Last Flight of the Blue Falcon

This little story was inspired to me by what's happening actually in the skies above Libya and the Gulf of Syrte. It's a way for me to pay tribute to the memory of all those pilots who fought and died for our freedom from the first time the aircraft was used as a weapon above the trenches in the First World War...

I hope also you will not be to hard on me as English is not my first language (I'm belgian and thus my first language is french, even if I started learning english back in 1985...)

The Flight Leader "Captain Alexander" will be one of the Heroe's of an other story I'm actually writing and involving an US and a British pilot from the first Gulf War in 1991 to the first Balkan's war in Bosnia (1995), but it'll be for later...

So, Here we go for this little story. This is a Fiction, but it could perfectly happen any day...

Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental...

March 21, 2001, Pantelleria AB, early morning…

The preparation for today's mission were already under way when I woke up, emerging from a short dreamless sleep. Two days ago, the French had started hitting Gaddafi's SAM and triple-A sites around Tripoli and Misrata. Yesterday, late in the Afternoon, I arrived in Pantelleria with my squadron from Spangdalhem AFB, Germany, to join the coalition fighters over Lybia.

As I showered, I new the ground crews were already preparing our birds for my first combat mission… Well, as the other, I was trained hard, but as most of them I never saw real combat, only our Leader and my Flight Leader being hardened veterans, having already known combat in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Irak…

As I finished to put on my flight suit, my flight Leader, Captain Alexander, called me from the hall.

- "Come On, Falco, We're close to start briefing", he called me, using my pilot's nickname

- "Roger, Alex, I'm coming", I answered him

Twenty minutes later, after a classical american breakfast eaten while our leader, Colonel Faulkleitner, detailed us the objectives of this morning's mission, we hit the deck and got to our aircrafts. As I climbed into my Falcon F-16 jetfighter, I got a last glance at the base's buildings, feeling somewhat like it was the last time I'd see them… I quickly brushed those feelings away though and got in the cockpit, concentrating on the mission at hand.

Sirte's Gulf, twenty five minutes later…

We were flying at fifteen thousand feet above the Mediterranean sea, our formation approaching the ennemy coast line at five hundred miles per hour, when the AWACs, codename "Magic", called us.

- "Falcon, Magic Calling, You're clear to enter ennemy airspace and proceed to your target. Four bogeys over Tripoli, nothing near Misrata or Sirte. Over"

- "Magic, Falcon One, Wilco, we're going down to one thousand feet and start our bombing run"

- "Copy, Falcon One"

Following Captain Alexander, I dove to the ground after Red Flight, leveling at one thousand feet right on the right wing of my flight leader, heading 240 above Sirte's Gulf straight to Mistrata and our target, its military airfield. We came there fairly unchallenged and dropped our Matra BLU-107 "Durandal" anti-runway bombs, causing havoc to the runways and taxiways below us… As I was climbing after my bombing run, still on the right wing of Captain Alexander, my RWR lit up like a christmas tree, and hell broke loose on us…

- "Eagle Blue One, We're lighten up… Fox Fox Fox !"

I then sharply turned to the right as my leader turned to the left, releasing chaffs in the same time… The ennemy missiles had lost seemingly their lock onto me as my RWR went off that's when I saw them, two MiG-23 fighters high above us…

- "Blue One, Blue Two, bandits two O'clock high !"

- "Roger, Blue One, I got them in sight… Blue Three and Four, go back to base low and fast. Blue Two, you stay close, we're facing them !"

- "Wilco, Blue One !"

We closed fast on the ennemy MiGs and, as soon as we came in firing range for our AAMRAM missiles, Alexander called me…

- "Blue Two, I take the leader, you take Number Two !"

- "Wilco, Leader. I'm already on him"

I closed a bit more on the MiG then, as I got a good radar lock, I fired one of my AIM-120 Aamram missiles…

- "Blue Two, Fox Three on Number Two !"

- "Blue One, Fox Tree on Lead !"

I saw my missile going straight for the MiG. A bright flash of light, and he was gone…

- "Blue Two, Splash One !"

- "Blue One, Splash One Bandit ! Well Done, Falco. Okay, let's go home. We'll fly low and fast !"

- "Wilco, Leader !"

Suddenly, as we crossed the shoreline, my RWR panel lit up again…

- "Blue One, we're lightened up again !"

- "Copy. Close on me, we'll go to the deck…"

Following my leader, I went down to fifty feet and pushed my throttle to full military power. Soon we were zooming just above the wave crests at mach nine point eight… That's when I got sight of a flash of light in my four O'clock…

- "Blue One, Fox Fox Fox ! Missile Four O'clock high !"

- "Roger…"

I saw the missile coming closer… then…

- "Blue Two, Climb hard and release chaffs on my mark… Mark !"

I pulled hard on the stick while releasing chaffs, my aircraft going on vertical as the missile overshoot and crashed in the sea below me… I leveled at five thousand feet and that's when I felt a sudden shock in my aircraft… I just had the time to scream in my oxygen mask before everything went black !

Pantelleria AB, later in the evening…

Colonel Faulkleitner was seated near a white bed in the base's hospital. Captain Alexander was brought back from Sirte's Gulf by a Navy Seahawk chopper after he ejected from his aircraft that was struck by a Atoll Missile. Halas, Lt John Lewis, his number two, had not his luck as he was killed when his aircraft exploded in mid-air, struck by another Atoll missile right in the engine…

Poor Alex was distraught by those news, as "Falco" Lewis was one of his best friend and, even more he was engaged to Falco's sister Janet… As he finally went to sleep, Faulkleitner left the room silently, heading back to his office where he had today three letters to write as they would soon hear on CNN a report saying that "Three of our pilots have not returned…"

Dedicated to the memory of all those pilots

who died fighting for a better world…