EAGLE NEST RANCH
SOUTH TEXAS
Ten thousand feet above the Eagle Nest Ranch base for the Black Eagle Force, Jill "Lucky" McElheney with her WSO, Glenn "Bug" Haug, Mike "Cowboy" Hermann and his new WSO, Maria "Double D" Sanchez, were putting their stealthy M600/A Black Eagles through a mock dogfight. Maria was the newest WSO/Pilot to join the Black Eagle Force. She was a five foot, six inch tall beautiful Hispanic woman with long silky black hair. A former Captain in the Marine Corps, she was also a crack F-18A Super Hornet pilot.
The M600/A Skycar®, a four nacelle VTOL, Vertical Take-Off and Landing, craft manufactured by Moller International, had been modified extensively starting with ultra high tech avionics and a stealth coating of multiple layers of a radar deflecting type of Teflon like the F-117 Nighthawk. The Teflon coating had a major difference, however, its final layer was a new clear photo voltaic, color spectrum frequency modulating coating containing chromatophores developed by resident electronic genius design gurus, Blaze Hermann and Gears Formby that could, when electronically activated, change color to match its surroundings like a chameleon. When inert, the M600/A was a flat black, but upon activation, would become a light sky blue when viewed in clear day sky, a dull gray in cloud cover, a dark blackish gray at night or even multicolored digital camo if under 500 feet AGL or on the ground. The sensors covering the entire skin area of the craft decteded the ambient light spectrum and controlled the chromatophores on the opposite side of the craft. The BEF named this new technology, LIZARD in reference to the Chameleon lizard that inspired Blaze and Gears to mimic with their electronic wizardry.
Lightweight Dragonskin armor, composed of silicon carbide ceramic matrices, Graphene sheeting and titanium laminates, were installed inside the aircraft's skin under critical cockpit, avionics and engine nacelle areas. The Skycar® was re-designated as the M600/A Black Eagle by the BEF.
The M600/A was twenty six feet long, fourteen feet wide with the rear nacelles folded up and twenty-two feet wide with the rear nacelles extended. It had a gross weight of 3,800 pounds with eight 1500 cc rotary engines for the four nacelles, developing 170 hp each. A Blaze G2A 7.62 mm six barrel, rapid fire, Laser targeted, electromagnetic coil gun was mounted in center of the aerodynamic nose. Six Griffin LRX 415s missiles on two triple launch pylons flanked by two PAASM, Precision Attack Air-to-Surface Missiles, pylon mounted on top of the rear wing nacelle supports and four AIM 92 Stinger heat seeking air to air missiles were mounted under the front wing nacelle supports. M600/A Black Eagle had a top speed of over 400 mph with a ceiling of 36,000 feet and four passenger capability plus weapons. The fuel cells were self sealing inert foam-filled type bladders under the passenger compartment and gave the craft a range of over 700 miles. M600/A could be in-flight refueled and was a deadly, stealthy combat craft indeed.
As briefed, Jill and Mike closed on each other from a three mile distance at an altitude of eight thousand feet AGL over the Texas brush country just north of the Rio Grande. With a closure rate of eight hundred knots, pilots in each Black Eagle would just barely be able to pick each other up visually as they came together with a hundred feet of planned vertical separation.
"I've got 'em," Mike announced to his WSO.
"Contact," Maria noted as the relayed radar image from the Manta URF circling high above them appeared on the weapons systems display screen. The radar signature of the stealthy Black Eagle craft was less than that of an American Red Breasted Robin. Without a flight information transponder in ON status, neither aircraft would have shown up on the most advanced fighter radars and was visually almost undetectable. Maria called out the range,
"Eight hundred yards and—"
Maria's update was cut off as Jill transmitted over the secure BEF frequency.
"Fight's on!"
Jill pulled back hard on the stick as the two diminutive craft crossed paths in opposite directions, She rolled right and climbed steeply. Both Jill and Glenn strained against the four and one half G acceleration that pressed them hard against the black Recarro leather covered bucket seats. The M-600/As did not have anti-G suit capability like larger active duty fighters. Both fliers tightened their abdominal muscles and performed the visceral "grunt" maneuver like fighter pilots in World War II had learned to do in order to combat the debilitating effects of high G maneuvers.
Mike broke into a hard level right turn as both he and Maria were straining with their heads on a swivel to see where Jill's Black Eagle One had gone. When he finally picked her up, he was dismayed to find her above him and to see she had turned inside his radius, was inverted, pulling down toward his six o'clock for a high angle off shot.
Damn, she's good! Mike thought quickly. He pulled the power back to eighty percent and rolled out of the turn while sharply increasing back pressure to force the nose higher. G forces increased to a full five Gs as airspeed began to fall off quickly.
"Two fifty! Two hundred!" called out a grunting Maria.
Up above in Eagle One, Jill was setting up for a simulated Stinger shot. She concentrated on the HUD display and watched as Eagle Two appeared to rotate almost 90 degrees in a small space on the top of her canopy. Her airspeed hovered around the 300 knots and was starting to climb rapidly when Glenn dryly announced,
"No tone."
Jill didn't respond verbally to the call out. She released back pressure and allowed the small craft to accelerate under zero G conditions as she rolled wings level. Her chance at a missile shot was gone and she only had two or three seconds to put some much needed distance between her and the deadly Laser guided coil gun in Eagle Two.
"Flare, flare," she repeated and Glenn toggled the inert switch twice.
If the combat conditions had been real, two silver cylinders would have been ejected from the top of the fuselage to decoy any heat seeking missile. Each contained a chemical compound which, when activated, oxidized at a temperature of 1100 degrees Celsius. It was well within normal fighter afterburner range, but without the telltale magnesium visual flare to give away the aircraft's position.
In Eagle Two, Mike had pulled the pipper for his Blaze G2A toward the nose of the rapidly disappearing Eagle One. He watched in his HUD as the tiny target jinked up and down to keep him one step behind. Suddenly, Eagle One disappeared.
"Damn, she went LIZARD on us!"
"That's not fair!" Maria exclaimed.
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