialed up the frequency. Almost immediately, an anxious voice filled his headset.
“Wolf five-three, Wolf five-three, this is Heater four-one. Wolf five-three, do you read?”
“Heater four-one, this is Wolf five-three,” a man's deep voice boomed through Morozov's headset. “We got you loud and clear. You're a little early tonight, aren't you?”
Morozov breathed a short grunt into his mask. Wiping his flight glove across his upper lip, he spoke into his microphone once more.
“Oh, yeah, that's a roger. It looks like we are going to be about twenty minutes early. Big tail wind crossing the pond from the jet stream. And we're running a little bit low on gas. Any chance you could meet us at the rendezvous point a little early?”
“Stand by, Heater,” the tanker replied. Then after a short pause, the voice crackled back.
“That's a negative, Heater four-one. In fact, we'll be lucky if we get there on time. We got socked in back at Torrejon. Thunderstorms everywhere. Best we can do would be a rendezvous time of twenty-one eleven. How will that work for you?”
Morozov glanced at his watch. That was still twelve minutes away!
“How much fuel we got?” he called out tersely to Ammon.
“Forty-one,” Ammon replied.
Morozov did the math in his head. Forty-one hundred pounds ... about eighteen minutes of fuel. It would take them twelve minutes to the rendezvous. Couple minutes to hook up with the tanker. That was fourteen, maybe fifteen minutes total.
They would only be running on fumes!
He never intended to cut it so close.
“No, Wolf,” Morozov finally replied. “That's still too late. We are almost running dry here. Starting to suck on our cushions, if you know what I mean. So just tell me, what is the soonest you can be at the point?”
Inside the tanker, the pilot glanced over at the copilot who did some quick math on a portable air-data computer. After several seconds, the copilot lifted the small display up to the pilot so that he could read the numbers, while shrugging his shoulders.
The tanker pilot keyed his microphone switch.
“Sorry, Heater. That is about as early as we're going to make it.”
A short pause.
“Heater, how much fuel do you have?” the tanker pilot asked.
“Twenty thousand pounds,” Morozov lied.
“Uh ... that's not much now, Heater.” Inside the B-1, Ammon almost laughed as he wished it were true.
“Okay, Heater,” the tanker pilot continued, “you still have the option of turning back to the Azores, just like the emergency air refueling plan says.”
The tanker pilot was right. No aircraft was ever sent across the Atlantic without always being in a position to make some kind of emergency landing, just in case their air refueling tankers couldn't meet them to pass off fuel. But he didn't want to give the impression that he knew more about their situation than the B-1 pilot did. So he was careful about what he said. And, as always, the ultimate decision was left up to the bomber crew.
The tanker pilot listened for a moment, then said, “Did you copy, Heater four-one? Do you need to turn back to the Azores for an emergency landing? If twenty-one eleven will not work for you, maybe that's what you should do. I'm sorry, that's the earliest that we're going to be there.”
Morozov swallowed hard and stared at his watch, then said, “No. No, Wolf. Plan on meeting us then. Twenty-one eleven will work out.”
Ammon could hardly believe it. How close was it going to be?!
Ammon glanced at his fuel gauge once again. Under 4,000 pounds. He slowly shook his head as he figured how quickly they would burn 4,000 pounds of fuel.
It was going to be tight. Very tight. There was no room for error. Not the slightest edge for mistakes. If his fuel gauge wasn't exactly right, if the tankers were even a little bit slow, or if they had any trouble finding or linking up with the tankers, then it was over. And they were taking a swim.
As Ammon looked out ahead for the tanker, he heard Morozov talk to the tanker once again.
“Wolf five-three, Heater four-one.”
“Go ahead, Heater.”
“Yeah, ahh ... we are receiving some static on this frequency. Might be some bleed over from one of the carrier groups off of Lisbon. Any chance we could change over to another frequency? How about two-forty-seven point nine five?”
“Sure, no problem, Wolf. We are switching over now.”
The radio had seemed very clear to Ammon. He hadn't noticed any static at all.
TORREJON AIR BASE, SPAIN
Twelve hundred miles to the east, at the Torrejon Air Base, the command post was going crazy. On the far wall, illuminated red lights strobed the semi-darkness, and a buzzer sounded gently overhead. Telephones were ringing from all over the world. Printers clacked and spit out long rolls of white paper. The senior controller and communications officer were eyeing each other across the padded floor.
“What do you mean, you can't get them up on the radios?” the communications officer shouted.
“The storms have created some interference on the High Frequency,” the senior controller responded. “We've been trying for the past two hours, almost since the tanker took off, but we haven't been able to raise them.”
“Sonofa ... ,” the communications officer muttered. He thumped on the table and stared up at the map, thinking, then turning to his controller, he said, “Okay, forget the HF. Try getting ahold of Atlantic Radio. They track all of the transatlantic aircraft. They should be able to get through to the tanker.
“I want you to do whatever it takes. Call them on the land-line. Use the satellite communications if you have to. But get through to Global Atlantic and tell them to turn that tanker around!”
The controller nodded and turned back to his console. Picking up one of the phones that hung near his rolling chair, he too began to yell at whoever was on the other end.
The communications officer shook his head, turned back to his desk, and read the message once again. It was very short and to the point.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
TO: Butter 46
FR: Chief of Staff, USAF
RE: “SHATTERED BONE”
Message follows.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
1- Reason to believe your Tanker Task Force has been unlawfully tasked to refuel Atlantic crossing B-1.
2- DO NOT ... repeat ... DO NOT allow your tanker to refuel B-1. Abort refueling by any means.
3- Acknowledge receipt of message with follow-on actions.
4- Message complete
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
The communications officer leaned back in his seat and sucked on his tongue. “SHATTERED BONE”? Code Alpha messages from the Air Force Chief of Staff? Unlawfully tasked tanker orders? What was going on?
REAPER'S SHADOW
Six minutes later, Ammon found the tanker's lower rotating beacon as the enormous aircraft made its final turn back toward the Bone. Two minutes after that, the tanker rolled out directly ahead of the B-1, one thousand feet above it. Richard Ammon quickly punched off his auto pilot and began a swift climb up to the tanker. As he climbed, he watched his fuel readout click down through 2,500 pounds. A bright yellow light continually flickered in his face, warning him of his critical fuel state. It had been on for the past sixty minutes. He was able to ignore the light now.
He began to concentrate on the tanker that lay up ahead. He was closing very quickly. It would only be a matter of minutes before he would be taking on fuel.
“Tanker is at twelve o'clock, four thousand feet,” Morozov announced from the back cockpit. He was monitoring Ammon's approach to the tanker on his radar.
“Rag,” Ammon replied, keeping the tanker in sight. He was just beginning to see the outline of its huge wings as they were illuminated by the underbelly floodlights. He glanced at his airspeed indicator as he continued closing. He had almost fifty knots of closure speed on the tanker. That was way too fast. But he didn't pull back on his throttles. He didn't have time to slow down and make a nice, smooth approach to the tanker. Instead, he stole another quick glance at his fuel gauge. One thousand nine hundred pounds.
Tight. It was going to be tight.
Ammon was still five hundred feet from the tanker when his number four engine flamed out.
THULE, GREENLAND
“Wolf five-three, this is Global on eleven-forty-six HF. How do you read?” the Global Air Traffic controller transmitted for the fifth time. Again no response. The controller, sitting in a warm office in Thule, Greenland, turned to his supervisor and shrugged his shoulders. The supervisor then spoke into a phone.
“No contact. Yes, yes, of course we'll keep trying. But it doesn't sound like they're there. Now that could be because of two things. They could have turned their radios off. Or switched over to another frequency. Either way, if they aren't listening to us, there isn't much we can do.”
REAPER'S SHADOW
Caution lights flashed all over the cockpit when Ammon lost his number four engine. He quickly extinguished them by hitting the master caution light reset button on his forward instrument display. He could live without the engine for now. What he needed was to get up to the tanker and get some gas.
The KC-10 loomed up before him, filling the front of his wind-screen as he moved in closer. He could now see the air-refueling boom as it hung down from the KC-10's tail. Tiny blue lights illuminated the tip of the boom, swinging around in a small circle as the boom drifted and floated in the stream of rushing air.
Ammon tried to ignore the stirring boom and instead concentrated on the body of the aircraft as he moved aggressively into position. When the Bone was within eighty feet of the tanker, Ammon quickly drew his throttles back to idle. The bomber slid into position, twelve feet aft of the boom. As Ammon concentrated on maintaining this position, the boom operator extended the boom and slid it along the nose of the bomber. At first, the boomer missed the air refueling port, and he pulled the boom quickly away from the bomber to keep from smashing out one of the windows. Ammon sucked in his breath and then held it. His number two engine sputtered and also flamed out. Another half dozen caution lights flickered on. Morozov swore at him from the back cockpit. Ammon stayed in the contact position, waiting for the boomer to hook up to his Bone. Slowly, with exercised caution, the Boomer moved the boom back toward the tip on the B-l's nose. The boom slid across the thick metal as it searched for the receptacle block. Then, with a solid
clunk
, the receiver latched and accepted the nozzle.
Ammon glanced down at his fuel gauge. Twelve hundred pounds. He held his breath and bit on his tongue as he counted the systems he had lost when the second engine had flamed out. Two generators, two main hydraulic pumps, half a dozen avionics computers. The list went on and on.
But it didn't matter. The B-1 could fly with only two engines. It was dangerous, but not deadly. What he needed was fuel. He continually cross-checked the fuel gauge. Then he saw the numbers begin to increase. The bomber was taking on gas.
Four huge transfer pumps inside the tanker began to pump fuel out of their tanks and through the six-inch boom at a rate of over 10,000 pounds every minute. Ammon cross-checked the fuel gauge once again. It was passing through 3,000 pounds and increasing very quickly. He let out his breath with a sigh of relief, reached down and restarted his engines, then settled back in his seat and concentrated on staying in the proper position behind the huge tanker.
TORREJON AIR BASE, SPAIN
“Sir, I've located a carrier task force off the coast of Portugal, about three hundred miles west of Lisbon,” the Torrejon controller said. “They may be within UHF radio range of the Wolf tanker. I'm getting a satellite link with them now.” The controller was standing by the communications officer's desk. The CommOff looked up and rubbed his hands through his sandy brown hair, then glanced at his watch. 21:14. The refueling, if it was on schedule, was just about ready to begin.
“Do it,” he commanded. “Tell the carrier communications center to blanket the sky with the message. The tanker should be monitoring guard frequency. Every aircraft has to do that. Tell them that would be a good place to start.”
“Sir, it's already done.”
REAPER'S SHADOW
Ammon looked at his fuel gauge. They had already taken on almost 130,000 pounds of fuel. It was good to be fat once again.
Suddenly, with another
clunk
, the refueling boom disconnected from his bomber with a mist of spraying jet fuel. The boom operator raised the boom and retracted its nozzle. Ammon heard his radio come alive.
“Heater four-one, that completes your off-load. You have received one-hundred-thirty thousand pounds of JP-8.”
“Roger, Wolf,” Richard Ammon replied as he pulled back on his throttles and began to descend away from the KC-10. The outline of the tanker began to fade and merge with the darkness as the Bone descended toward the ocean.
Ammon pushed the nose of the aircraft downward, establishing a 25 degree nose low attitude. They descended toward the ocean at over 20,000 feet per minute, cutting through the darkness toward the glistening ocean waves. He only had a few minutes to get down low. They would soon be close enough to the coast of Spain that, at any altitude above a few thousand feet, they would be detected by NATO's over-the-horizon radar.