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Feature
It Happened So Fast!
A Lock On: Modern Air Combat Air to Air Mission
by Cat
 I
must be…what is your word, tovarisch…melodramatic
now, no? I am Sacha Dimitrova Andreevna, but you, my friends,
you may call me Sacha. Vasily, my section-mate…wingman,
in your tongue? He and I have had many adventures in my country’s
fight against the Sheik. You have heard of him, no? He is
a most evil man. The Sheikh Sheikh Muqtadeh al Sadr ibn Sistani
leads the Islamic Liberation Resistance Front. And he has
the help of the Turks, who have their eyes on our southern
flank. It is Georgia the Turk covets, for it is small. But
not helpless!
I have had a small part in our war
in the East. You too know the war on terrorism. Here, we have
lived with the threat for long and long. It started when our
Soviet Union was lost in Afghanistan, and later with the Chechens,
where the war goes on still. And now, in Georgia. The wily
Turk moves east while our back is turned to Chechnya, and
the Americans their allies are busy in the Iraq, and Afghanistan
too-they know America and the U.N. would not let them do this.
The world is coming to help us now,
but only slowly, for the war is a vast one. We must help ourselves.
For now, America sends its E-3 AWACS to be our eyes, and that
is enough. Later, we are told a squadron of your F-15 fighters
will come, and I am to go to help them in our country! This
is so because I am fortunate to have been to your “Red
Flag,” and have trained with your U.S. Air Force.  They
too are great warriors. But that is another story for another
time. Soon, the Canadians, and the Germans, and other nations
will fly here to put a stop to the Sheik’s madness. Only
together may this war be won.
For today, the Turk tries to stir
up trouble over the Black Sea. He is the Sheik’s eyes.
His hated F-4 fighters have been regularly violating the airspace
of our brotherly Georgian neighbor, who have no air force
of their own. Today, however, our 586 Fighter Interceptor
Squadron is in-theater. It is a most glorious squadron, and
the Turk does not know this. He will learn. We will teach
him. In the Great Patriotic War, it was composed of all women!
But now, it is... your term is “co-ed?” My wingman,
Vasily, is more skilled than I. I blush to be called section
leader. But our task is air to air combat in the 586th, and
this is my training. Vasily came to us from the ground-attack
unit. We are based at the Adler airfield, in the city of Sochi
on the Georgian coast. From Sochi base, we can see the beautiful
Black Sea, which you will soon come to know, when your countries
send you to fight with us soon.
This day we are assigned Ground Alert
duty, which means idling at the end of Adler Runway 15 waiting
for the action. Early this morning, Vasily and I met with
our Commander, who briefed us on the mission. You know what
that is. We will wait, and when the American AWACS, code name
Overlord, sees the daily insult to our brothers, we will smartly
slap the Turkish dog on the nose. I have the choice of loadout
for this mission. Vasily and I meet with the Armourer, and
I ask for two R-27EA, two R-27RE, two R-27TE, two R-73, and
the Sorbtsiya jammer pods. The EA is the only active radar
missile that our beloved Su-27P can carry, though a modification
to the N-001 radar is posited to allow R-77 carriage. This
has not reached the front yet. Be sure that it will, and we
will be stronger still when it does.  We
carry TE and RE to fire in pairs at the proper range. The
TE will sneak up on the Turk, while he is trying to evade
the semi-active radar missile. His F-4, unlike the despised
F-16C the West has given him, has no AMRAAM. We rejoice at
this, for it makes our task easier.
We saw the meteo officer later, before
the GAZ jeep came to take us to the flight line. He poured
glasses of tea, as is his custom, and I munched on cucumber
slices as he briefed us.
“Expect clear air turbulence
today, Sacha. Winds are unpredictable at all altitudes, but
the temperature is expected 20 degrees at sea level. It will
be a nice, breezy day for you to enjoy at the end of the runway!”
He laughs at his little joke. Vasily pulls a face at that.
“We will roast in those
Nomex suits.”
“As for me, I will lose weight!”
“You are thin enough,
Sacha.” Vasily
shook his head. “You will blow away as soon as you
open your canopy.”
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