Callsigns though these are a bit cheeky.
Flight lieutenant Jason Grace (Jason), Royal Airforce (Exchange pilot from an RAF Tornado Squadron)
2nd Lt. Piper McLean (Charmer), US Navy, USS Nimitz, VF-84, Rookie RIO to Percy Jackson
Captain Reyna Ramirez Arellano (Queen), US Navy VF-84, Wizzo to Jason
Lt.1st class. Percy Jackson (callsign Blackjack), USS Nimitz, VF-84
Why someone would need F14s on Alert 15 while sailing down the US East coast? Perhaps the Airboss was trying to show off? Or the CAG was gunning for a promotion? For better or worse, he would be spending half the day watching movies in a ready room in the tower at a flight deck level with four other pilots.
Things began to get interesting when their CAG, Beckendorf entered the room and took position on the podium. "Settle down!" he ordered and the four of them claimed the front row of chairs. "We originally wanted to send you out on an exercise this evening but we've got Bear coming up from Venezuela. She'll be passing quite close but is still three hundred nautical miles south of us. I've taken the liberty of arming your two planes up for a long-range intercept. Queen, Tempest, you two will take Cat 2. Blackjack, Charmer, you too are expected on Cat 3. You four go out there, escort her past the Nimitz. No funny business, no shooting if it can be avoided, and don't get too close. Standard approach pattern. Flight lead joins up on the Bear's wing. The wingman takes up a kill position above and behind. Rules of engagement are as usual, await weapons release authority before you do anything unless you see an imminent threat to yourselves, the battle group, or the US mainland. Any questions?"
Reyna, their flight Commander raised her hand. "Yes, Queen?" Beckendorf asked Reyna.
The attractive Latina American with the hard obsidian eyes frowned, and she even looked disappointed for some reason. As far as Percy was concerned, playing with bombers was more fun than sitting around all day. "Will we have to find the bomber ourselves, or is she being tracked?"
The bulky African American man shrugged. "Apparently, the Airforce has an E3 up to track her, and two Phantoms escorted her past Florida, but you know how it is. Anyone else?"
When no one cut in the Officer continued. "So, weather is decent enough for this time of year. Twelve knots of wind coming from the East, the CO has already turned us into the wind anticipating your takeoff. Expect north of thirty knots wind speed on deck. Cloud cover has cleared up but it's cold as shit out there."
When the briefing was over the four of them pulled on their harnesses and stepped out onto the flight deck a few seconds later. The usually bustling deck was almost quiet with over a dozen aircraft from Phantoms parked. So close to Norfork there weren't any Flight major operations going on. Still, windy and cold as fuck were good ways to describe the weather, though.
Their helmets on and heads lowered, they hurried towards the two F14s standing on the first elevator where they were already awaited by a group of purple and blueshirts. As previously announced, two F14Bs were ready for them, equipped for Long-range Intercepts, with four of the large Aim-54s under the hull, Aim-9 sidewinders on the 8A and 1A hardpoints, and Aim-7 Sparrows on the 8B and 1B pylons. A pair of external fuel tanks were hanging from the seven and five positions.
The planes were panted in the colors of their squadron gray hull, with yellow and black markings around the cockpit. The two vertical stabilizers were ordained by a white set of skulls and bones on a black background. Percy's plane, unlike any other in the squadron had the black siluette of a Mig ninteen and two Mig twenty Ones painted on the side of the cockpit, a badge of honor bestowed on any aircraft he was assigned to more perminantly.
Percy and Piper took the closer of the two jets, carefully working their way through their preflight-checks while Jason and Reyna worked their way around their own, and covers of sensors, air intakes, and Pedo Tubes.
But before long they were sitting in their cockpits and working their way through the startup checklist.
The F-14 was a labor-intensive aircraft and needed both a Ground power cart and external air compressor to power up the Engines.
"Radio check," Piper's voice wrang out in his headset. "Got you five by five, Charmer," Percy replied smoothly.
"Then let's get going," she replied.
Once Beckendorf had armed their ejection seat and they were both secured in their cockpits Piper lowered the canopy.
As usual, first the right engine roared to life, followed by the left one. During the seven minutes Piper needed to align the INS and closed the cockpit canopy, Percy did his own part, checking flight controls, turning on navigation and formation lights, the red cockpit, instrument lights, and the cooling systems for the two Phoenix missiles. Percy almost sighed in relief as the heating came on and the feeling returned to his feet. Parallel to that, he listened to the Wizzos, Piper, and Reyna talking to their traffic control and each other.
"Alright, ready for Taxi," Piper announced. "Ground Crew, remove wheel chocks."
Percy kept his hands off the throttle and watched two blue shirts carefully approaching the Tomcat to pull away from the wooden blocks and then quickly retreat from the plane with the wooden blocks. Only when both men gave him the thumbs up did he release the parking brake and press his feet on the normal one.
"Tower, 306. Ready for Taxi," Reyna finally announced.
"306, permission for Taxi granted. Call in when you are ready."
"Tower, 306, Ready for Taxi," Piper echoed.
So Percy finally loosened the breaks and let the blue shirts guide him back to the stern while their flight lead took the much closer Catapult to the wall. Soon enough Percy was rolling of the arresting wires, made a hard turn right, and finally lined up to Catapult 2, careful to avoid an A7, and made the final turn back towards the ship's bow.
Vagabond 1-1 was already locking in and the blast shield had been raised behind them.
Percy let the yellow shirt guide them forward and stopped when the yellow shirt with the traffic control lights crossed his lamps over his head.
Time for the rest of the preflight checklists. After re-engaging the parking breaks Percy lowered their nose wheel struts and then pushed the wing sweep leaver right of the throttles to the front and then pushed it down. He then lowered the transparent plastic safety covering and pressed the reset button and set his wing sweep to auto to keep it there.
After looking left and right to make sure his wings were in fact now spread wide he lowered flaps and raised both his hands so that the four green shirts who manned the catapult could see. He knew Piper would be doing the same. Only then did four crew members approach the Tomcat and lock them up to the catapult itself and remove the safety pints from the weapons. Behind them, the blast shield was raised.
Twenty seconds later the six men retreated and took up a position at his right behind the yellow shirt with the cone.
The yellow shirt made a show of pointing every single one of the men, confirming to him that they were in fact clear.
"You ready, Chamer?" Percy asked.
"Yes," Piper confirmed, and then checked in with the Flight Operations crew in the tower.
Just then Jason and Reya were flung forward by their catapult with blazing afterburners and a swirl of steam and immediately banked off to the left.
They waited two minutes for Reyna and Jason to circle around and then approach the carrier from behind.
Finally, the lead yellow shirt raised his right arm.
A small grin spreading on his face, Percy saluted and pushed the throttle to full military thrust. The man to his right dropped down to one knee and the lead yellow shirt stretched out his right arm and made a finger gun.
"Here we go," Percy mused happily, and then gripped the handlebars at the sides of his cockpit. There was no reason for any afterburners, he had the thrust to spare.
A moment later, they were violently pressed into their backrests as the catapult flung the F14 forward. The moment they were off Percy took control of the aircraft, raised the landing gear, and gently backed them off to the left.
After a few seconds they had sped up to two hundred knots and Percy pulled up the flaps and pulled the throttle back to mil-thrust.
"Vagabond 2, bank left to heading zero nine zero," Reyna ordered them calmly and Percy did just that as he climbed through one thousand feet and finally spotted the Flightlead ahead and above.
Percy gently pushed the throttle into their lowest afterburner position to keep up during his climb and nudged the stick back until he was in a twenty-degree climb until he was in position off his flight lead flank with maybe thirty feet of separation. He had never understood this obsession with flying in super tight formation. Having already been shot at by both SAMs and Migs, and scored two and a half air to air kills of his own during his first two tours of duty in a Phantom squadron, close proximity to a wingman only made sudden defensive maneuvering that much more dangerous. Crashing into your wingman while trying to evade a rocket-powered telegraph pole coming at you at Mach 4.5 would be an embarrassing way to go.
"2 in position, Vagabond lead," Percy announced as some part of him registered that the wings had automatically slid back halfway.
"I have eyes on you," Reyna's familiar voice greeted him and Percy signed her a Shaka. "Maintain separation!"
Fortunately, Reyna held the same opinion and elected to follow this more practical doctrine. It also allowed you to spend more time with your instruments than constantly making sure that you were maintaining formation.
They quickly climbed through the cloud cover, speeding up to Mach 0,8, and leveled out at thirty-five thousand feet.
Percy turned out what limited autopilot function the Tomcat had, which auto trimmed her and held the attitude of the plane. At this altitude and speed, the wings were now fully swept back. The radar was cluttered enough already with countless civilian aircraft, more than enough to really test the limits of his AWG 9 pulse-Doppler radar. He could hear Piper pressing switches in the background, as she cycled through Radar modes, IFFed contacts, crossed referenced other targets with Reyna, and listened in to civilian traffic control.
A steady stream of information came in from the Battlegroup. They flew for at least half an hour in which Percy simply relaxed, and enjoyed the view.
Finally, Piper spotted them on her scopes.
"Flightlead, new contact, bearing one seven seven. Range ninety nautical miles, too far for IFF, could be the Bear though?"
"Checking with Nimitz Actual, 2," Reyna announced crisply. "I'm not picking her up yet but I have her on your Datalink."
A moment later Reyna's voice wrang out again over the radio. "Target confirmed, 2. It's the Bear. We're climbing to Angels forty-two, five degrees," Reyna announced. "3... 2... 1... execute," she ordered and Percy eased the stick back gently and went into a five-degree climb. They leveled off again at forty thousand feet.
By now, both Piper and Reyna had established TWS locks on Bear.
"Vagabond flight, Master Arm on. Select AIM 54s," Reyna ordered sharply. Percy did as she was told but left the weapons selection to Piper. In a combat situation, he would already be occupied with aviation and navigation, so in Beyond Visual Range engagements Piper would handle the weapon systems, up close he did.
"Speed up, Mach 0,9," Reyna ordered. "Put her in AA mode."
Percy eased the throttle forward to Mil-power and then fine-tuned the throttle to keep his position to his flight lead relatively the same.
"2, separate to three hundred feet," Reyna then ordered, beginning to organize an unlikely attack now that they were within missile range.
"2, three hundred," Percy confirmed, and gently banked right and took up the wider formation.
"2, Intercept as per briefing," Reyna ordered once they had approached at ten miles. "Right hook, bank right five degrees, turn to head one nine two."
"Five degrees, one nine two," Percy replied.
Finally, the four-engine counterrotating turboprop came into view in the distance as a tiny speck, trailing long contrail. Piper immediately pointed their infrared optics at it. Sure enough, that narrow hulled bomber with the swept wings could not be mistaken for anything else.
"They are a few thousand feet below us," Reyna warned. "2, break, resume own navigation, move into kill position, call in when you have the solution," she ordered.
With that Reyna began her descent and when the bomber was only half a nautical mile she made a hard turn and Percy lost sight of her.
"Charmer, turning in three... two...one... mark;" Percy warned, flicked off the autopilot. As the bomber passed below them Percy pushed the throttle into the afterburners, turned into a one hundred twenty-degree banks left, and made a hard, six G, turn. By the time they leveled out again, they had bled off more than a hundred knots, despite the afterburner, but were about a thousand feet behind the bomber and two hundred above. The position wasn't chosen randomly. The TU-95 Bear had a rear-mounted, radar-directed, twin 23 mm cannons and Percy had no wish to find himself in her firing solution.
Percy switched the Radar into PAL mode and a moment later the radar found the bomber and locked on and a green box appearing around the bomber in his HUD. Percy selected the AIM-7 Sparrow. Sure, the AIM-9 would have been the appropriate missile at this range, but the missile would go for the engines and that bomber had quite a few to spare. A Sparrow, equipped with a proximity fuze, would explode feet away from the hull.
Percy watched as Reyna closed formation with the bomber, flying off his wing, and had Jason wave with the wings. He fought back a smile when the large, probably nuclear-armed bomber did the same.
"Oi, Blackjack. You reckon they're taking pictures for their private Albums?" Piper asked, mimicking Jason's English accent.
"Settle down, Charmer," Percy announced and made a sharp barrel role to keep the native American daughter of a rich actor entertained.
Just then, Reyna called them again. "2, form up on my right-wing."
"Understood lead," Piper replied, and then reached forward to tap the back of his helmet. "You heard her, Blackjack. Get down there!"
Percy didn't need to be told twice, eased forward the throttle, and slowly closed the distance.
They accompanied the Soviet Bear for almost four hundred miles until the New York skyline came into view on the Horizon, at which point a two-ship of Phantoms from the national guard took over the babysitting duties.
After exchanging waves with the bomber crew, Reyna radioed the Nimitz and they finally, after securing their Master Arms, turned around and made the return trip through a quite spectacular sunset up in the clear and tin skies at forty thousand feet.
"So, Queen. Did that guy write you back?" Piper suddenly asked through their flight frequency.
"Maintain radio discipline, Charmer," Reyna reminded Piper patiently.
"I spent two hours helping you write a letter in which you both seem interesting, yet disinterested while approachable. I need a status report," Piper insisted.
Reyna sighed deeply. "You remember that bar in Miami I told you about?"
"Afirm," Piper confirmed.
"Well, apparently he asked around about me and found out I fly in fighter jets and am about to go to flight school myself," Reyna explained. "Apparently his masculinity couldn't handle it."
"Then perhaps you dodged a bullet there, Ma'am," Jason replied firmly.
"Jee...Thanks, Grace," Reyna replied drily.
"Nah, he is right," Percy insisted. "Even if you weren't a cat person, you are still a badass woman. Honestly, if that's a nogo for him, then send him to hell. If you like we can drop a two thousand pounder on his address while we are states side. For the record, if I were single I'd totally make a pass on you."
Reyna actually laughed softly and Percy imagined her cracking a simple under her O2 mask. "That is both really inappropriate and quite flattering, Blackjack. So, with that Viper pilot if yours I take it you don't mind strong women?"
Jason snorted from the front but said nothing.
"A week woman would be boring," Percy replied. "I want a wingman, not a pet."
"Amen to that," Piper commented from the back and sighed.
"Last time I dated a guy...he found out I flew in the Tomcat and got a bigger crush on the plane than on me," Piper admitted to a pained whistle from Reyna.
"Damn, that happened to me too..."
"Well Blackjack," Reyna finally announced. "Top Gun graduate and everything, and the looks, one dogfight kill against that Nigerian Mig...that Catch girl made a good...you know catch. Pun intended."
Percy grinned and wiggled the wings slightly back and forth. "Thanks for valuing me for my personality."
"Vagabond flight, Nimitz Actual. Mission Complete, I hope the barn is open and warm," Reyna declared crisply.
"Welcome back, Vagabond. Negative on the RTB. The exercise we had planned for you is still up. We organized you a KC-135 for a refill. You will meet up with an F16 two-ship, merge for a few rounds and then RTB."
"Understood, awaiting vectors."
Percy sighed and listened to the familiar hum of his two engines, placing a finger on the top of his joke and casually spun it around, making the entire Tomcat wobble around like a drunk egg.
"Blackjack, stop screwing around?" Reyna suddenly complained. "The grease monkey are already talking about ordering a hit on you."
Percy stopped, but not before doing one last big wobble.
By the time they caught up with the tanker, the sun was low over the horizon and the world behind him was already cast in shadow. They caught up with one of the large, lumbering tankers. First it was Flightlead's turn, then Percy's to fill up the tank with that sweet aviation fuel. Percy didn't really see the point, to be honest. They had barely emptied a third of their tanks at this point.
Soon enough, they were rising back to forty thousand feet and heading in the general direction of DC.
"And so here we are, flying into the night," Percy announced.
"2, how poetic. You know, I..." suddenly Reyna fell silent as she listened to something on a different channel.
"Okay, god an AWACS on the line. Divert heading to two seven three. Vipers are being scrambled to intercept us. They don't know yet this is an exercise. Remember guys, Master Arms stay off. An involuntary Fox three can't be taken back."
"Yes, Ma'am," they all chorused and Percy double-checked his Master Arm. It was off.
"So Blackjack, ready to show those airheads what you did to those Migs?" Piper asked.
Percy didn't answer, only smiling to himself under his oxygen mask.
- AIM-54 Phoenix (A large, very long range Air to Air missile exclusively carried by the F14 Tomcat. The Max range is about one hundred nautical miles and the missile can travel speeds up to Mach 5 depending on the general situation. The missile has its own terminal guidance and belongs to the Fox3 family.)
- AIM-9 Sidewinder (A relatively, small, short Heat Seeking missile, serving as NATO's main sidearm. Later versions of the missile, including the ones the F14 has can be slaved to the radar, offering off boresight capabilities helpful during High Aspect, short range engagements.)
- AIM-7 Sparrow (A medium sized, medium ranged semi active air to air missile. Unlike the Pheonix or the later AMRAM she has no guidance of her own, relying on the Launching platform to maintain a radar lock on the Target. As such the weapon is limited as it forces the platform using it to keep its radar pointed at the Target instead of being able to freely conduct defensive maneuver.)
Radar Modes
RWS mode: Range While Scan, standard search pattern, though it establishes a hard lock, most enemies will know they are being targeted.
TWS mode: Track While Scan, less effective at finding targets. Doesn't preform hard locks, but tracks the contact. A firing solution can be acquired from this. Denies the enemy the knowledge that his firing solution has been acquired.
PAL mode: A radar mode used in close quarter combat. The rapidly radar scans left-right, up and down until it finds a target to lock onto. The viewing arc of the radar is quite limited and so is the range.
TU-95 Bear: A large, long range Russian Bomber, capable of both executing both conventual and nuclear missions. It is by all means a capable platform.
F-14 Tomcat: A warplane built by the Company Northrop Grumman. The F-14 is a Naval, long range, high altitude Interceptor designed to protect a carrier fleet from bombers armed with Antiship missiles. It has grown famous because of its icon variable geometry wings. The initial version was underpowered in the thrust area but the B version, fixed most of the F14s problems, making her a superb dogfighter. She is arguably one of the most capable Interceptors of the Cold War and likely a source of many Nightmares among Soviet bomber pilots.
Anyway, do enjoy yourselves. This is it, feel free to leave a Review. Those always brighten my day, do enjoy. If you are intersted in ahm "adult fanfics" check out "The Tales Of A New Olympian."
With regards,
Henry Locker over and out.