Death Struggle
Close-range air combat is governed by chance. Often the outcome depends not on geometry or position but on who sees the other first. That said, nothing is absolute. On the surface, Goyal's flight had eight pairs of eyes scanning the sky, while Hassan's two F-16Cs had only two pilots; single-seat aircraft demanded that each man fly the machine and check his instruments and MPCD1 every thirty seconds. In this chaos the two F-16s seemed at a disadvantage. But luck favoured Hassan this time. He looked up and spotted a lone contrail turning in the distance. He was in a favourable right-flank position. The enemy had clearly not descended to hide and had not seen him.
"There. A Su-30, above us." The major said over the radio.
"But where's his wingman? The radar showed two." Rashid cautioned.
"Unknown. A problem. Stay one kilometre on my flank, watch all directions."
Hassan was perhaps a fine pilot, aggressive and proactive, but he was never sensitive enough to emerging threats, particularly when closing on prey.
"About eight kilometres, I reckon. I need to do this quietly."
"Watch out for the back-seater." Rashid warned. He had a point: the Su-30's rear cockpit offered good rearward visibility. If the Indian WSO looked back regularly, he might spot the stalking fighter.
"Right. I'll hold this altitude and stay in his blind spot."
Hassan had two AIM-9M missiles left. He looked down at the MPCD's attack menu, selected both missiles, powered up the seekers, set them to auto-scan, and pressed the seeker-cooldown switch. The American missile required its seeker head to be chilled before launch; insufficient cooling could degrade an all-aspect engagement.
When Hassan looked up again, the target was still moving north along the glacier. He estimated its speed as slightly slower than his own. He trailed carefully, waiting for the missile to acquire the target on its own. But the seeker stayed in READY; it had not found the heat source. The major grew impatient. Stalking from the target's six o'clock required constantly raising the nose to keep the IR reticle pointed at the aircraft above, then levelling out to avoid climbing too fast. This laborious dance kept the F-16C at around 400 knots, not fast enough to close. He knew that if he relied solely on the missile's own field of view to find the infrared source, he might have to chase all the way to two kilometres. And with ground radars in the area flicking on intermittently, plus the Phalcon overhead, discovery was only a matter of time. He put his hand on the radar switch. This was not a wise move; the instant he turned it on, the enemy would know his bearing and might react violently, and the emission might also draw other fighters and SAMs. But he reasoned: if the Indian was slow enough, the man might spend ten seconds checking his RWR and another ten deploying chaff or jamming, all of which were useless against a Sidewinder. Those seconds would be enough for him to complete the scan-track-fire sequence.
"Falcon lead, we have no contact on you." The AWACS called.
"Give me the picture."
"Southeast: a mobile two-dimensional search radar has just come active. New contact." The Saab 2000 had been flying south and had caught a new emitter; probably a mobile ground radar that, by switching on suddenly, could fill gaps in the distant AWACS's coverage. A serious threat to anyone hiding among the mountains.
"Falcon, copy."
The new contact deepened Hassan's anxiety. He knew that on this damned Line of Control, plenty of men had died because they hesitated. He decided to stop wasting time. He would use his radar to range the target and help the IR missile lock on early. But he chose not to use the standard scan-and-track mode, which would give the enemy too much reaction time. He needed to restrict the mechanical radar's wasteful horizontal sweeping. He selected the vertical-scan mode: in this setting the radar searched a very narrow band (roughly four degrees) in the vertical axis. The advantage was a faster lock; the disadvantage was that a quick-reacting enemy could escape the narrow search cone more easily. But the major had complete confidence in his flying.
The instant the radar powered up, the target was drifting slowly across the top of his canopy. He lit the afterburner. Engine RPM surged. Within five seconds the radar would complete a single-target track. At twelve o'clock, the enemy began to manoeuvre, trying to break the track, but did not wait the ten seconds Hassan had counted on. The Indian pilot's alertness was far greater than expected. The Su-30 nosed over into a dive to build speed, exactly as Hassan had predicted. He held the target steadily inside the narrow vertical search band. Range and angular-rate data were being computed.
"Lead, enemy radar at four o'clock. Very close." Rashid said.
"Hold them off. I need a few more seconds." Hassan replied. Rashid's report would have to wait.
In his youth, Ahmed Hassan had served as Muhammad Sami's wingman in No. 14 Squadron. During the Afghan war and subsequent India-Pakistan clashes, Sami's kill count had soared while Hassan's remained at zero. In those years, besides picking up considerable air-combat skill, he had also absorbed the old man's greed and impetuosity.
"Lead, at least two enemy aircraft at fifteen kilometres. They have the altitude advantage." Rashid's voice was tinged with fear. He had evidently realised that the contacts at fifteen kilometres were not MiG-21s but Su-30s.
"Falcon Two, deploy ECM. Draw them away." The major ordered.
The enemy ahead was accelerating into a savage turn. Hassan had never imagined so heavy an aircraft could wrench around so violently; it had nearly escaped his narrow radar cone. He sensed that today's fight would be nothing like the easy ambushes of the past. It might well be a fight to the death.
1. MPCD: Multi-Purpose Colour Display, the F-16 Block 52's primary cockpit screen. Unlike the Su-30's two-seat arrangement, the single-seat F-16 requires its pilot to divide attention between flying, monitoring the MPCD's threat display, and visually scanning the sky. This ergonomic disadvantage is amplified in a multi-bogey environment. ↩