Free Tiger's Claw: A Novel by Dale Brown Page B

Cuthbert moved the throttles past the detent into afterburner zone.
    “Good nozzle swings, temps look good.”
    “Zone five,” Cuthbert said, and then he felt it—that satisfying, almost surprising kick in the small of his back as the engines reached full thrust. “Oh baby, that feels good,” he murmured seductively.
    “V-one, seven thousand to go, continue,” Patrick said, using the runway length remaining and their airspeed to determine the go/no-go decision point in the takeoff roll—even though the Excalibur’s flight computers automatically calculated that, the human backup kept the crew ready for emergencies. There were two such V-speeds, one to determine the time to abort if there was an engine failure and the other to determine if the plane should continue the takeoff in case of engine failure. “Coming up on Vr . . . now.” A third reference speed told the pilot when to begin takeoff rotation. Cuthbert smoothly pulled back on the control stick, and seconds later the Excalibur bomber fairly leaped off the runway. They were climbing at over five thousand feet per minute just seconds later and going faster every second. “Clear of the runway, I got the gear.” He raised the landing gear handle, and moments later he raised the flaps and slats as well. “Flaps and slats up, clear on wing sweep.”
    “Roger. Wings coming to thirty.” Cuthbert moved the large wing-sweep handle on his left side back to the thirty-degree setting. He nodded happily. “Wow, this baby really likes those wings swept back. It felt like a B-52 on takeoff with the wings forward, but with them back the controls feel a hell of a lot lighter.”
    Within the restricted Naval Air Station Fallon bombing and gunnery ranges, they climbed up to thirty thousand feet, and Patrick demonstrated some basic airwork maneuvers—slow flight, stalls, and steep turns—followed by more advanced maneuvers—lazy-eights and chandelles—and finally some simple aerobatics—inverted flight, barrel rolls, and aileron rolls. The Excalibur performed all of them without difficulty, which gave Cuthbert enough confidence to try them on his own. Patrick was pleased to see Cuthbert grinning like a young kid on a Ferris wheel after he was done.
    “What do you think, Cutlass?” Patrick asked after the Air Force colonel finished his second aileron roll.
    “She handles like a great big fighter jet,” Cuthbert said, still grinning. “Just fantastic.”
    “Of course, we can’t do most of this with weapons aboard—but I wanted to show you that this bird is still very solid and has plenty of power to do advanced maneuvering,” Patrick said. “But now it’s time to show you what the original B-1 was made for.” He called up a flight plan on his MFD, and a serpentine corridor drew itself on the moving map, while Cuthbert’s MFD showed a series of squares on the synthetic-vision display that they were passing through. He then called up the “Before TFR Flight” checklist. “Now we’re going to have some real fun,” he said. “Terrain-following system checks, radar configured, one-thousand-foot clearance plane set. Engage when ready, Cutlass.” Cuthbert pressed the “TFR ENGAGE” button on his MFD, and the Excalibur nosed over into a fifteen-thousand-foot-per-minute descent. “Wing sweep to sixty-seven,” Patrick said. “Throttles to keep us from going past the Mach—we have the Rod Pod on, and we haven’t tested it beyond point nine five Mach.” The AN/AAQ-33 Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod, nicknamed “Rod Pod,” was a device mounted underneath the fuselage that allowed the crew to search for and laser-designate targets on the ground from long range and at night for precision bombing. The pod could laser-designate targets for the Excalibur, “buddy laze” targets for other bombers, or spot targets, measure coordinates, and transmit images and data via satellite to other commanders around the world. “If you want to hand-fly the course,