Read Online Crown Jewel: The Battle for the Falklands by Peter von Bleichert - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Peter von Bleichert
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scream and “Greyling two-nine, on guard” came over the Apache’s radio as the fighter checked in.
Slowly at first, the big transport moved down the runway. Then, belying its size, it accelerated quickly. Donnan and Albert scanned the horizon for trouble. With nothing on their night vision system, they waited as the transport rotated and lumbered into the air. Its navigation and landing gear lights were immediately extinguished. The C-17 tucked its wheels away, and then banked south to avoid trouble.
“Bandits, inbound,” the Typhoon pilot reported, his voice strained by the high-G turn he was performing. “I count four. Greyling two-nine: Engaging.”
The Typhoon turned into the enemy four-ship. Determined to keep the bad guys as far away from the climbing C-17 as possible, the pilot nudged his throttles past the stop and into afterburner.
Raw fuel dumped into the engines’ exhaust, ignited, and kicked the Typhoon past Mach 2. Using its PIRATE—Passive Infra-Red Airborne Tracking Equipment—Greyling 29 recognized the shape of the approaching bandits. Flying triangles with twin streams of hot thrust, the British pilot knew he faced Mirages, a French-built delta-winged supersonic fighter aircraft. The Typhoon pilot looked to his weapon read-out.
Just one Meteor air-to-air missile was on its station, and there were only 300 rounds of 27-millimeter ammunition for the Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon. Looking through the canopy and off to his right, he lamented the fact that no one was on his wing; no friend to protect his six. The sky was awfully dark and the Typhoon was awfully alone. Regardless, Greyling 29’s pilot threw the aircraft at his adversaries and closed fast with them.
Donnan tilted the Apache’s night vision turret skyward as he attempted to locate the Typhoon. Stars streaked across the cockpit screens. Like comets, they trailed white and green. A solid green line appeared. Tail-fire… he thought. An air-to-air missile . Morse code-like tracer fire shot from the Typhoon. He witnessed two high-altitude explosions as the Typhoon bested two Mirages.
A big aircraft broke from among high-altitude clouds and rolled inverted. It was painted in tiger-striped greys, and sported the flag of the Argentine Republic high on both of its twin tails. Marked along the fuselage in black letters was: Fuerza Aérea Argentina . The aircraft was one of two J-11s in Argentina’s inventory, a pirated Chinese copy of the formidable Russian Flanker heavy air superiority fighter, provided to Buenos Aires in kit form as part of an ore-for-hardware counter-trade. At its stick was one of the Argentine Air Force’s best: Captain Lucas Moreno. As Moreno began to shed altitude, he kept the radar off to minimize emissions and instead relied upon a small fish-eye lens mounted in his Flanker’s canopy.
This infrared search and track system detected and displayed the heat emitted by his enemy, and thus found the British Typhoon as it trailed the last aircraft that belonged to a three-ship flight Argentina had assigned to patrol the block of airspace over the British airbase. When the Typhoon took to the air, they had raced in to engage. The Typhoon—a formidable machine with a skilled pilot at the controls—had, despite numerical disadvantage, turned the tables, and the Argentine Mirages let out a desperate call for backup.
Moreno had swept in from his orbit high above East Falkland. He superimposed the Typhoon’s heat signature in the lens’s crosshairs and used it to follow. He rolled the Flanker again, nosed it over, and dropped the throttles, using the pull of the earth to shed altitude. Then, Moreno pushed the throttles to the stops, and the Flanker screamed as it dove on Greyling 29.
A high-pitched warble sounded in Moreno’s ear. The PL-8 Thunderclap short-range infrared-guided missile on his right wingtip begged for release. Another Chinese-built steal
Slowly at first, the big transport moved down the runway. Then, belying its size, it accelerated quickly. Donnan and Albert scanned the horizon for trouble. With nothing on their night vision system, they waited as the transport rotated and lumbered into the air. Its navigation and landing gear lights were immediately extinguished. The C-17 tucked its wheels away, and then banked south to avoid trouble.
“Bandits, inbound,” the Typhoon pilot reported, his voice strained by the high-G turn he was performing. “I count four. Greyling two-nine: Engaging.”
The Typhoon turned into the enemy four-ship. Determined to keep the bad guys as far away from the climbing C-17 as possible, the pilot nudged his throttles past the stop and into afterburner.
Raw fuel dumped into the engines’ exhaust, ignited, and kicked the Typhoon past Mach 2. Using its PIRATE—Passive Infra-Red Airborne Tracking Equipment—Greyling 29 recognized the shape of the approaching bandits. Flying triangles with twin streams of hot thrust, the British pilot knew he faced Mirages, a French-built delta-winged supersonic fighter aircraft. The Typhoon pilot looked to his weapon read-out.
Just one Meteor air-to-air missile was on its station, and there were only 300 rounds of 27-millimeter ammunition for the Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon. Looking through the canopy and off to his right, he lamented the fact that no one was on his wing; no friend to protect his six. The sky was awfully dark and the Typhoon was awfully alone. Regardless, Greyling 29’s pilot threw the aircraft at his adversaries and closed fast with them.
Donnan tilted the Apache’s night vision turret skyward as he attempted to locate the Typhoon. Stars streaked across the cockpit screens. Like comets, they trailed white and green. A solid green line appeared. Tail-fire… he thought. An air-to-air missile . Morse code-like tracer fire shot from the Typhoon. He witnessed two high-altitude explosions as the Typhoon bested two Mirages.
A big aircraft broke from among high-altitude clouds and rolled inverted. It was painted in tiger-striped greys, and sported the flag of the Argentine Republic high on both of its twin tails. Marked along the fuselage in black letters was: Fuerza Aérea Argentina . The aircraft was one of two J-11s in Argentina’s inventory, a pirated Chinese copy of the formidable Russian Flanker heavy air superiority fighter, provided to Buenos Aires in kit form as part of an ore-for-hardware counter-trade. At its stick was one of the Argentine Air Force’s best: Captain Lucas Moreno. As Moreno began to shed altitude, he kept the radar off to minimize emissions and instead relied upon a small fish-eye lens mounted in his Flanker’s canopy.
This infrared search and track system detected and displayed the heat emitted by his enemy, and thus found the British Typhoon as it trailed the last aircraft that belonged to a three-ship flight Argentina had assigned to patrol the block of airspace over the British airbase. When the Typhoon took to the air, they had raced in to engage. The Typhoon—a formidable machine with a skilled pilot at the controls—had, despite numerical disadvantage, turned the tables, and the Argentine Mirages let out a desperate call for backup.
Moreno had swept in from his orbit high above East Falkland. He superimposed the Typhoon’s heat signature in the lens’s crosshairs and used it to follow. He rolled the Flanker again, nosed it over, and dropped the throttles, using the pull of the earth to shed altitude. Then, Moreno pushed the throttles to the stops, and the Flanker screamed as it dove on Greyling 29.
A high-pitched warble sounded in Moreno’s ear. The PL-8 Thunderclap short-range infrared-guided missile on his right wingtip begged for release. Another Chinese-built steal
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