SAUDI ARABIA
FLYING IN THE OPEN skies over the desert countryside had been life’s greatest pleasure for Captain Nawaf bin Awadh of the Saudi Royal Air Force. In the cockpit of his F-15C Eagle, he never ceased being awed by the amazing power at his fingertips. All of the flight data was on a heads-up display and each of the two Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines produced more than 23,000 pounds of thrust. Thousands of gallons of fuel in the internal and external tanks, an M-61A1 six-barrel 20 mm cannon in the nose and wing rack slung with Sidewinder and Sparrow missiles.
He keyed his microphone as he blazed over the trackless brown countryside, with the pure sky above. “Palm Leader to Palm 2. How are you on fuel?”
“Palm 1. It is odd sir, but since we just took off, the gauges are in the green. The ground crew did not forget to fill it up.” First Lieutenant Fayez al-Khilewi smiled beneath his oxygen mask. His flight leader was a man of few words but was in a good mood today, as determined as always to put in a flawless mission. His words had been almost pleasant.
They were flying combat air patrol over a long stretch of air space that was off limits to all other aircraft and was centered on a remote royal palace in which the king was spending a few days. Fayez could easily see the place, a bright spot of green trees and water in the middle of an otherwise empty landscape.
A new voice came up on the circuit, the flight controller in an E-3A AWACS, fifty miles away, the radar-studded bird that directed all traffic in and around the area. The controller quickly guided them into the protective circle and allowed the two fighters that had been on station for several hours to return to base. They were all part of the most sophisticated air force in the region, but the C4I-the command, control, computer, and intelligence-system had never been foolproof. It was a vital weak spot, because without capable communication in a combat crisis, things could get dangerous very quickly. They had the tools, but not the experience born of years of practice.
Ten minutes later, the captain went to the private, internal radio circuit and spoke a single word to his wingman, “Execute.”
Fayez wheeled his F-15 in a sharp turn, kicked in his afterburners to increase speed and was dashing toward the AWACS almost before the controller recognized the course change. The lieutenant turned off his radio and activated his weapons display to paint the lumbering, defenseless control plane with a radar beam. In a matter of seconds, he was within range and fired a pair of AIM-9H Sparrow air-to-air missiles. The weapons slid off the rails with a jolt and Fayez felt as if the fighter jet had hit a speed bump as a thousand pounds of dead weight flew from the wings. The twelve-foot-long missiles spewed white vapor trails from their solid-propellant motors as they burned straight for the AWACS and smashed the 88-pound high-explosive warheads into the target. Fayez nosed straight through the fireball and heard bits of flying debris from the destroyed plane click against his fuselage. He curved up and around to join the captain, who was already attacking the palace.
When their ordnance was expended, both of the fuel-loaded planes crashed into the smoking wreckage of the building.