On Fulcrum's Wings: A Novel

On Fulcrum’s Wings

A Novel

Mark A. Werkema

Writers Club Press

San Jose New York Lincoln Shanghai

Contents

Author’s Note

Dedication

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

Acknowledgments

About The Author

On Fulcrum’s Wings

A Novel

All Rights Reserved © 2001 by Mark A. Werkema

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press

an imprint of iUniverse.com, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse.com, Inc.

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Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

All technical drawings of the MiG-29 Fulcrum in this book are used with permission from JANE’S Aircraft Of The World.

ISBN: 0-595-14988-X

ISBN: 978-1-4697-5169-6 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

MiG-29 Fulcrum-C drawing courtesy of JANE’S Aircraft Of The World

Author’s Note

This novel is solely a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, incidents, plot, dialogue, events, and accounts either are the product of the author’s imagination and creation, or are used fictitiously, and are purely a work of literary fiction.

The reference to world political figures, the military leaders in the Gulf War, and the names associated with the history, development, and production of the MiG-29 are, however, accurate and necessary in this work of alternative, historical fiction that looks back on the Gulf War. Other than those persons aforementioned, any resemblance to other actual persons, living or dead, events, circumstances, companies, or locales is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

Although some of the details and technical descriptions of military operations are accurate, the story is completely fictional in nature. The Quotations at the start of the book and the Dedication section are, however, real and accurate, with the appropriate sources noted and acknowledged. The technical facts and specifications of aircraft and military hardware described within this book are accurate as well.

In that the story in this book is purely fictional, and has not yet happened in history, it must be mentioned that there are a few very important notable exceptions:

The Mikoyan MiG-29 Fulcrum is a real airplane. The country of Iraq is still a sovereign nation ruled by a ruthless dictator, a member of OPEC, and a represented member of the United Nations. And, the Second Gulf War has not yet occurred. However, its fateful place in history is destined.

Dedication

Out of the 383 men and women of the United States of America killed in the military operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991, commonly known as The Gulf War, precisely 56 were military aviators from all branches of service. This information is fact and not fiction, and unfortunately is the very accurate truth. This novel is dedicated to those 55 men and 1 woman, the fallen U.S. aviators who died flying airplanes and helicopters in a time of war for their country during the First Gulf War.

These were the U.S. aviators who did not come home. All of them saw war. All of them gave their lives. For these individuals are the real aerial heroes of Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Truly, these were the military fliers from America that paid the ultimate price of The Gulf War with their lives over the skies of Iraq. May their dedication and ultimate sacrifice of death in aerial combat and military flight operations not be soon forgotten, and moreover, be long-remembered. Lest we forget, as one reads the names listed below, we remember the real cost of freedom, even in the arena of modern high-tech aerial warfare. May their lives and dedicated service to their country not fall in vain, as we recall their great sacrifice for America. In the end, they truly deserve nothing less.

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?

Revelation 6:15-17, The Bible

As an indication of the changing world situation, only a year or so ago, the MiG-29 was considered by the United States to be one of the most significant threats. Although it remains the primary air-to-air threat in many regions of the world today, it has also evolved into an economic threat in that the MiG-29 is now a competitor in the world marketplace for fighter aircraft.

Eric Hehs, editor

CODE ONE Magazine

April 1993

But war’s a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.

Ibid. V, The Winter Morning Walk, l. 187.

"By the time of the tensely charged finale to the Cold War in the mid-1980’s, the Russian MiG-29 Fulcrum had come to symbolize the highly evolved Communist threat to NATO air supremacy over Western Europe. It was the Soviet aircraft that every U.S. fighter pilot had been trained to defeat. As such, the prospect of confronting one in the sky exemplified the ultimate aerial engagement."

Erik Hildebrandt

magaCzine article entitled Hornet vs. Fulcrum

FLIGHT JOURNAL Magazine

1

Saturday, January 19, 1991

Over the skies of southern Iraq

0400 local time

Day Three of the Gulf War

AS THE LONE MiG-29 SLICED THROUGH THE dark, overcast night sky, she was completely undetected.

Flying at a mere seven-hundred feet above the desert floor, the high crescent moon above illuminated her and revealed the menacing shadow cutting sleekly against the lower cloud deck. This distant moon whose dim, white lunar glow highlighted the brilliant night stars of the infinite sky against the black reaches towering above the Gulf was one of the very few lights of that night.

The airplane was alone, unarmed, and not in radio contact with anyone; completely autonomous. It was an Iraqi MiG.

The dirty, two-tone steel gray colored hull of the Fulcrum secretly stole through the night on her low-level route barely over the barren desert floor and desolate terrain of the featureless Iraqi landscape. The darkness her friend. The MiG was hugging the rolling contours of the terrain in desperation and fleeing south in clandestine irony, riding a precarious gauntlet to her safety.

Below, the desert floor was blanketed with a low-lying layer of thick fog and haze with some sparse holes that exposed the desert earthen sand dunes below. The shimmering light cast an eerie flickering shadow of piercing light that skimmed through the occasional ragged breaks in the overcast skies, and sent them quickly cascading across the windswept desert land underneath. Yet, the jets’ ghost-like dark shadow followed obediently behind and snaked its way across the overcast as it reflected its presence and raced over the cloud deck in close trail as if there were two birds on the run together in tight formation under the cover of the night, streaking through the dark, closing in on their unsuspecting prey.

The single pilot immersed in his cockpit could think of but the one uncanny question that he feared the most in his soul, the only one that really mattered to him at that very uncertain moment of his life,…was he being detected? He was desperately trying to hide….from everyone and everything.

The oil fields of southern Iraq lay below. The pilot quietly marveled in the desolation and far-reaching vast expanse of the plain featureless colors of a tan and brown barren desert floor and distant rugged terrain as his eyes were peering into the deep black and translucent night. There was foreboding.

This was the land of Iraq. A land so barren, so void of water, vegetation, and modern civilization with nothing there but a great, expansive desert that was the very epitome of isolation. It was a surreal sight to any human eye.

This God-forsaken oil-rich country in the Gulf had led the world to war in these days. They were at the brink of a very major war. It could explode into World War Three. At the time there were veiled threats of nukes and chemical and neurological agents being used by the Dictator. No one really knew the potential outcome. Caution reigned among the Coalition troops…they expected the worse.

God, this land was desolate, he thought, void of any signs of civilization or life except for the behemoth oil rigs. This dull, colorless land was uninspiring and almost surreal when looked at by the human eye. This land was now the focus of the world that night. A night of war was again looming in the sky above. This…for the damn oil, he thought to himself momentarily,…what the hell?

It was a land up until these days that was a quiet land that seemingly stretched for an eternity. Millions upon millions of barrels of oil reserves were buried deep beneath the barren earth amid the Rumalia field, dotted only by the grid-like black oil rig structures each protruding with burn-off fires of the volatile waste gas streaming upward from the tall monuments emanating from the single stack into the night sky disappearing into the murk and hell-like overcast that blanketed the region. In that, there was black gold with wealth and fortune beyond belief. In this lay a premonition he thought, an omen of a great and magnificent war.

Iraq was a country rich in tradition and Biblical history, but Iraq was also a modern oil superpower who had the most oil reserves buried beneath her soil of any nation on the face of the earth, save Saudi Arabia. That Biblical traditional history was now long-forgotten by the world, almost ignored, for now.

Oil. Greed. Wealth and money. Power. These were commanding the reasons for this very war. War over oil and a tyrannical dictator in Baghdad had brought countless combat jets to the skies of the Gulf and armies of various nations arrayed across it lands in great anticipation.

Truly, this was a night of war. A night of destiny.

The secret flight continued. Slowly, the Fulcrum slowly slipped down into the white low cloud deck as its pilot carefully descended off the radar altimeter toward the ground, cautiously easing the stick slightly forward with a mere gentle release of pressure in his right hand to creep toward the blackened earth and hug the foreboding terrain. It was treacherous at night. The land’s plain rolling motion and nondescript clues could fool the eyes of a pilot and make him pay with his life. His eyes were drawn to cross check the instrument that held the precious altitude information a thousand times over.

Then, when he could take it no longer, he pulled back up into the clear sky, knowing he would expose his jet above the overcast again. The black shadow of the fighter would emerge mysteriously from the cloud deck in a slight climb as it surfaced above the cloud deck. It was a desperate ploy. But, therein was escape in the move. It was his only way of hiding the prize.

Above the deck of mostly solid white cotton-like clouds and the florescence of the crescent moon that spread down across the cloud deck that stretched for miles. He feared only the worst…. Was it was illuminating his presence? He might be detected if he lingered above the overcast deck too long in the glow of the translucent moon, and that would put him at risk of being discovered. That was a fate he knew he could not survive. So, the pilot again went on with his routine of random climbs and descents slipping in and out of the overcast deck.

Was he staring in the abyss? Was he flying into hell? He knew very well, this might be the only way he would survive this night. The altitude and the night were his only friends.

That night, as it made its way south, it slid inconspicuously underneath the enemies early-warning radar systems. The vast array of SA-6’s and SA-2’s SAM sites, the ZSU-23 triple-A guns, and anything else the Iraqi’s would throw at him could not find her and illuminate their threat. This was too insane a scenario for any pilot to attempt. The Fulcrum flew over a route so desolate that few, if any, would hear or see its escape. As he eased down lower, his jet once again broke out of the cloud deck below the white overcast, and he saw the faint horizon and the barren desert that lay underneath. This was the land upon which this war was being fought over.

There was some realization that he had discovered that night, an ironic one that even he thought would never happen….the truth was that without a shadow of a doubt now, this war was being fought over oil. At least that was what he told himself to believe.

This night was, in all respects, strangely different. It had never happened like this before. It was early in the year of 1991. Nations, armies, and air forces were poised for war. The Coalition was ready for the ultimate aerial showdown the likes of which had not been seen in the history of mankind in terms of scope, size, and with the high-tech capability of modern warfare. This air war was of a different realm. The Iraqi’s were still defiant, defensive, and arrogant. The Coalition was ready to get it on in the air. War had come to the Gulf.

For the pilot inside the cramped Soviet cockpit, this too was a night like no other he had ever experienced. This jet was not supposed to be there.

He thought again about the insanity of all of this. An enemy jet running south to the Coalition territory? A Fulcrum? Maybe it was a defector? It would not make any sense to either side of the conflict, and that was the way it was planned.

But tonight was different. Tonight, that airplane was not being flown by an Iraqi pilot. In an ultimate ploy of deception and trickery likened to the legendary Greek story Trojan Horse of ancient lore. This was a strangely different mission like the legend. A huge wooden horse that was hollow and filled with attacking Greek soldiers to gain access through the gates of the city of Troy. It was a stratagem. The armed soldiers stormed the city once inside, capturing the enemy and burning the city to ruin. This jet….this ploy. It was being flown by the enemy…the American.

He sat quietly in its cockpit and once again struggled with the poor Soviet-designed cockpit switchology and layout as he attempted to stay ahead of the beast and think far out in front of its peculiar ways. He talked to himself as he made his way through enemy territory. Don’t let this bastard kill you tonight, he told himself. The high-placed Soviet stick in the cockpit felt odd between his legs as he gripped it with his right hand and nursed the throttles with the left hand. It had been a long time since his right hand had felt a similar Russian-style stick. Many years. The cockpit visibility was lacking. He tried to remember its idiosyncrasies. Think hard. Remember. He struggled with the eccentricities and features of the jet.

Hitting the ground was his greatest concern. It had to be. He could really only see what was in front of him, and so he sighed to himself in an ironic pause when he thought about the poor limited visibility to check behind him from the cockpit window view. That did not really matter, he thought. His true fate lay in the hands of the ground. So he refocused again on what mattered, and that was what was ahead of him and the earth below him. The terrain could reach up and snatch him into eternity in a blink of an eye. Each of those elements could kill him instantly before he could even realize his mistake. He could die quickly from carelessness, he told himself. Nothing else really did matter to him now but those simple things.

Life and death for him that night were narrowed down to those elementary elements.

Indeed, there was great danger in that night, but great destiny as well. He thought to himself how strange and surreal this experience was becoming. So this was what war was? Was this what

combat really felt like to a man? He had never fully imagined it to

be like this.

Now he found himself flying in the Gulf.

So this was his war? Right then it did not seem real to him. It was nothing like he had ever imagined. He had trained his entire career for war, but not this kind. He was an American fighter pilot. He had trained for years for a Cold War showdown with the Soviet Union, flying low level over the rolling green farmland of Western Europe across East Germany, dogfights over the mountains in North Korea north of Seoul, over the sea between mainland China and Taiwan, or in the skies of the Florida Straits north of Cuba,…but never once had he envisioned Iraq. It was a place so far removed from typical rolling green farmlands and forest terrain of Europe where the pilot had been based prior to the Gulf War that it looked like a surreal Hollywood movie set, except it went on for hundreds of miles and never ended until it faded to the distant horizon as far as the eye could see.

He might very well die tonight for his country. Could it really be that the price of this very night might be his life? And he felt like every other U.S. aviator did in the skies of Iraq felt that night—far from home, far from everything he had known in life or was used to, and far from a place called America. He was alone. Alone like he had never felt before in an airplane. In the confines of a single-seat fighter cockpit he was living his own fate that night. Controlled by his own hands on the controls of the Soviet-made fighter. Below was the melee’. Somehow, he sensed how small his world was that night in a cramped cockpit, narrowed down to a small cocoon of war so simple, and so black and white where survival and the hunter verses the hunted was being played out on the grandest of all scales in fateful destiny in the sky. War was going to be waged over the skies of Iraq. That he was merely just a pawn in the whole of the big air war made him feel small, just a piece of the ultimate puzzle of the war meant little.

This was all about survival now. Merely living to fly another day. A strange reality amid a unreal uncertainty pervaded his senses. His sixth sense told him he was in great trouble tonight. The war might very well lead to his doom.

He might become a casualty that night, he thought to himself, a mere footnote to history, or a small article in a hometown newspaper with his old, grainy black and white high school photograph, or a picture on CNN newscast beamed across the world the next morning. Or maybe no one would ever know he was dead.

Outside the cockpit there was war. Separate from and high above his low level route, there was an air war likened to nothing the modern world had ever before seen in any sky over any foreign land. His tenuous fate was precipitated by the chaos. The real fury was above in the mid to high altitudes. He and his Fulcrum remained completely removed from the big air war up to the northeast. Below all of the furor, there was a single jet running away from the chaos.

Above the vast expanse of the windswept dunes of the desert and above the barren scrub-land and arid landscape there was a dark black mirror across the far horizon of the night sky. Except for the slow rising of the bright sliver of the quarter of a moon, and the brilliant night sky alight with the expanse of bright white stars above that filled the clear cockpit canopy of the Fulcrum in magnificent array, there were no other lights on the desert floor except for the occasional oil rig fire. But, he too knew they were up there—above it all. He had studied the Air Battle Plan hours before in the briefing room.

Ahead of him there was a distant line in the sky marking the desert horizon, a faint change in shades of color of the night. The only sign of a horizon. It was an intense, strange dark. With high-tech aerial weaponry ready to fight in a massive air campaign, there was great tension in the air. The warplanes all had their running lights turned off, making them invisible to the naked eye. For above in the higher altitudes of the sky the stratosphere was full of metal, even though no person could have seen them with the naked eye. There was an armada of jets ranging from fighters to bombers, tankers to reconnaissance aircraft from every U.S. service branch and Coalition ally arrayed to fight an air war like no other the big Red, White, and Blue machine of America had ever fought.

Interrupted only by the tense static-filled radio calls that crackled in background staccato chatter through the night from various GCI sites, AWACS, and J-STARS as the KC-135 and KC-10 tankers gave fighters their last sip of JP-4 fuel before they wished then well with the words good hunting over the radio. The night was alive with anticipation. Another night of massive air attack was underway. The boomers then saw the fighters disappear as they slowly slid back off the air refueling boom of the behemoth Boeing and McDonnell Douglas tankers to rejoin their formation package, and observed their dark, unlit, shark-like shadowy silhouettes fade from unlit shadow to complete dark in the refueling boom area into the fateful night. And then, with nothing else said over the radio, they slowly banked away, turned north, and headed for war. They were headed for history.

Surely, there was again going to be war over the skies of Iraq that night. If the first two nights of the war were any sign, it would again be a night of massive air strikes, air-to-air engagements, and shoot-downs of Iraqi jets. And in that act lay the potential again for many people to die. The Iraqi triple-A sites were already firing in random, sporadic desperation as tracers lit up the night sky to the northeast around Baghdad hoping for a lucky hit. The fireworks were again ready to begin.

The low altitude continued to be its only shield from the night war as it pressed on in the low-level, masking it from enemy radar sites. It was its best sole defense. For it was on the run like a scared wild dog. Escaping. Evading. An all-out ultimate risk. Iraq did not know it was even airborne, nor would they realize it was missing for several hours. They were completely fooled. Duped by the enemy. But which enemy…from within or from across the border? It could have been a defector? A madman? A Russian mercenary pilot? A traitor? Perhaps it was one of their own fighters making a suicidal run to the south attack the great enemy? Or was it an enemy jet running south to the Coalition territory? Few really knew the true story of this night of the war. Few ever would.

The pilot again glanced over to the right side of the cockpit where the radar warning receiver, RWR gear was located in the Fulcrum cockpit. He had checked it often in his short flight. If it displayed any threat he would be in grave danger. Any light there would alarm him. Any intruder that found him would be a foe.

The only sounds he heard were the rush of the wind over the Plexiglas canopy of the fighter and the powerful growling rumble of the twin-turbojet engines behind him propelling him into the ominous night.

At 540 knots of airspeed with no running lights on, no airborne intercept radar emanating, and silent radio communications, it made its way across the desolate sand-strewn plains of the western Iraqi desert, now lit up only by the haze on the horizon and the dim light of the white sliver of the quarter moon that had now risen well above the horizon. At that moment, it was the only light he had to distinguish the horizon. He was moving at nine miles-aminute over the ground, and his eyes were blurred by the transient rush of motion to the side, in front was all that mattered. He fought back at the perilous visual tricks that his eyes were playing on him at this great speed and low altitude. One mile was gained for every mere seven seconds at this haunting speed, or around eight-hundred feet per second of his life. One slow, deliberate breath through his oxygen mask was a single mile covered. The length of an NFL football field, one-hundred yards, covered in less than a half of a second of time. Direful speed.

He dare not look left or right lest he lose his visual bearings and become disoriented or distracted. That would mean certain death. In his mind, the sole pilot forced himself to concentrate on only three elements: those of speed, low-level altitude terrain awareness, and remaining undetected. That was all that was important to him. The blur of his vision felt somewhat familiar, but he still respected his precarious fate. He respected the alarming speed, as this was a regime of flight that demanded complete concentration and no mistakes.

Low, fast night flight operations made young men develop gray hair. He told himself simple words again. Look ahead. Concentrate.

His entire being saw only what was past, a translucent blur behind him before he realized the terrain he had over flown. The combination of the knots and the night vision deceptions had done this to his eyes.

More doubts. Worries. Could anyone on the ground have detected him?

As he thundered across the desert the pilot hoped that, at worst, perhaps only a distant Bedouin camp might have detected it over flying the desert, but surely they could have had no inkling of its great significance. The Bedouins would never know what it was all about. Could they? Who could know?, except for the pilot speeding through the night and his superiors.

Don’t think like that. The Iraqi’s do not know, nor can they really care right now. The Americans will let you through.

Inside the Soviet fighters’ cramped cockpit amid the dim red glow of cockpit lights was the forty-two year old U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. He was concentrating. Breathing slowly, deliberately to calm the nerves and fight the fears. There was no turning back now. No other choices. Get through or die…it was that simple. Small bead of sweat covered his forehead under the clear helmet visor. He winced at the stale smell of old vomit that stank in the Iraqi cockpit. He tried to adjust the airflow so he would get some fresh air as he reached for the air vent to his lower left and to the side of the seat. It would not be much longer now. The cockpit was worn and not cared for over time, it’s dirty appearance and neglect evident. Paint was chipped from the instrument panel, and the scratches and worn seat cover showed of its generally ragged condition. Unkempt.

There were instructions in Arabic on a small metal plate that was riveted to a panel just above the radar screen off to the top right of the cockpit panel. These words detailed simple procedural steps to arm and fire missiles and drop bombs in the most basic of combat tasks.

Directly in front of him was the HUD (heads-up-display), which was inoperative, uselessly broken, and merely provided a thick, blank reticle glass screen to look through into the night.

Fuel. He glanced to the fuel gauges on the mid-right center panel. How was his fuel? Quantity checked. Would it be enough to get him to safety? Stay calm.

He had been distracted early on in the low-level on two separate occasions by a flickering high oil temperature light that fortunately extinguished over time as the low level progressed, but nonetheless signaled a sick engine on his jet. This too concerned him greatly. He tapped the right throttle with his left hand fingers

again and hoped…prayed to himself…just work, baby,…just work a couple of more minutes….please.

The only defense for the pilot continued to be his fast speed, low altitude, and terrain masking route of flight. He could not climb up and fight a foe if he was attacked or react defensively and engage another jet. He feared the unknowing American-made Eagles, Hornets, and Falcons above would mistakenly jump him. Friend or foe, that too would be suicide for sure; no one would understand. There were no bombs or missiles on the aircraft, stripped clean but for three expendable fuel pods. They had been jettisoned miles ago as they drained empty, and fell haplessly into the night sky to bounce off the desert floor skipping to an abrupt stop in sand and dirt in the middle of nowhere and truly far from anyone or anything that would even care.

He looked up at the small black Magellan EC-20X GPS receiver that was attached by Velcro to the right side of the cockpit glare shield above the instruments. On it he checked his heading, course, timing, distance to the next way point, and most importantly distance to the border, bulls eye point 7. The advanced CMAP / NT aviation cartography and detailed moving map showed him the way to safety. The C-card regional database for the Middle East had been loaded earlier that night, and the knee-board-sized GPS with its six-inch LCD screen fit perfectly in the cockpit with the antenna cable routed to the aft cockpit area where the suction cup-mounted antenna stuck to the inner canopy. It was a strange mix of old and new technology. A two-thousand dollar Western technology backup to a shaky Soviet-bloc navigation system. The GPS was working perfectly.

It would just be minutes now, he thought, before he crossed into the safe area. The U.S. Army SAM battery sites knew he was coming out at the pre-briefed altitude, airspeed, and coordinates.

They knew he was a friendly and they would remain silent. That was the plan.

His eyes shot back to the front of the canopy. It was almost an illusion, the speed and night vision again played treacherous tricks with his mind. It required his constant, unceasing attention. He would have used the HUD had it been working to cue his flight path, but he was forced to concentrate solely on the radar and the Doppler radar altimeter that beeped menacingly in the silence of the cockpit. The warrior was again reminded of his ever so fragile fate with the earth so close below the belly of the airplane. He just talked to himself calmly, to try to get himself through this jeopardous night.

He did not want to kill himself over this. Even an extra $50,000 in cash for his services and a field promotion to bird-Colonel was-n’t worth dying over. His thought of concentration, the act of focus and intensity on the radar…using the Fulcrum’s sophisticated terrain-following guidance consumed him. Was it working correctly? He had his doubts. This was the only way he was going to survive. The most important thing was still not hitting the ground, and getting fooled by the optical illusions of the night, the nondescript desert landscape against the glowing white shine of the moonlit night.

It was as close as he had ever come to meeting the death…the riskiest mission he had ever flown. Risk had a way of playing with a pilot’s fate. Tonight he knew better. He had more inner questions that he would never ask out loud. If he died, would anyone ever know or even care?

For that night, the cause was greater than his personal safety. He was trading his safety and well-being that night for the prize. This would be either the stupidest thing he had ever done, or the most gutsy he had ever attempted. His risk that night would never be forgotten by him until his last breath in this life. How could anyone ever forget this?

Was he just another fighter pilot who held himself infallible— who viewed himself as invincible in his trade? A fool for his own deception?

It was this classified, top-secret air mission on the third night