19:20 (Washington Time)
Thursday, May 7, 1987 ‘C’
27th Fighter Squadron’s briefing room
Operations building, Langley Air Force Base
Langley, Virginia, U.S.A.
The 28 pilots and radar officers of the 27th Fighter Squadron, nicknamed ‘Fighting Eagles’, straightened up in their chairs when their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Gregory Martin, entered the briefing room, a number of documents in his hands. Martin walked to the lectern next to the big map of the American East Coast plastered on one wall and put down his documents before looking at his aviators.
‘’At ease, gentlemen…and lady!’’
Lieutenant Ann McAllister rolled her eyes when a number of male pilots snickered at the word ‘lady’. Despite the fact that women had been combat pilots since 1942 and despite the fact that sexual segregation of air units had been abolished in 1953, a lot of male combat pilots, particularly fighter pilots, still considered female pilots as inherently inferior to them. That was mostly due to the culture one found in fighter squadrons, which was positively drenching in machismo. Still, Ann loved flying fighter aircraft, particularly her present Lockheed F-83E EAGLE, and she felt in no way inferior to the other pilots of her squadron. The one man in the room who truly respected her as a fighter pilot was her radar officer, Second Lieutenant John Bainbridge, a young but very competent and promising aviator who was her best friend in the unit. Ann then concentrated back on the briefing as Lieutenant Colonel Martin spoke up.
‘’We are now continuing air operations as part of Exercise Red Wind, which is meant to exercise and test our ability to defend the American East Coast area from a surprise enemy air attack. The last two days saw enemy attempts at penetrating our airspace in daytime in order to get at our vital military installations in the Northeast region of our country. Those attempts, with elements of the New York and Massachusetts Air National Guard playing the enemy, have failed to date, being intercepted by us and by the two other squadrons of our fighter group before they could get to their objectives.’’
‘’That’s what happens when a bunch of old part-timers try their luck against real pros!’’ said a pilot, making the others laugh. On his part, Martin smiled slightly but he then felt the need to caution his pilots.
‘’While those old part-timers, as you called them, Captain Winchester, did fail in their attempts to date, we should not dismiss them out of hand, as some of them have a lot of actual combat experience. Remember that none of you have actual war kills in the air, so do not underestimate the enemy and don’t beat your chest too quickly. Remember also what happened on December 7, 1941: our pilots then thought of the Japanese pilots as a bunch of myopic, buck-toothed morons flying old kites. Well, our pilots learned fast enough that day that they had been flat wrong. So, I expect you to be on your toes tonight and to keep your eyes open. We will operate in succession three flights of four aircraft each, in order to keep a combat patrol in the air during the whole night, from eight tonight to eight in the morning. Here are the assignments and times…’’
To Ann’s annoyance, she ended up as part of Captain Charles Winchester’s flight but thankfully not as his wingman, with their patrol scheduled for the infamous ‘O Dark Thirty’ time slot, from midnight to four in the morning, when the human mind was at its lowest. As they walked out of the briefing room once Martin had passed all the relevant information and meteorological data, Winchester approached Ann and her radar officer to throw a barb at her.
‘’Try not to get lost in the dark tonight, McAllister.’’
Ann did not reply to that, instead glaring at Winchester as he walked away and whispering to John Bainbridge.
‘’His pilot’s nickname should be ‘Dickhead’ instead of ‘Thunderbolt’.’’
‘’Don’t worry about him, Ann: one fine day, someone will make him eat his boots.’’
‘’Well, the faster that happens, the better.’’
Ann took off in her F-83E supersonic fighter-bomber at 23:41, behind Captain Winchester’s aircraft and that of his wingman, then joined up in a four-aircraft formation to fly towards the Northeast, in order to get to their assigned patrol areas. Winchester and his wingman, Lieutenant Tony Fornelli, split up from Ann and her own wingman once off Philadelphia, while she continued towards her own patrol station off Boston. On their way, John Bainbridge was able to detect and track with his radar over a dozen other aircraft flying in the area. All of them turned out to be regular transatlantic commercial flights but Ann made sure that John coordinated with the regional air defense control center, to ensure that those contacts were legitimate airliners rather than enemy aircraft trying to pass off as commercial aircraft. Once she got to her patrol zone and had taken over from the pair of pilots from the 71st Fighter Squadron assigned to the eight to midnight shift, Ann methodically checked out each radar contact approaching the coast, flying to within visual range of them to positively identify them as being authentic airliners. To her frustration and disgust, Captain Winchester seemed not to be as diligent, judging from his radio transmissions, apparently letting the ground air controller confirm that a radar transponder appeared legitimate and not approaching the airliners to identify visually the aircraft in question, the way Ann was doing. In that he was not technically at fault, as visual recognition of all the incoming air traffic had not been formally requested by Lieutenant Colonel Martin, but that proved once again to Ann that Winchester liked to take the easy way. Still, she promised herself to talk to her squadron commander once back at base, to suggest that visual recognition be made mandatory.
01:48 (Washington Time)
Friday, May 8, 1987 ‘C’
Massachusetts Air National Guard F-83C fighter-bomber
Flying over the Atlantic and heading towards Washington
‘’I wonder what the passengers aboard this Pan Am Boeing 717 would think if they saw us now.’’ asked aloud Major Mary Atkinson, of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, who was sitting in the rear seat assigned to the radar officer of the F-83C.
‘’They would probably freak out and think that we are some kind of nefarious Soviet bomber bent on launching a surprise attack against the United States.’’ answered Ingrid, who was at the commands of the F-83C and using this air defense exercise to fly a few hours in order to maintain her flight proficiency on the F-83. She had chosen Mary Atkinson as her radar officer tonight because Mary was the best rated radar officer in her air group and because top notch radar work was going to be crucial in order to be successful tonight. Of course, it helped that Mary Atkinson was also a veteran of the famed 99th Air Wing, the Fifinellas, which Ingrid had created and formed in 1942 as the first ever female air combat unit in American history. While Mary Atkinson had been too young to fight in either World War 2 or in the three wars of the 1950s, she was a combat veteran of the Second Korean War, with two confirmed kills to her air score. Ingrid thus had full confidence in her abilities tonight. She had added to her chances for success tonight by having the six ‘aggressor’ F-83Cs painted mate black, making them this much difficult to spot them in the night sky. Finally, she was using an old trick in her near-bottomless bag by flying just above and to one side of another aircraft, in this case the Pan Am Boeing 717 flight from Paris, in order to hide her own aircraft from American air defense and civilian air control radars by flying in the radar shadow of the airliner. In this present case, Mary Atkinson’s job was to monitor their electronic warfare sensors and warn Ingrid from which direction came radar waves from either ground stations or interceptor aircraft. As for Ingrid herself, she was quite busy flying as close as possible to the airliner and in the correct angle to hide from radar waves, and this without getting too close and being thrown violently around by the strong air turbulences created by the airliner.
‘’We are now 190 miles from Washington, D.C., Ingrid, and our target is at heading 260.’’ announced Mary Atkinson. ‘’The regional air traffic controller just authorized our Boeing 717 to start its descent to 12,000 feet.’’
‘’Then, let’s follow our mother stork down.’’ replied Ingrid, who then copied exactly the movements of the airliner while staying as close to it as it was safely possible. Mary, despite being an experienced aviator, felt a knot in her stomach as she eyed the big airliner, just below and to one side of their F-83C: what Ingrid was doing now took nerves of steel and a master touch on the controls. However, Ingrid still clearly had those. Their big fighter-bomber kept its position close to the Boeing 717 during the latter’s descent, with no indication that the civilian air control radars had detected them.
‘’Any hint that one of our interceptors or ground military radars sniffed us up, Mary?’’
‘’Negative! The airborne intercept radars I am detecting are too far to pick us up and the military radio traffic gives no hint that they are suspecting something… Wait! I have a radio transmission of interest… One of the interceptors was apparently able to detect one of the two penetration aircraft near Boston and is passing the alert. What do we do now, Ingrid?’’
‘’Nothing! We will continue to follow this Pan Am flight from real close, Mary. Let them think that we were all in the Boston area.’’
02:06 (Washington Time)
Lieutenant McAllister’s F-83E
Ninety miles east of Boston, at 15,000 meters
Ann had approached the latest aircraft detected approaching the American coast, intent on verifying its identity. According to the civilian air traffic controller, it was supposed to be an American Airlines Boeing 717-300. While approaching it from one side, Ann could see the blinking navigational lights of the airliner and its general shape in the dark sky. Half reassured, she was about to perform a wide ‘S’ turn in order to end behind the airliner when John Bainbridge shouted in alarm.
‘’NEW RADAR CONTACT JUST BEHIND AND ABOVE THE AIRLINER!’’
Shocked, Ann looked in that direction but did not see anything there at first. However, as she performed her ‘S’ turn, she started to see a pair of blue-white jet engine exhaust, some forty meters above the Boeing 717. As for the new aircraft itself, it was a barely visible black mass.
‘’THE RATS! THEY WERE FLYING IN THE RADAR SHADOW OF THAT AIRLINER! QUICK, JOHN! ALERT OUR GROUND CONTROLLER AND THE OTHER AIRCRAFT OF OUR FLIGHT! THERE MAY BE MORE OF THEM USING THE SAME TACTIC.’’
‘’ON IT, ANN!’’
Then, the intruder went to full afterburner power and abruptly broke away from the airliner, diving towards the sea. Ann, sudden excitement sending her heart racing, dove after it, intent on marking the intruder with her tracking radar, something that would signify a theoretical kill in Ann’s advantage. However, her opponent proved no slouch and started wiggling around while continuing to dive at a steep angle. That steep diving angle, by making Ann’s radar waves bounce on the surface of the sea below, made a radar lock nearly impossible. To make things worse for her, the pilot of the intruder then released a series of radar decoys, filling her radar screen with false echoes.
‘’SHIT! I CAN’T DISTINGUISH WHICH RADAR DOT IS THE CORRECT ONE!’’ shouted John from his back seat.
‘’THEN, LET’S DO IT THE OLD WAY: I’M GOING FOR A GUN KILL!’’
Ann was of course not going to fire her 30mm guns, which were empty anyway for this mission, but filming the intruder with her gun camera was going to be as good a proof of victory as a radar lock. Approaching gradually, she finally pressed her trigger when she was aligned and close enough for a gun pass.
‘’GUNS, GUNS, GUNS! I GOT YOU, YOU BASTARD!’’
‘’Time to level off, Ann, if you don’t want us to dive into the Atlantic.’’
‘’Got it!’’
Pulling hard on her stick, Ann returned to level flight at the cost of enduring a few brutal Gs of centrifugal force. As she avidly breathed oxygen through her mask, she saw that the intruder was now flying level with her to her right, apparently acknowledging defeat. Ann gave that pilot a thumb’s up sign and spoke to John by intercom.
‘’Take note of his aircraft number, John, so that we can prove our claim of intercepting him. I wonder how many of those guys tried the same trick tonight.’’
Back in Langley AFB, there was now near chaos at the air operations center, where the night duty officer in charge of detection and fighter directing was pulling his air out while frantically looking at the radar screens of his air defense controllers.
‘’DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! QUICK, FIND OUT IF THERE ARE OTHER TRANSATLANTIC AIRLINERS ON THE WAY TO OUR EAST COAST OR WHO ALREADY CROSSED THE COASTLINE. IF THERE ARE, TELL OUR PILOTS IN THE AIR TO GO CHECK VISUALLY EACH OF THOSE AIRLINERS.’’
The operations duty officer then did something he wished he didn’t need to do: raising a safety cover first, he punched a large red button, starting the loud blaring of an alert siren across the whole base and also sending an air attack signal to the Pentagon.
‘’Dammit, I may just end up in a hot seat tomorrow and I probably won’t be alone to face the music.’’
His morale then took a further hit when one of his radar controllers shouted a warning.
‘’NEW RADAR CONTACT NORTH OF WASHINGTON, D.C.! IT IS FLYING LOW AND SUPERSONIC AND IS HEADING STRAIGHT TO DOWNTOWN WASHINGTON.’’
‘’Fuck! We’re cooked!’’
02:12 (Washington Time)
Massachusetts Air National Guard F-83C fighter-bomber
Flying over Washington at an altitude of 400 meters
‘’I have the White House dead ahead, two miles away. Prepare our cameras and strobe lights, Mary.’’
‘’With pleasure, Ingrid.’’ replied Ingrid’s radar officer, who then eyed the electro-optical visor of their photo-reconnaissance pod, which filled the large belly bomb bay of their aircraft. That pod was actually a fairly old model that was mostly out of use these days. The reason for that was that it used a bank of very powerful strobe lights which allowed to take very high definition pictures at night, using high-speed special films. Ingrid could have used a more modern type of photo-reconnaissance pod which used sensitive infrared film and no strobe lights, but the overhead blinding flash of light of the strobe lights was the nearest in terms of psychological effect to that of being blinded by the flash of a nuclear explosion.
‘’Three seconds to the White House, then six more seconds to the Pentagon, Mary!’’
‘’Ready… Top!... And top!’’
The Secret Service agents posted on the roof of the White House and doing their night watch duty suddenly had to close their eyes as they were bathed in a blinding flash of white light, at about the same time as a thundering roar passed overhead. Their night vision gone for long seconds and seeing stars in their eyes, the agents were basically rendered useless for over a minute, as surprised shouts and exclamations went around the building. In the Presidential Suite, President Bush woke up with a startle at the roar of the F-83 passing low overhead. Looking at his alarm clock, he patted his wife’s shoulder to reassure her.
‘’Don’t worry, honey: that was just Ingrid Dows pulling a swifty on our air defense units. She warned me yesterday to expect something like this at about this hour.’’
The President then listened for nearly a minute, to see if anybody was in hot pursuit behind Ingrid Dows. Hearing nothing, he frowned and promised himself to ask a few pointed questions to the Air Force Chief of Staff in the morning, then got back to sleep.
Six seconds later, it was the turn of the soldiers on guard duty at the various entrances to the Pentagon to be blinded by a sudden flash of white light. Ingrid’s F-83C then continued on at very low altitude, actually passing close to her own house and basically waking up the whole neighborhood before turning to follow the meanders of the Potomac River at an altitude barely above the various bridges and high voltage power lines crossing the river. None of the interceptors scrambled to catch her were even able to see her fly out to the Atlantic after flashing the main naval base at Norfolk, near Newport News. In the Wilsons’ house, where Nancy was being babysat during Ingrid’s absence on exercise, Nancy and Billy, sleeping in the same bed, woke up like the rest of the neighborhood. Billy, now six years-old, exclaimed himself on abruptly waking up.
‘’WHAT WAS THAT?’’
Nancy, also ruffled up at first, then smiled to herself.
‘’That was Mommy having some fun.’’