Chapter 16: Looking Down and Shooting Down

Climb! Climb and climb! Soon, the air currents disappeared and we had entered the stratosphere.

Fly, keep flying high! Higher and faster! This is the goal pursued by the fighter designers of this era!

As they continued to climb higher, Andre's heart began to beat faster. The altimeter in front of him had reached a height of 24,000 meters!

Now, among all fighter jets in the world, only the MiG-25 can reach this altitude! Except for the SR-71! Of course, if the Americans insist that the Blackbird is also a fighter jet.

Andre gently pushed the joystick forward and leveled the plane. A CGI voice from the ground came through the headset: "Attention, heading 240, cruising at Mach 2.4."

"Received." The captain of the Second Squadron replied through the headset: "Heading 240. Speed ​​2.4."

By pressing the joystick, the fighter plane drew an arc in the air and flew in the direction guided by the ground.

The standard interception tactic of the Soviet Air Defense Force was to be carried out under ground guidance. Andrei followed the four-plane formation in front of him, turning at a bank while continuing to increase his speed.

At this altitude, the air resistance is quite small, and the two tail engines spew out hot tail flames, pushing the fighter to continue to accelerate. With the appearance of the cone-shaped sonic boom cloud, the fighter quickly pierced the sonic boom cloud and entered supersonic cruise.

The acceleration process was short and long. When the needle of the Mach meter on the green dashboard in front pointed to Mach 2.4, Andre slightly reduced the throttle, and the fighter flew steadily at a speed of Mach 2.4.

The temperature in the cockpit continued to rise, and the hands holding the joystick began to sweat. Andre breathed in the oxygen delivered by the respirator and began to move the radar panel in front with his fingers.

The other fighters in the formation are still equipped with the old-fashioned Tornado-A radar. Although the inverted Cassegrain antenna is more than 1 meter in diameter, it is quite simple. Since the scanning line basically coincides with the axis of the fuselage, it has no downward look-and-shoot capability at all, and the detection range for typical bomber targets is only 100 kilometers.

Fighters at low altitudes, sprinting in the high altitude like they are now, cannot be scanned by the Tornado-A radar.

Now, the plane that Andre was driving was equipped with an improved RP-25M pulse Doppler radar, which had a downward 42° pitch scanning capability. So, thinking about the manual he had just flipped through, Andre turned on the radar.

The radar's vacuum tube was preheated just when it took off, so now after turning on the main switch, the radar begins to emit pulse Doppler signals. At the same time, it interacts with the ground command station through the automated interception system to exchange combat information. The radar's scanning is purposeful.

Radar on!

At the nose of the Iron Fighter, an inverted Cassegrain antenna with a diameter of 90 centimeters radiated a strong electromagnetic signal toward the airspace in front and below. The peak power of hundreds of kilowatts instantly made Andre feel that the lights of the instruments in the cockpit were dimmed.

"Report, 032 has found the target, distance one hundred, speed 0.8, altitude 13,000, number twenty." Andre looked at the light spots that appeared on the screen and spoke into the radio.

This Sapphire 25 radar is really effective! Andre looked at the dots of light on the screen and felt very satisfied.

The I-band scanning signal filled the airspace ahead. Almost at the same time, the E-2 early warning aircraft hovering over western Hokkaido also discovered the MiG-25 fleet that came to intercept.

The Soviets were also very aggressive and dispatched nearly twenty MiG-25s, almost the size of an aviation regiment!

"Siren Squadron, Siren Squadron, attention, the target has appeared, eighteen MiG-25s, one hundred miles away." The E-2 early warning aircraft transmitted the message to its own fleet.

The 13th Fighter Squadron of the 35th Fighter Wing of Misawa Base, nicknamed the Siren Squadron, took off from Misawa Base after daybreak. At the same time, an E-2 early warning aircraft also took off to provide early warning support. These fighters flew for more than half an hour before reaching the center line of the Sea of ​​Japan, while the MiG-25 responsible for interception on the opposite side only flew for ten minutes.

At this time, the distance between the two sides had approached 100 kilometers, and the relative speed between the fighters exceeded Mach 3. The distance of 100 kilometers took less than 100 seconds.

"Received." Squadron leader Major Dick Houston shouted on the radio: "Attention, drop the auxiliary fuel tank, turn on the afterburner and climb, prepare to lock!"

The flames of the two J79 turbojet engines at the tail suddenly turned blood red. After the afterburner was turned on, the engine burst out with maximum thrust and the fighter began to accelerate.

At the same time, under the control of the radar operator in the rear cabin, the AN/APQ-120 in the nose of the aircraft also began to work, scanning the target aircraft in the airspace ahead. Due to the use of transistors and integrated circuits, this radar is small in size and weight, but its performance has been greatly improved. The continuous wave scanning signal fills the airspace ahead. Soon, the radar began to look up and it had discovered the targets in the sky!

"Attention, prepare for radar lock!" said Major Dick.

Locking on does not mean to kill the other party, but it means that one has the ability to kill the other party! In fact, compared with the target aircraft flying at a speed of more than Mach 2 in the sky, the Sparrow missile cannot be launched to that height at all. Only the Phoenix of the Navy's F-14 Tomcat fighter can pose a threat to the MiG-25.

Now, turning on the radar to lock onto a target is to threaten the other side. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union had such hostile and silent confrontations that could easily lead to war. This happened countless times.

"Attention, prepare to dive and lock the target!" Almost at the same time, the MiG-25 fleet also received signal guidance from the ground CGI.

Due to the lack of downward look and shoot capability, if the MiG-25's Tornado-A radar wants to lock onto the target aircraft, the enemy can only dive down to an altitude of at least 20,000 meters to successfully lock onto the opponent.

Dive? Hearing this order, Andrei was speechless in the cockpit. The main advantage of the MiG-25 is high altitude and high speed. Now it is not fun to rush to low altitude and circle with the opponent at medium and low altitude.

Anyway, his own airborne radar already had sufficient downward vision capability, so Andre did not dive with the fleet in front, but directly flipped the radar switch and put it into lock mode.

"Report, 032 has completed lock, requesting launch." Andre shouted on the radio.

Fire? Don't fire the first shot! When Kozhidub on the ground heard this, sweat broke out on his forehead. Damn it, I didn't plan to let this guy participate in the confrontation yesterday. He didn't even attend the first-level combat readiness meeting. Didn't he know the order not to fire the first shot?

"Attention, do not fight back until you are attacked!" Kozhedub shouted while holding the radio receiver.

Andre, who was almost at the edge of the atmosphere, smiled. The show began!