Watching Will and his wingman set down on top of the little island made me wince. I was expecting their landing gear to push its way into the ground like a bluebottle's footprints. Typical of the US military-industrial complex, who never seem to expect to use their kit under anything less than optimal conditions, not to think about such things. Add to that a thirty-knot crosswind and visibility down to about the length of a standard tennis court, and you have a pilot's worst nightmare. God alone knows how they got down alive (presumably Will is in His good books), but they did.
I made an ordinary landing and taxied into the large open-sided cave we used as a hangar, the weighted tarpaulin sliding down behind us like a surrealist rollerblind. Will was already in the hangar, looking cold and in need of a cup of tea. The other three aircrew were with him, wide-eyed with astonishment.
"Nice," was Jack's verdict. "Very Tracy Island-chic." //Great//, I thought to myself. We'd got a comedian along.
"So," said Mary, "where do we go from here?"
"I say we keep out of the fighting until everything settles down a bit and we know where the bad guys are," Elaine replied. "Things are just too chaotic right now for us to go dashing off into battle."
"Not that we're in a position to singlehandedly wipe out the whole lot of the bastards anyway," Lyra pointed out. "What have we got? Two JSFs and this thing," she patted Aurora in an affectionate sort of way. "And Aurora's even worse at close air support than the JSFs!"
The Joint Strike Fighter doesn't perform especially well against small, mobile ground targets. It's fine with standoff weaponry, Mavericks and the like, but when it comes to tankbusting and so on then forget it. The recessed weapon hardpoints are all very fine and pleasant, improving the handling and reducing the radar signature, but they're too few and too small. Could you put a nice big bunch of 37mm rockets in one? No chance! Perhaps I'm just biased because I earned my spurs in the Harrier, which the government unilaterally ditched BEFORE the JSF arrived because they didn't forsee being in a conflict without US support in the four years between the Harrier being scrapped and the JSF delivered. I'm sure they said that in 1981, too. (Author's note: The narrator served in the Falklands war, being shot down and retrieved by a Royal Marine search-and-rescue mission headed by Will Parry's father, hence his involvement.)
Well, the Navy realised rapidly that the JSF was rubbish for CAS, and something needed doing about it. The first land-based Eurofighters (Typhoons to us Brits) were proving very adept in this particular role, so the RAF loaned the Navy a couple to see if they could land on and take off from a carrier without breaking anything. They performed well, though they forced the Navy to operate two separate aircraft with completely nonstandard parts, something the Americans cheerfully do as a matter of course. A friend of mine in the US Air Force, who I cross-trained with in their version of the Harrier (noticed how they wouldn't just buy them off BAE, but insisted on building their own inside the USA?), summed this up perfectly. "If the F18's a Porsche and the A-10's a Snowcat, most of your kit's a 4WD people carrier." I know which one I'd rather use every day.
I wonder what he'd think the Aurora Borealis was? The DeLorean out of Back to the Future, probably.
I had to agree with Lyra about Aurora and close air support, recalling the assault on the Ministry of Theology. We never really got to the bottom of why the whole building went up like that, but I had regarded Aurora's viability as a strike aircraft with a certain amount of suspicion ever since. After all, a great deal of the rubble landed on top of me, putting me in hospital for several days. Anyhow, Aurora simply isn't as good a combat aircraft as our reputation in one or two worlds might lead you to believe. Zepplins and piston-engined aircraft are one thing, but modern combat aircraft are another matter. Our guns weren't powerful enough to do real damage to decent armour, and we could only carry six missiles- and we were limited in what sort by the size of the weapon bays, just like the JSF. Our weapons stockpile wasn't really suited to agressive actions either; short range heat seekers and HARM missiles designed to knock out hostile fire-control radars.
We went over all these points in Aurora's previously spacious lounge area. Eight people trying to fit into space normally occupied by a maximum of five is a wee bit uncomfortable.
"Well," said Carrie-Anne, McAllister's pretty Welsh navigator, "what are we going to do? Work on our own, or try to link up with the good guys?"
"I'm sort of reluctant to work with the regular government," I replied. "I've had to shoot down three planes that attacked us, and there'll be people there who are about as pleased to see me as I will be to see them."
"True. There'll be civilian resistance, though. Have you got any contacts in London, say?"
Elaine and I looked at one another. I raised one eyebrow.
"No. No WAY. We are not under any circumstances working with those maniacs ever, EVER again," she said firmly. "Apart from the fact that Johnathan West and all his buddies are mentally unstable, he made us both look like complete and utter morons!"
"You WERE snogging on a beach in the middle of an all out assault landing," Mary reminded her none too gently. "They are all somewhat round the twist, though." This was true; John and friends were making a very good living by wrecking prisons all over Europe and turning all the inmates loose, for a small fee, and current estimates of the number of cops and prison guards they've killed since they started out (their average age being fifteen at the time) exceed four hundred.
For all that I rather liked John, in particular. I'd expected a psycho straight out of America's Most Dangerous Gangs or the other macho crap that Will and I used to watch on Bravo whenever we wanted to deactivate all nonessential brain functions. He actually turned out to be a bit of a nerd, and he'd even read as many Dale Brown techno-thrillers as me. It's hard not to like a guy whose personality is so amazingly at odds with his profession.
The Young Guns are a rowdy but pleasant bunch, and I was rather annoyed when Elaine forbade me from inviting them to my birthday party. Admittedly the police forces of half of Europe are after them, but it still rankled a bit.
"We need all the help we can get right now. Do you have any better ideas?" Lyra countered.
"I bet I haven't got any worse ones!" Elaine retorted hotly. "No. That is absolutely final, you hear?"
I made an ordinary landing and taxied into the large open-sided cave we used as a hangar, the weighted tarpaulin sliding down behind us like a surrealist rollerblind. Will was already in the hangar, looking cold and in need of a cup of tea. The other three aircrew were with him, wide-eyed with astonishment.
"Nice," was Jack's verdict. "Very Tracy Island-chic." //Great//, I thought to myself. We'd got a comedian along.
"So," said Mary, "where do we go from here?"
"I say we keep out of the fighting until everything settles down a bit and we know where the bad guys are," Elaine replied. "Things are just too chaotic right now for us to go dashing off into battle."
"Not that we're in a position to singlehandedly wipe out the whole lot of the bastards anyway," Lyra pointed out. "What have we got? Two JSFs and this thing," she patted Aurora in an affectionate sort of way. "And Aurora's even worse at close air support than the JSFs!"
The Joint Strike Fighter doesn't perform especially well against small, mobile ground targets. It's fine with standoff weaponry, Mavericks and the like, but when it comes to tankbusting and so on then forget it. The recessed weapon hardpoints are all very fine and pleasant, improving the handling and reducing the radar signature, but they're too few and too small. Could you put a nice big bunch of 37mm rockets in one? No chance! Perhaps I'm just biased because I earned my spurs in the Harrier, which the government unilaterally ditched BEFORE the JSF arrived because they didn't forsee being in a conflict without US support in the four years between the Harrier being scrapped and the JSF delivered. I'm sure they said that in 1981, too. (Author's note: The narrator served in the Falklands war, being shot down and retrieved by a Royal Marine search-and-rescue mission headed by Will Parry's father, hence his involvement.)
Well, the Navy realised rapidly that the JSF was rubbish for CAS, and something needed doing about it. The first land-based Eurofighters (Typhoons to us Brits) were proving very adept in this particular role, so the RAF loaned the Navy a couple to see if they could land on and take off from a carrier without breaking anything. They performed well, though they forced the Navy to operate two separate aircraft with completely nonstandard parts, something the Americans cheerfully do as a matter of course. A friend of mine in the US Air Force, who I cross-trained with in their version of the Harrier (noticed how they wouldn't just buy them off BAE, but insisted on building their own inside the USA?), summed this up perfectly. "If the F18's a Porsche and the A-10's a Snowcat, most of your kit's a 4WD people carrier." I know which one I'd rather use every day.
I wonder what he'd think the Aurora Borealis was? The DeLorean out of Back to the Future, probably.
I had to agree with Lyra about Aurora and close air support, recalling the assault on the Ministry of Theology. We never really got to the bottom of why the whole building went up like that, but I had regarded Aurora's viability as a strike aircraft with a certain amount of suspicion ever since. After all, a great deal of the rubble landed on top of me, putting me in hospital for several days. Anyhow, Aurora simply isn't as good a combat aircraft as our reputation in one or two worlds might lead you to believe. Zepplins and piston-engined aircraft are one thing, but modern combat aircraft are another matter. Our guns weren't powerful enough to do real damage to decent armour, and we could only carry six missiles- and we were limited in what sort by the size of the weapon bays, just like the JSF. Our weapons stockpile wasn't really suited to agressive actions either; short range heat seekers and HARM missiles designed to knock out hostile fire-control radars.
We went over all these points in Aurora's previously spacious lounge area. Eight people trying to fit into space normally occupied by a maximum of five is a wee bit uncomfortable.
"Well," said Carrie-Anne, McAllister's pretty Welsh navigator, "what are we going to do? Work on our own, or try to link up with the good guys?"
"I'm sort of reluctant to work with the regular government," I replied. "I've had to shoot down three planes that attacked us, and there'll be people there who are about as pleased to see me as I will be to see them."
"True. There'll be civilian resistance, though. Have you got any contacts in London, say?"
Elaine and I looked at one another. I raised one eyebrow.
"No. No WAY. We are not under any circumstances working with those maniacs ever, EVER again," she said firmly. "Apart from the fact that Johnathan West and all his buddies are mentally unstable, he made us both look like complete and utter morons!"
"You WERE snogging on a beach in the middle of an all out assault landing," Mary reminded her none too gently. "They are all somewhat round the twist, though." This was true; John and friends were making a very good living by wrecking prisons all over Europe and turning all the inmates loose, for a small fee, and current estimates of the number of cops and prison guards they've killed since they started out (their average age being fifteen at the time) exceed four hundred.
For all that I rather liked John, in particular. I'd expected a psycho straight out of America's Most Dangerous Gangs or the other macho crap that Will and I used to watch on Bravo whenever we wanted to deactivate all nonessential brain functions. He actually turned out to be a bit of a nerd, and he'd even read as many Dale Brown techno-thrillers as me. It's hard not to like a guy whose personality is so amazingly at odds with his profession.
The Young Guns are a rowdy but pleasant bunch, and I was rather annoyed when Elaine forbade me from inviting them to my birthday party. Admittedly the police forces of half of Europe are after them, but it still rankled a bit.
"We need all the help we can get right now. Do you have any better ideas?" Lyra countered.
"I bet I haven't got any worse ones!" Elaine retorted hotly. "No. That is absolutely final, you hear?"