Executive Intent

“Countermeasures active!” Frodo shouted. Boxer punched the buttons on her control stick to eject decoy chaff and flares, then rolled into a hard left turn, pulled the throttles out of afterburner, and pulled on the control stick to make the turn as tight as she could. There was a bright flash of light out the right cockpit window, and both crewmembers were jerked violently to the right from the force of the exploding missile. Their supercockpit displays flickered, and the right side of Frodo’s screen went blank.

Boxer rolled out of the turn before all of her airspeed bled off in the break, then selected full afterburner again…but then brought the rightmost throttle back. “Compressor stall on number four!” she shouted.

“Warning, warning, missile guidance, SA-N-4, four o’clock!” the threat computer blared.

“Is the active defensive system up?”

“No-all ECMs faulted. I’m rebooting.”

“Hang on!” She punched out chaff and flares again, hoping the ejectors were working, then rolled into a hard right break, using the underpowered number four engine as an air brake to tighten the turn. “Can you see the missile?”

Frodo frantically scanned out his window, then shouted, “Climb, now!” Boxer pulled the control stick until all they could see out the front windscreen was sky, then pushed wings-level and reversed the turn. She saw a flash of light below and to her left.

“Missile guidance, SA-N-6, six o’clock!”

“Our airspeed is almost gone,” Boxer said. “I can’t do any more breaks or else we’ll spin into the ocean. How’s the ECM-”

“Coming online now!” Frodo shouted. The right side of his supercockpit display was on once again, and his fingers were flying across the touchscreen. “ADS active!” The Vampire’s ADS, or Active Defensive System, was a pair of free-electron laser emitters, one atop and one underneath the fuselage. When the laser radar detected an incoming missile, the ADS lasers would slave themselves to the LADAR and attack the missiles with beams of white-hot laser energy powerful enough to destroy the thin dielectric nose cap of most surface-to-air missiles at long range. They had to fight off at least a half-dozen Russian missiles fired from the carrier’s escorts.

“Airspeed’s finally picking up,” Boxer said. “I’m going to see if number four is back with us.” She gently advanced the throttle of the number four engine, watching the exhaust temperatures to make sure the fire that was in the engine wasn’t going to reignite-and sure enough, the exhaust-gas temperature in the engine began to spike, and she pulled the throttle to idle, then to “CUTOFF.” “Looks like number four is dead, Frodo-a fire starts in the burner can when I advance the throttle,” she said. “Let’s get on the radio and see if our tanker can-”

“Bandits!” Frodo yelled. “Su-33s, three o’clock, twenty-five-”

Just then the threat warning computer blared, “Missile guidance, AA-12, three o’clock!” Boxer punched out chaff and flares and did another hard left break…

…but it was too slow with the lost engine, and there wasn’t enough airspeed to keep the break in to defeat the missile. They felt a hard whummp and the entire tail section of the Vampire skidded to the left. Boxer had to fight the control stick with both hands and stomp hard on the right rudder pedal to keep the plane straight and prevent a roll right into the ocean.

“Boxer…?” Frodo shouted.

“I got it, I got it!” Boxer shouted. She knew that’s probably exactly what most bomber pilots said right before they crashed after being hit by a missile, but she truly believed she could maintain control. She released the control stick with her left hand long enough to raise a red-colored switch guard on her side instrument panel, raised a switch inside to the “ARM” position, then climbed slightly. “Nail those fighters, Frodo!”

Frodo activated his “MASTER ARM” switch on his side instrument panel. As soon as he did, the supercockpit display changed from a view of the Russian fleet to a three-dimensional depiction of the airborne threats around them. The laser radar detected and began tracking all of the Russian Sukhoi-33 carrier-based fighters, and the fire control computer quickly prioritized each one in order of threat. As soon as the first fighter came within range, the computer opened the forward bomb-bay doors and ejected an AIM-120 AMRAAM missile into the slipstream.

The missile descended about fifty feet as it stabilized itself. Boxer hoped the Vampire was not side-slipping too much or the missile would likely fly right into it, but it separated cleanly, its digital gyros restoring stability in the badly disturbed air around the bomber. Its rocket motor fired, and it streaked after the first Sukhoi. The missile used laser guidance signals from the Vampire bomber, so the Su-33 had no threat indications that it was being tracked or a missile was in the air until seconds before impact, when the AMRAAM activated its own terminal guidance radar. By the time the Russian pilot knew he was under attack, it was too late.