Some Light Reading to help with the wait

[Dark_Knight_667th 0]

:D

 

Korean Peninsula-Present Day,

 

 

 

The world watched concernedly as North Korea began the process of activating a nuclear facility with the capability of producing weapons grade plutonium. In the south, Protests broke out in Seoul and near US Military bases, protesting the US presence that still remained almost 50 years after the Korean War. A peace treaty had never been signed, only a very uneasy cease-fire.

US Military personnel watched from inside the fences as the marchers moved back and forth in front of the gates. Seoul Airbase got the worst. Rocks were thrown at military vehicles and buildings over the fence, breaking windows and causing shocked airmen to run for cover.

Lt. Colonel Jase Chandler walked to the edge of the flight line and shook his head. He couldn’t believe the people of South Korea would turn against the US in the face of the growing threat up north, especially only 50 miles away from the DMZ. An M2 Bradley fighting vehicle rolled towards the gate, its tracks clanking on the concrete to help the Security Patrols to secure the perimeter of the base. Rocks bounced off of its armored sides as it took up position sitting across the main access road.

Chandler turned and walked back towards the hanger to begin pre-flighting his aircraft. The F16 CJ Block 50 sat nestled in with two other nest mates inside. It was about to be rolled out and readied for a training flight “around the block.” Chandler had just arrived in-country and this was to be his theatre familiarization ride. He stood and watched as the tow vehicle hooked up to the nose gear and pulled the tiny, lethal aircraft out of its roost and into the morning sunlight.

“She’s ready to go sir. Holler at me when you are ready to strap in”

Chandler waived at the speaker, Chief Andrew “Andy” Larson, crew chief for airframe 1101, the bird he was taking up this morning. He noted the four AMRAAMS and two Sidewinder missiles slung under the Falcon’s wings. “Going armed this morning chief?”

Larson glanced at the aircraft. “SOP sir, Vipers in Korea always go up loaded for bear, just in case.”

Chandler nodded and walked to the nose of the aircraft, taking a close look at the radome, making sure it securely closed over the APG 68 radar housed under it and began his preflight. Fifteen minutes later, he climbed the crew ladder and slid into the ACESII ejection seat. Larson climbed up after him and began helping him strap in. “Take good care of my bird sir.”

“I’ll bring her home chief…just goin out to the store.”

Larson laughed, “Roger sir.”

Larson skipped back down the ladder and lifted it away from the side of the aircraft. Chandler waited till he was well clear and began running his start up checklists. He listened to the big GE whine and rumble to life behind him and began to count seconds in his head. A well-tuned engine would reach start RPM in about fifteen seconds, this one did it in thirteen. Larson and his crew knew their way around the GE pretty well. Chandler held down the idle detent and advanced the throttle to 25 percent and the GE responded, spooling smoothly up to idle rpm. Powering up the rest of the onboard systems didn’t take much time, but waiting the additional 15 minutes for the Inertial Navigation System to align seemed to take forever. Chandler passed the time going over emergency procedures in his head and checking in with the tower for an updated weather report.

The viper finally signaled its human occupant that it was ready to go. Chandler moved the INS switch to Nav mode, engaged nose wheel steering and contacted the tower for taxi instructions.

“Sierra 1, cleared taxi to marshal, runway 01”

He advanced the throttle and the viper began to roll. He nudged the nose right onto the taxiway and headed down the sensor test area known unofficially as marshal. There he would activate his radar and electronic counter measures to test for possible failures, then arm his ejection seat in preparation for take off. Entering marshal, Chandler brought down the canopy muting the roar of the GE afterburning turbofan to a very quiet roar inside the cockpit. Five minutes later, he was cleared to hold short, runway 010 for take off clearance.

“Sierra 1, cleared for take off, runway 01, vector 015 for departure, once gear up, switch to Seoul Air traffic control Freq as briefed”

“Roger tower, Sierra 1 rolling”

Chandler advanced the throttle, lighting all five stages of the big afterburner. Adrenaline rushed into his veins as he was pushed back into his seat by thirty thousand pounds of thrust. The viper rocketed down runway.

Chandler watched the heads up display. At one hundred twenty knots he eased back on the stick lifting the aircraft’s nose, pointing it into the blue Korean sky. He waited a brief moment for the drop in his stomach telling him the main gear had left the tarmac. Checking for positive climb he cleaned the underside of the viper at 100 feet and brought the throttle out of afterburner to eighty-eight percent and began to climb.

“Korea Air Traffic Control, this is Sierra One-One squawking two-eight-zero-zero, departing Seoul, how read?” Chandler waited for the reply.

“Sierra One, radar contact, climb to angels ten heading zero niner zero”

Chandler raised an eyebrow at the vector given to him. It would take him in nearly the opposite direction than his planned route. He turned to the new heading, advanced the throttle to 90 percent and increased his climb rate slightly, eventually leveling off at ten thousand feet. He reduced his throttle to conserve fuel and waited for the ATC to contact him again.

“Sierra One-One, Korea Air Traffic Control, how read?”

Chandler replied into the mike, “Five by Korea Air Traffic Control.”

“Sierra One, contact Scimitar one on one-niner-three-point-two”

“Roger Korea, changing frequencies”

Chandler changed to the new frequency, something was going down and it looked like he was going to get in on it. From his briefing he knew that the frequency was for an airborne early warning aircraft flying orbits further south on its own training mission. It could be they just wanted to play a bit at vectoring a fighter, but Chandler didn’t think so.

“Scimitar One, this is Sierra One-One with you, how read?”

“Sierra One, Scimitar, read you five by, stand by for orders.”

Chandler again waited. He would play with them a bit, he had plenty of gas. “Sierra One, Scimitar, what is your load-out?”

“Scimitar, Sierra One, four radar, two heat, fuel state six thousand.” Chandler began to wonder what was up. If the AWACS just wanted to play at vectoring fighters on imaginary targets they wouldn’t have bothered with the load-out query.

“Sierra one, Scimitar, AWACS has unknown contact bearing one-zero-five your position, range 60 miles, approaching DMZ, standby for vectors to intercept.”

“Roger Scimitar, standing by.” Chandler let off the mic key and his mind began the air to air checklist. He switched the APG 68 over to track while scan mode and turned towards the contact, scanning at eighty miles. “Scimitar, Sierra one, orders?”

“Sierra one, scimitar, close and vis ID intruder of they cross the ADIZ. Establish contact and hold for further orders, vector one-four-zero”

“Roger Scimitar, Sierra one-one enroute.”

Chandler clicked off and turned the jet another thirty five degrees to the right towards his plotted intercept point, he advanced the throttle and the viper raced ahead, accelerating to nearly mach 1. He shut the radar down, relying on the AWACS to get him in close to the contact Off to his left in the distance, He saw sunlight wink off shiny metal or glass.

“Scimitar, Sierra one, advise friendly traffic?” Chandler waited.

“Sierra one, scimitar, friendly traffic has been vectored out of the area.”

Chandler clicked the microphone button twice to acknowledge the information. He kept the area where he saw the glint in his peripheral vision, watching for it again. “Scimitar, Sierra one, radar quiet, request dope.”

“Sierra one, scimitar, bogey bearing one-one-zero, one-eight miles, angels twelve”

Chandler rolled the viper 60 degrees, turning to the new heading and activated his radar. “Oh sh….Scimitar, Sierra one, I have four, repeat, four contacts on that heading, close formation, closing to ID.”

“Roger Sierra one, requesting alert fighters to launch from Seoul and Osan”

Chandler didn’t bother to acknowledge, instead he climbed his viper to sixteen thousand feet in an arc towards the formation of aircraft. As they passed under him he rolled inverted and pulled the nose. He grunted through seven g as he brought the aircraft back to level behind them at over mach 1. Two of the aircraft in front of him broke off, their silhouettes showing very clear in the morning sun, and turned towards him. “Scimitar, Sierra one, Vis ID confirmed, I have two, I repeat two IL28’s and two, I repeat , two Mig 23’s, engaged defensive, request permission to fire.”

“Roger Sierra, fire if fired upon, vectoring fighters to your location.”

Chandler locked on to the lead Mig closing on him, he watched the Mig as a flash of fire erupted from under its left wing. “Sierra one, engaged defensive archer…Fox three” He hit the pickle button on the stick and an AMRAAM dropped off the rail into the morning sky, igniting its rocket motor and accelerating it towards the Mig. He immediately rolled 90 degrees, dropping chaff and flares as he cranked the viper through a 9 G snap turn to defeat the inbound heat seeker coming at him. He heard the muffled explosion as it chased one of his flares. A quick inspection of the caution panel to ensure no lights he rolled the viper back towards the Migs. He was just in time to see his missile impact on the Lead Mig’s left wing root and blow it off the aircraft. The other Mig had gone high trying to arc in behind him. “Splash one, Sierra one engaged defensive, Mig 23, bullseye 080 10 miles.”

Chandler hauled the viper vertical pulling it towards the Mig coming after him. He punched up dogfight mode from the viper’s controls and selected ACM vertical on the radar. He smiled under the strain of the g-forces as he watched the Mig pilot make the fatal mistake of rolling away from him. The sidewinder automatically selected by the viper’s avionics began to growl louder as it tracked the Mig’s hot exhaust. He unloaded his aircraft, relieving some of the g-forces and launched the heatseeker. It rocketed towards the Mig, its pilot dropping countermeasures in an attempt to defeat it. Its seeker temporarily losing track on the lost flare ejected from the Mig’s countermeasures stores, it then snapped back to the extremely large heat source created by the target’s two engines in full burner, impacting directly between them and blowing apart the rear of the plane. Its fuel tanks then exploded, its crew having no chance to eject.

Not bothering to reflect on what was going on, Chandler hauled the viper back towards the remaining two aircraft. The IL28 was a medium bomber, slow, cumbersome, but armed with thirty millimeter cannons on the tail for defense. Canceling dogfight mode through the cockpit systems, Chandler again found the two bombers south and a bit east of him, about 12 miles away. He barely saw the two South Korean F4 Phantom’s as they arced up from below and engaged the IL28s with sparrows and sidewinders. He did see the fireballs from the two bombers quite clearly.

“Scimitar, Sierra One, all hostile contacts splashed, request dope”

“Sierra One, Scimitar, picture clean for the moment, RTB”

Chandler turned for Seoul, the two F4’s forming up off his right wing for a moment before entering a cap position 10 miles south of the DMZ.

 

US Army Headquarters, Seoul:

 

Brigadier General Mathew Farmer sat behind his desk, looking tiredly at the mountain of paperwork before him. The air conditioning in this wing of the building was on the blink again and the combination of heat and humidity was making him feel his 50 years of age. He had sat behind this desk for the last five years, day in and day out. It was always the same pile of paper work, fuel requests, weapons requests, and so forth, from the various US Army units under his command.

He glanced up as his office door burst open to see the very white, shocked face of his aide-de-camp in front of him. “Sir, we just got a message from USAF command. One of their vipers just engaged a pair of Mig 23’s and a pair of IL28’s inside the South Korean DMZ. I requested confirmation and just got it. The F16 pilot, along with two ROK Phantoms engaged and destroyed 4 DPRK aircraft 14 miles inside of the South Korean ADIZ.”

“Contact the border posts and see if there is any movement on the ground. Keep me posted.”

“Yes sir.”

And Luke..calm down will you? “

“Sir”

Farmer shook his head and began wading through the paperwork. Somebody had goofed up North, and their pilots had paid for it. He didn’t think it was anything to worry about.

 

For the rest of it, yall will just have to wait for the book...

 

DK

[Guest Ranger332]

you were a "hooker" in another life right ,what a tease lol

[*Fast Eagle* 0]

Damnit, now I gotta buy a book!

Got me itchin for more

[MadJeff 3]

Damn DK, you just rendered me blind with that post, use the enter key dammit...

 

As for the story, sounds good...

[Dark_Knight_667th 0]

It was copied and pasted out of microsoft word..

 

DK

[+pcpilot 181]

Ive got things to do this morning and you post this! It aint fair I tell ya...oh well, chores will hafta wait...

[Dark_Knight_667th 0]

LOL..I take it you like the opening paragraphs to what may shape up to getting me off the "assembly line" and into a Ferrari? LOL I suppose I should post the updated text, had to change some things to fix some errors made due to lack of sleep...

 

DK

 

Korean Peninsula-Present Day,

 

 

 

The world watched concernedly as North Korea began the process of activating a nuclear facility with the capability of producing weapons grade plutonium. In the south, Protests broke out in Seoul and near US Military bases, protesting the US presence that still remained almost 50 years after the Korean War. A peace treaty had never been signed, only a very uneasy cease-fire.

US Military personnel watched from inside the fences as the marchers moved back and forth in front of the gates. Seoul Airbase got the worst. Rocks were thrown at military vehicles and buildings over the fence, breaking windows and causing shocked airmen to run for cover.

Lt. Colonel Jase Chandler walked to the edge of the flight line and shook his head. He couldn’t believe the people of South Korea would turn against the US in the face of the growing threat up north, especially only 50 miles away from the DMZ. An M2 Bradley fighting vehicle rolled towards the gate, its tracks clanking on the concrete to help the Security Patrols to secure the perimeter of the base. Rocks bounced off of its armored sides as it took up position sitting across the main access road.

Chandler turned and walked back towards the hanger to begin pre-flighting his aircraft. The F16 CJ Block 50 sat nestled in with two other nest mates inside. It was about to be rolled out and readied for a training flight “around the block.” Chandler had just arrived in-country and this was to be his theatre familiarization ride. He stood and watched as the tow vehicle hooked up to the nose gear and pulled the tiny, lethal aircraft out of its roost and into the morning sunlight.

“She’s ready to go sir. Holler at me when you are ready to strap in”

Chandler waived at the speaker, Chief Andrew “Andy” Larson, crew chief for airframe 1101, the bird he was taking up this morning. He noted the four AMRAAMS and two Sidewinder missiles slung under the Falcon’s wings. “Going armed this morning chief?”

Larson glanced at the aircraft. “SOP sir, Vipers in Korea always go up loaded for bear, just in case.”

Chandler nodded and walked to the nose of the aircraft, taking a close look at the radome, making sure it securely closed over the APG 68 radar housed under it and began his preflight. Fifteen minutes later, he climbed the crew ladder and slid into the ACESII ejection seat. Larson climbed up after him and began helping him strap in. “Take good care of my bird sir.”

“I’ll bring her home chief…just goin out to the store.”

Larson laughed, “Roger sir.”

Larson skipped back down the ladder and lifted it away from the side of the aircraft. Chandler waited till he was well clear and began running his start up checklists. He listened to the big GE whine and rumble to life behind him and began to count seconds in his head. A well-tuned engine would reach start RPM in about fifteen seconds, this one did it in thirteen. Larson and his crew knew their way around the GE pretty well. Chandler held down the idle detent and advanced the throttle to 25 percent and the GE responded, spooling smoothly up to idle rpm. Powering up the rest of the onboard systems didn’t take much time, but waiting the additional 15 minutes for the Inertial Navigation System to align seemed to take forever. Chandler passed the time going over emergency procedures in his head and checking in with the tower for an updated weather report.

The viper finally signaled its human occupant that it was ready to go. Chandler moved the INS switch to Nav mode, engaged nose wheel steering and contacted the tower for taxi instructions.

“Sierra 1, cleared taxi to marshal, runway 01”

He advanced the throttle and the viper began to roll. He nudged the nose right onto the taxiway and headed down the sensor test area known unofficially as marshal. There he would activate his radar and electronic counter measures to test for possible failures, then arm his ejection seat in preparation for take off. Entering marshal, Chandler brought down the canopy muting the roar of the GE afterburning turbofan to a very quiet roar inside the cockpit. Five minutes later, he was cleared to hold short, runway 010 for take off clearance.

“Sierra 1, cleared for take off, runway 01, vector 015 for departure, once gear up, switch to Seoul Air traffic control Freq as briefed”

“Roger tower, Sierra 1 rolling”

Chandler advanced the throttle, lighting all five stages of the big afterburner. Adrenaline rushed into his veins as he was pushed back into his seat by thirty thousand pounds of thrust. The viper rocketed down runway.

Chandler watched the heads up display. At one hundred twenty knots he eased back on the stick lifting the aircraft’s nose, pointing it into the blue Korean sky. He waited a brief moment for the drop in his stomach telling him the main gear had left the tarmac. Checking for positive climb he cleaned the underside of the viper at 100 feet and brought the throttle out of afterburner to eighty-eight percent and began to climb.

“Korea Air Traffic Control, this is Sierra One-One squawking two-eight-zero-zero, departing Seoul, how read?” Chandler waited for the reply.

“Sierra One, radar contact, climb to angels ten heading zero niner zero”

Chandler raised an eyebrow at the vector given to him. It would take him in nearly the opposite direction than his planned route. He turned to the new heading, advanced the throttle to 90 percent and increased his climb rate slightly, eventually leveling off at ten thousand feet. He reduced his throttle to conserve fuel and waited for the ATC to contact him again.

“Sierra One-One, Korea Air Traffic Control, how read?”

Chandler replied into the mike, “Five by Korea Air Traffic Control.”

“Sierra One, contact Scimitar one on one-niner-three-point-two”

“Roger Korea, changing frequencies”

Chandler changed to the new frequency, something was going down and it looked like he was going to get in on it. From his briefing he knew that the frequency was for an airborne early warning aircraft flying orbits further south on its own training mission. It could be they just wanted to play a bit at vectoring a fighter, but Chandler didn’t think so.

“Scimitar One, this is Sierra One-One with you, how read?”

“Sierra One, Scimitar, read you five by, stand by for orders.”

Chandler again waited. He would play with them a bit, he had plenty of gas. “Sierra One, Scimitar, what is your load-out?”

“Scimitar, Sierra One, four radar, two heat, fuel state six thousand.” Chandler began to wonder what was up. If the AWACS just wanted to play at vectoring fighters on imaginary targets they wouldn’t have bothered with the load-out query.

“Sierra one, Scimitar, AWACS has unknown contact bearing one-zero-five your position, range 60 miles, approaching DMZ, standby for vectors to intercept.”

“Roger Scimitar, standing by.” Chandler let off the mic key and his mind began the air to air checklist. He switched the APG 68 over to track while scan mode and turned towards the contact, scanning at eighty miles. “Scimitar, Sierra one, orders?”

“Sierra one, scimitar, close and vis ID intruder of they cross the ADIZ. Establish contact and hold for further orders, vector one-four-zero”

“Roger Scimitar, Sierra one-one enroute.”

Chandler clicked off and turned the jet another thirty five degrees to the right towards his plotted intercept point, he advanced the throttle and the viper raced ahead, accelerating to nearly mach 1. He shut the radar down, relying on the AWACS to get him in close to the contact Off to his left in the distance, He saw sunlight wink off shiny metal or glass.

“Scimitar, Sierra one, advise friendly traffic?” Chandler waited.

“Sierra one, scimitar, friendly traffic has been vectored out of the area.”

Chandler clicked the microphone button twice to acknowledge the information. He kept the area where he saw the glint in his peripheral vision, watching for it again. “Scimitar, Sierra one, radar quiet, request dope.”

“Sierra one, scimitar, bogey bearing one-one-zero, one-eight miles, angels twelve”

Chandler rolled the viper 60 degrees, turning to the new heading and activated his radar. “Oh sh….Scimitar, Sierra one, I have four, repeat, four contacts on that heading, close formation, closing to ID.”

“Roger Sierra one, requesting alert fighters to launch from Seoul and Osan”

Chandler didn’t bother to acknowledge, instead he climbed his viper to sixteen thousand feet in an arc towards the formation of aircraft. As they passed under him he rolled inverted and pulled the nose. He grunted through seven g as he brought the aircraft back to level behind them at over mach 1. Two of the aircraft in front of him broke off, their silhouettes showing very clear in the morning sun, and turned towards him. “Scimitar, Sierra one, Vis ID confirmed, I have two, I repeat two IL28’s and two, I repeat , two SU 27’s, engaged defensive, request permission to fire.”

“Roger Sierra, fire if fired upon, vectoring fighters to your location.”

Chandler locked on to the lead Mig closing on him, he watched the Flanker as a flash of fire erupted from under its left wing. “Sierra one, engaged defensive archer…Fox three” He hit the pickle button on the stick and an AMRAAM dropped off the rail into the morning sky, igniting its rocket motor and accelerating it towards the Mig. He immediately rolled 90 degrees, dropping chaff and flares as he cranked the viper through a 9 G snap turn to defeat the inbound heat seeker coming at him. He heard the muffled explosion as it chased one of his flares. A quick inspection of the caution panel to ensure no lights he rolled the viper back towards the Migs. He was just in time to see his missile impact on the Lead Sukkhoi’s left wing root and blow it off the aircraft. The other Flanker had gone high trying to arc in behind him. “Splash one, Sierra one engaged defensive, SU 27, bull’s-eye 080 10 miles.”

Chandler hauled the viper vertical pulling it towards the Mig coming after him. He punched up dogfight mode from the viper’s controls and selected ACM vertical on the radar. He smiled under the strain of the g-forces as he watched the Flanker pilot make the fatal mistake of rolling away from him. The sidewinder automatically selected by the viper’s avionics began to growl louder as it tracked the SU 27’s hot exhaust. He unloaded his aircraft, relieving some of the g-forces and launched the heatseeker. It rocketed towards the enemy plane, its pilot dropping countermeasures in an attempt to defeat it. Its seeker temporarily losing track on the lost flare ejected from the Flanker’s countermeasures stores, it then snapped back to the extremely large heat source created by the target’s two engines in full burner, impacting directly between them and blowing apart the rear of the plane. Its fuel tanks then exploded, its crew having no chance to eject.

Not bothering to reflect on what was going on, Chandler hauled the viper back towards the remaining two aircraft. The IL28 was a medium bomber, slow, cumbersome, but armed with thirty millimeter cannons on the tail for defense. Canceling dogfight mode through the cockpit systems, Chandler again found the two bombers south and a bit east of him, about 12 miles away. He barely saw the two South Korean F4 Phantom’s as they arced up from below and engaged the IL28s with sparrows and sidewinders. He did see the fireballs from the two bombers quite clearly.

“Scimitar, Sierra One, all hostile contacts splashed, request dope”

“Sierra One, Scimitar, picture clean for the moment, RTB”

Chandler turned for Seoul, the two F4’s forming up off his right wing for a moment before entering a cap position 10 miles south of the DMZ.

 

US Army Headquarters, Seoul:

 

Brigadier General Mathew Farmer sat behind his desk, looking tiredly at the mountain of paperwork before him. The air conditioning in this wing of the building was on the blink again and the combination of heat and humidity was making him feel his 50 years of age. He had sat behind this desk for the last five years, day in and day out. It was always the same pile of paper work, fuel requests, weapons requests, and so forth, from the various US Army units under his command.

He glanced up as his office door burst open to see the very white, shocked face of his aide-de-camp in front of him. “Sir, we just got a message from USAF command. One of their vipers just engaged a pair of Mig 23’s and a pair of IL28’s inside the South Korean DMZ. I requested confirmation and just got it. The F16 pilot, along with two ROK Phantoms engaged and destroyed 4 DPRK aircraft 14 miles inside of the South Korean ADIZ.”

“Contact the border posts and see if there is any movement on the ground. Keep me posted.”

“Yes sir.”

And Luke..calm down will you? “

“Sir”

Farmer shook his head and began wading through the paperwork. Somebody had goofed up North, and their pilots had paid for it. He didn’t think it was anything to worry about.