Shadow Flight

"Roger," Karns responded, scanning the horizon. He raised his tinted visor a few seconds, examining the sea and sky, then lowered it back in place and twisted the tension knob. "Heads up, Diamonds."

"Warning Red," the controller called. "Weapons Hot!"

"Arm 'em up!" Karns ordered his pilots as he leveled at 17,000 feet. "It's show time."

"Two."

"Three."

"Four's hot."

Karns keyed the intercom and queried his radio intercept officer (RIO) about the radar return on the bogies.

"Got 'em locked, skipper."

The F-14s, receiving continuous updates from the Hawkeye flew straight at the MiGs. At eighteen miles Karns rechecked his firing switches and fuel state, then keyed his radio. "Diamonds, let's go burner."

At seven miles the Hawkeye called. "Check starboard, one o'clock low!"

Karns rolled the big Grumman fighter inverted, scanning the hazy sky below his Tomcat. "Tallyho-One has a tally! MiG twenty-fives… confirmed."

The Foxbats, guided by their own ground control radar site, were in trail with the third MiG weaving back and forth. They were level at 12,000 feet, going supersonic.

"Diamond One is engaged!" Karns radioed, shoving the Tomcat's nose down.

Karns's wingman rolled inverted and followed the lead F-14 into the fight. As Karns plunged toward the camouflaged MiGs, the lead Foxbat turned hard into the two Tomcats. The two trailing MiGs continued straight ahead, building speed, then pulled into the vertical.

Karns, recognizing an overshoot, pulled his throttles to idle and deployed his speed brakes. "I've got him… come on, lock up!"

"Shoot! Shoot!" Karns's backseater yelled. "The other two are * * * they're takin' us!"

Karns squeezed off an AIM-9 missile, slammed the throttles into afterburner, retracted the speed brakes, unloaded the aircraft, and dove for separation. "Fox Two!"

The VF-102 commanding officer caught a glimpse of the exploding MiG-25 as his Tomcat slashed by the cartwheeling fuselage at 670 knots. The lead MiG, minus sections of the wings, tumbled across the sky, exploded again, then spun straight into the Gulf of Mexico.

"Good hit! Good shot!" the RIO shouted as he checked the other two Foxbats. "They're pulling lead!"

"Skipper," the second section leader radioed, "break hard starboard, bring your nose up!"

Karns popped the Tomcat into knife-edged flight and snatched the stick into his stomach, groaning under the 6 1/2 g's. He saw why the section leader had called. Karns's wingman was in a perfect position to attack the two remaining MiGs.

"Two has… we're locked!" the wingman radioed as he fired a missile. "Fox Two!" The missile tracked straight to the second MiG, flew up the left tailpipe, and exploded in a mushrooming fireball.

"I'm in!" Karns radioed, pitching the F-14 to the left and rolling up into a high yo-yo. "Good shot!" He looked down just in time to see the cockpit of the Foxbat fly out of the fireball. No wings, no tail — just the cockpit. The canopy separated and the pilot ejected a second later, falling out of sight when his parachute failed to open.

"Come on, lock it up," Karns said, pulling through the top of his climb. He looked into the late afternoon sun, losing the MiG in the glare. "Sonuvabitch!"

"Skipper!" the section leader, who was calling the fight, radioed frantically. "The gomer reversed, coming inside your five o'clock."

"Okay," Karns groaned, twisting the F-14 through a displacement roll. "I've lost him!"

"Break hard starboard!" Karns's wingman called. "I can't get a shot into the sun!"

"He's firing!" the section leader yelled to the CO. "Get on him, Two!"

Karns, breaking right and up into the vertical, felt the thudding impact of the MiG's twin 23mm cannons. Red streaks flashed by the canopy as tracer rounds worked across the left wing, blasting access plates off the fighter. Karns whipped the stick over, snapping the Tomcat through three tight rolls, then unloaded the F-14, going for separation.

The MiG, flown with great expertise and wild abandon, pulled in behind Karns, leaving Diamond Two a difficult shot. If the missile missed the Foxbat, highly possible in combat, it might track to the Tomcat.

"Doug! Break, break!" the section leader radioed, flipping his armament switch to guns. "Three is engaged — gonna drag his ass off."

"Bring it on!" Karns groaned, jerking the accelerating Tomcat into a 6 1/2-g, neck-wrenching turn.

The section leader, turning inside the third MiG, placed the pip-per slightly ahead of the Foxbat and squeezed the trigger gently. The Vulcan cannon growled, pouring more than 100 shells a second into the Russian fighter. The pilot released the trigger a split second, then squeezed it again, causing the Tomcat to vibrate. He watched, fascinated, as the M-61 multibarrel cannon, spewing molten lead, knocked large pieces off the stricken MiG.

"Fox Two!" Karns's wingman shouted, punching off another Sidewinder. The missile tucked down, made a correction, and plowed into the MiG's right wing a millisecond after the pilot ejected.