literature

Talon One, Flight Four

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“That’s insane!” I pounded my fist on Officer Cornwall’s table, acquiring the attention of everyone in the rec-room, “there’s no way! The F-22 can’t take that pressure, she’ll break up and there’s no ejecting from that altitude.”

“Actually,” said a short man, stepping forward, “the F-22 Raptor will take the stress of a full stall at that altitude about for approximately one minute, providing the craft isn’t damaged to begin with.”

“And who are you,” I asked.

“Steve Mikes, Lockheed Martin.” He outstretched his hand, but I just stared at it, “I have inspected your plane and found no structural cracks or other issues. I ran some numbers and came to the conclusion that you can fly to 80,000 feet using the assistance of rockets, execute a high AOA turn, and fall back into operational flight.”

“Okay, fine,” I looked at the two of them, “so what are we doing?”

Cornwall took a file off the table and opened it, “are you aware that an attack was staged on Air Force One when the president flew into Korea?”

I looked at him, is this guy retarded? “Yes, I flew Guardian one and shot down two of the attacking MiGs.”

“Of course, now we have detected a North Korean spy satellite that may have seen Air Force One and scrambled the MiGs to intercept. The orbit is to far inland for sea-based cruisers to launch and we don’t want to launch from the ground for they may see the missile and fire their nuclear arsenal. We need someone to take it out and…”

“And you want me to do it.”

“We want you to…yes precisely,” I glared at the man and imagined him suddenly bursting into flames.

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I can’t believe I’m doing this; I can’t believe I’m doing this. I was flying level at 30,000 feet and was still sweating in the cold, I adjusted my oxygen mask and breathed the fresh air; this is crazy, how did I get myself into this one?
The plan was that I dive down from 25,000 feet at full afterburner to 500 feet, I argued with that, saying I couldn’t possibly maneuver that quickly, even with thrust vectoring I would end up a hole in the ground. I was able to get them to change that to a 30,000 foot dive point and a 3,000 foot floor. After leveling off I clime straight up, right towards the satellite, as soon as I cross the 50,000 foot threshold I ignite a series of three pairs of rockets fixed to my wings. My engine will die around 55,000 and by 70,000 the last pair of rockets will burn out, leaving me to rely solely on forward momentum to fight the pull of gravity and make it to 75,000 feet, the highest any F-22 has ever flown. There I am to shoot a single missile, codenamed Starkiller, after pickle I turn 180 degrees yaw and fly back down to operational flight. However, the term ‘fly’ is used lightly, at that altitude there isn’t enough air for the aerofoil to produce lift, only enough to turn using my rudder and full right elevator, or so claimed Steve Mikes. “What could possibly go wrong,” he had said.

The screen flashed with the dive point, “Talon One, Control, airspace in two-zero mile radius all clear, you have a green light to go, dive clearance november-one-three-niner granted.”

“Roger control, Talon One is cleared november-one-three-niner, going headlong.” I pushed my stick forward and opened the afterburner, screaming down at three times the speed of sound.

I reached three thousand feet and pulled back hard. I started to level off but the plane was fighting my commands, the F-22’s smart fly-by-wire wouldn’t let me make the maneuver. “Caution: stress, over-g,” the computer said.

“Override,” I commanded and the plane responded, I leveled off around one-thousand feet and started to clime. As I watched the ground fall away again I smiled, if we had left the floor at 500 feet I would be at -1,500 feet right now. At 50,000 I ignited the first pair of rockets and continued upward. Near 56,000 all my engine instruments died and the second and third pair of rockets ignited, pushing me even further. Then, silence.

I was through 70,000 feet and my last rocket died, there was no engine, and even the low roar of the slipstream was gone. My airspeed was falling again as I climbed the last five-thousand feet. The sky turned from blue to black and I could see the curve of the earth. My thumb depressed the missile button.

Starkiller disappeared into the black abyss above me, guided by some unseen commands from a building somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. I heard the stall warning and gave right rudder and stick, turning slowly to keep the angle of attack low. I was halfway through the turn, looking sideways at the earth, a vertical horizon.

Suddenly, the silence was shattered by a loud grinding noise. The plane yawed left violently and began to roll over. “Warning: Structural failure. Warning: Structural failure.”

Only one thing crossed my mind: Damn you, Steve.

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I was falling through 70,000 now, still spinning. My engines were gasping for air, until I got to a lower altitude. I was holding full right stick and rudder, but was getting little response. “Computer: find source of failure.”
“Unknown.” Not good. I tried hard to keep the nose down and get to a lower altitude. The air was so thin that the aerofoil wasn’t providing lift, so I was simply falling out of the sky.

Suddenly, I started to stabilize, I was through 65,000 and my wings grabbed onto the denser air and started to fly again. I adjusted the trim and made an effort to level off. Luckily I was able to find myself flying in a modified straight line. I deployed the speed brake to slow down because mach two is not a smart speed to fly at with a structural failure. The plane jerked hard left, rolled over, and pitched toward the ground. I retracted the speed brake and quickly recovered. Okay, Speed brake = bad idea.

I pasted 55,000 and hit the ignition for the engines, I heard them start and watched the readings, the power stabilized and they gave out a healthy hum. Then, without warning the right one’s readings died, almost simultaneously, the left one’s vibration increased past redline and the temperature flickered, oh, please calm down, the readings went dead. “Control, Talon One, mayday, mayday, unknown structural failure, dual engine flameout, coming out of three-zero thousand, request vectors to nearest able field.”

“Talon One, copy mayday, nearest strip is Hoengsong, Camp Eagle AB. Turn left, heading two-one-zero, runway is two-one miles, vectors on your screen, contact tower. Good luck.” My visor displayed a new waypoint, I turned towards it.

“Roger, Control, switching to tower, thanks. Hoengsong tower, Talon One is one F-22, inbound two-zero miles, declaring an emergency.”

“Talon One, cleared all the way in, runway two-one, winds calm, emergency equipment rolling. Ground, we have a flightline emergency, type F-22 is inbound, runway two-one.” Emergency trucks and vehicles appeared and raced to the end of the runway, strobe lights active.

I began to run the emergency landing checklist: flaps, down; gear, three down, three locked; speed, 180 knots; lights, set for landing; speed brake, bad idea, down. The runway was approaching quickly.

I flew over the end of the runway and the trucks below took pursuit. I flared and hoped the landing gear wasn’t damaged; I didn’t want those fire trucks to be needed. The first clue that I touched the ground was that the yaw disappeared, for the first time since the accident at 75,000 feet I was moving in a straight line. I touched the brakes and got a response, I rolled to a stop near the center of the strip.

I looked around, I was alive. I patted the controls, “well, we did it again.” I opened the canopy and started to clime out, three firefighters ran to assist me. My feet were back on solid ground and I turned to look at the plane. I scanned her slowly, looking for anything out of the ordinary, in order to cause that much trouble it had to be more then a scratch.

“Sir, over here,” someone called me to the other side of the plane.

“How did I miss that?” I said. The left tail was completely gone. I climbed onto the wing and walked over to where the tail should be, nothing but jagged metal sticking out of the airframe remained.

Without looking up I said, “get Lockheed Martin on the phone, ask for Steve Mikes.”
Chapter four. sorry it took so long, I have a short attention span.
Enjoy ;)

Chapter three: [link]

Chapter Five: Coming Soon
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