55th Wing, Air Combat Command
Flight Level 270, Sonora, Mexico
“Whisky Zulu, Snoop Three Five.”
“Snoop, go for Whiskey Zulu.”
“Multiple SAM radars coming up.”
“Affirmative Snoop, exfil to the north, your signal is buster.”’
“Affirmative, my signal is buster.”
While the crew had permission to firewall the engines, that didn’t help much. The RC-135W was not a fast aircraft. Even by the standards of non-combat aircraft, she wasn’t swift. Her long slightly swept wings were good to keep her aloft for hours at a time, but not amazing at going fast. 500 knots was a respectable speed for an airliner, but it wasn’t going to get them out of SAM range nearly fast enough.
They were almost five hundred miles into Mexican airspace so it would take them a good hour to get clear. Over the past few weeks, the “Snoops” as the RC-135Ws were known had been flying nearly continuously over northern Mexico, trying to figure out just what exactly was happening on the ground. The extreme technical capability of the US military was a huge strength and a weakness. The USA tends to apply highly sophisticated gear to complex problems instead of using simpler and more direct actions like boots on the ground. This tactic was about to bite them, hard.
“Whisky Zulu, we could use some support up here, it’s getting very warm. Multiple radar locks on us.”
“Affirmative Snoop. Fast movers inbound, ten mikes.”
By any normal standard, ten minutes is a short period of time. When you have a surface-to-air missile locked onto you, it’s an eternity. Nobody really thought that Mexico would shoot down a US military aircraft, but then again, Mexico wasn’t supposed to have any modern SAM capability at all, so things were definitely in uncharted territory. The fact that the aircraft was in Mexico in violation of international law wasn’t really on the crew’s mind at the moment, but would certainly come up if there was any sort of incident. Knowing that China had begun to deploy peacekeepers in Mexico wasn’t helping the crew to feel safe either.
“US aircraft, this is the Mexican Army on guard. You have entered Mexican airspace in violation of international law. Land immediately or we will fire.”
Well, shit. “Army, this is Air Force Three Five, cannot comply at this time.”
“Air Force Three Five, you are currently forty nautical miles from Hermosillo. Turn right to heading One Nine Zero and descend to five thousand.”
“Negative Army, cannot comply.”
“This is your last warning. Turn now.”
The plane continued on. The crew had strict orders to avoid landing in Mexico for any reason. Despite the age of the aircraft, the electronic warfare systems onboard were state of the art. There was a real fear of those systems falling into Russian hands since they knew for a fact that the Russian military was operating in Mexico, not to mention the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Just a few more minutes.
“SAM! SAM at 3 o’clock!”
The pilot instantly banked the aircraft to the left and dove down, trying to give the incoming missile a harder target by putting the missile directly astern. It probably wouldn’t do any good, but it was better than just flying straight and level.
944th Fighter Wing, 52nd Squadron, Air Combat Command
Flight Level 200, Northern Mexico
Lt. Colonel Nguen and the rest of the 944th Wing were having a very busy month. First the ground strikes in Mexico, then a standing combat air patrol (CAP) over southern Nevada and Arizona. Now an urgent call to perform a suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) mission. Not what he expected when he had taken his command. Until recently, the 944th’s main mission had been to support the F-35 schoolhouse. This meant not only training USAF pilots but also foreign pilots. With the current administration’s “America First” policies, the number of foreign pilots had fallen off dramatically. The lack of allied support didn’t make Nguen feel better about his safety or his ability to defend his country.
Pushing the Battle Penguins up to their top speed without afterburner, they were making good progress towards the spy plane which had been calling for help. Unfortunately, even at 700 knots it was 30 minutes to travel the 350 nautical miles from the border to the RC-135W. Of course, the plane was also traveling towards them, but it was still taking them much longer to get to the larger aircraft then they would like. Worse, they were equipped with JDAMs rather than the longer ranged HARM missiles that they would normally use in a SEAD mission. This meant that they would have to essentially fly over the target to attack it. All of this meant time. Time they didn’t have.
“SAM! SAM at 3 o’clock!”
The call from the RC-135W meant that their time was up. They were still almost fifty miles too far north to attack the SAM site. But they had to do something. “Scooter, take the rest of the squadron down to angels 10, I’m going to pop up and hit my transponder. See if we can take pressure off those guys.”
“Skipper, that’s crazy.”
“Just don’t miss.”
“No, sir.”
Heading up to 35,000 feet meant he had more time to react to any SAM launch. It also meant that everyone for a long, long way away would see his radar transponder come on. Which was the general idea even if it wasn’t a super smart thing to do. His F-35 was already tracking multiple H-200 radars. The phased array radar wasn’t quite as advanced as the latest AESA radar systems, but it was a solid design. Something to concern even a stealthy platform like the F-35 he was flying. Within seconds of turning his transponder on, the radar receiver began to show radar locks. Not a comfortable feeling.
“Snoop Three Five, Ninja One Niner. Get down on the deck. We are trying to draw them off.”
“Ninja, if we get much lower I’m gonna have a head on with a jackrabbit. Get your ass over here!”
Pushing his throttles all the way up to engage the afterburner, the F-35 leapt forward. Accelerating to Mach 1.6, Nguen quickly passed the rest of his squadron, but he was burning fuel at a prodigious rate. In less than a minute, he would burn up so much fuel he wouldn’t be able to make it back to base. Hopefully, he would have tanker support on the way home.
“SAM! SAM at 12 o’clock.” His plan was working; he drew at least one launch and as he watched his display, another launch warning flashed up. Turning his transponder off, he inverted the aircraft and pulled the stick back hard, reefing the plane into a nearly vertical descent. Even dropping the throttle back to disengage the afterburner, the plane continued to accelerate. He quickly passed below 10,000, 5,000, 1,000 feet. Aiming for a narrow canyon, he pulled up, his vision beginning to grey out as he pulled nearly 9Gs, something the aircraft could do but not something a human pilot could sustain for more than a few seconds. He felt his G-suit stiffen as he tensed his muscles to help get blood out of his lower extremities. Grunting from exertion, he held the maneuver for the few seconds needed to prevent him from impacting the ground. Dropping further, he descended below 100 feet above ground level as he entered the canyon.
Despite the danger, Nguen grinned under his oxygen mask. Flying down low was the absolute best thing about being a fighter pilot. Despite what uninformed people said on the internet, the F-35 was a dream to fly. With no external stores, she was nimble and did exactly what you asked her to do. While a fully clean F-16 had astonishingly good kinematics, he had never once flown a “clean” F-16. In a SEAD mission like this, the F-16 would be bogged down with weapons, sensors and external fuel tanks on every external hard point. Blasting down the canyon in his F-35, he felt like he could put this plane exactly where he wanted. It was an exhilarating feeling.
“Skipper, looks like they lost lock on you and Snoop. Lasing the first H-200 now.”
While his aircraft showed him exactly where the other planes were, he felt very out of place all on his own down on the deck. Pulling up, he quickly ascended to 10,000 feet and turned towards the rest of the squadron.
“One away!” The newer JDAM had the ability to be laser guided in addition to GPS guided. In this case, the target was fairly small, H-200 radars were truck mounted, so they had to be accurate in their drop. Of course, they were not heavily armored, so even a near miss would be fatal to the radar in most cases.
“HIT!” On his display, the H-200 in question suddenly stopped emitting. Several others went out also. Assumedly, they realized they were under attack and planned to move. However, that wasn’t going to help them. The F-35s knew where each source had been and this allowed them to train their EOTS sensor to that exact location. Yet another item that would have been strapped to the outside of his old F-16 was incorporated into the F-35. The planes were also automatically assigning targets to each aircraft. One by one, the members of the squadron were eliminating all the radar sources.
“Snoop, Ninja, your tail is clear, we are turning back to you.”
“Affirm Ninja. Ascending to angels 10.” The F-35s were currently trailing the larger aircraft but slowly overtaking her.
Nguen was just starting to relax when his display lit up again. “Radars coming up. L and S band.” Most likely a HQ-16—the paired radars were particularly good at detecting and engaging stealthy targets like the F-35. “SAM! SAM at 11 o’clock.” At only 10,000 feet, the KC-135 didn’t have much time. “Evasive!” The F-35s punched up their afterburners, desperately trying to engage the SAM before they could take out the spy plane. Too late. “We’re hit! Lost number one engine. Losing hydraulic….” The radio went silent.
“Snoop Three Five! Say your status. Snoop Three Five!”
On the horizon, Nugen saw a fireball as Snoop Three Five pinwheeled into the Sonoran Desert.