exact same ones. In precisely the same position right own to
the inch. "
"We've known the Russians have been working on high-
"
performance STOL fighteT-aircraft for years, sir .
"Right. Exactly as long as we've been working on them here
at Dreamland. We launch Cheetah, they launch an STOL fighter.
We develop a supercockpit for DreamStar, and four months later
65
DAY OF THE CHEETAH
we intercept plans for nearly the same design being smuggled
into East Germany. The Joint Chiefs will close down Dreamland
if we don't stop the leaks around here."
"I'm rechecking the backgrounds of every person remotely
connected with the project," Briggs said. "DIA is rechecking
thousand
the civilian contractors. But that adds up to over five
people and more than a hundred and fifty thousand man-years'
worth of personal histories to examine. And we do this every
year for key personnel. We're just overloaded--
,I know, I know," Elliott said, picking up the phone again.
"But we're running out of time. For every success we have on
the flight line we have one defeat with intelligence leaks. We
can't afford it." He keyed the switch on the telephone handset.
"Storm Flight, this is Alpha. Clear for engine start. Call for
clearance when ready for taxi."
"Roger," McLanahan replied.
Elliott turned to Briggs. "Join me in the tower when you've
gotten the overflight update on those two Russian satellites. Be-
fore I have you work your tail off to find our security leaks, the
least you can do is watch a little of our success."
-Wouldn't miss it for all the stolen STOL plans in Ramen-
skoye," Briggs said, and immediately regretted it as Elliott gave
him a look and limped out of the command post.
-Storm TWo starting engines," James reported to Powell. The
pilot of the F-15 Cheetah barely had time to acknowledge when
the whine of the engine turbines pierced the early morning still-
ness.
Engine start was triggered by a thought impulse that selected
the "engine start" routine from the "home" menu transmitted
to James by ANTARES. Computers instantly energized the
engine-start circuits and determined their status; since no exter-
nal air or power was available, an "alert" status would be per-
formed.
Less than a second later the ignition-circuits were activated
and a blast of supercompressed nitrogen gas shot into the
sixteenth-stage compressor of DreamStar's engine. Unlike a con-
for one compressor
ventional jet engine, it was not necessary
stage at a time to spin up to full speed-all compressor stages
Of its engine were activated at once, allowing much faster starts
Less than twenty seconds later the engine was at idle power and
66 DALE BROWN
full generator power was on-line. Once the engine-start choice
had been activated, the computer knew what had to be done
next-James just allowed the results of each preprogrammed
check to scroll past his eyes as the on-board computers com-
pleted them.
"Storm Two engine start complete, beginning pre-takeoff
checks.
"Amazing," Powell murmured in Cheetah. He had begun his
engine-start checklist at the same time James had, but he had
barely had his left engine up to idle-power by the time
DreamStar's start-sequence was completed.
Immediately after James made his report to McLanahan
11u
Powell, he commanded the start of an exhaustive computer check
of all of DreamStar's systems. With the engine powering two
main and one standby hydraulic pump, energy was available to
DreamStar's flight controls. Outside, the check made Dream-
Star's wing surfaces crawl and undulate like the fins of a manta
ray. From outside the cockpit the flight-control check was almost
stretching and flexing more like a sheet of gelatin rather than
hard fibersteel. The process from hydraulic system power-up to
full flight-control certification had taken fifteen seconds.
Next was an electrical system check. Total time for a complete
check of two generators, two alternators, one emergency gen-
erator, and two separate battery backup systems: three seconds.
James stayed immobile during the checking process, allowing
his senses to be overtaken by the rush of information.
The aircraft itself was like a living thing. Personnel were not
allowed near the aircraft during the preflight because damaging
radar, electromagnetic and laser emitters were being activated
all around the aircraft at breakneck speed. The throttle advanced
and retarded by itself. The mission-adaptive wings continued
their unusual undulations, arching and bending so wildly it
seemed they would bend clean in half or twist right off the fu-
selage.
Through it all James was constand informed about each sys-
tem's exact status and operation. He could no longer feel his feet
or hands, but he knew which circuit in the superconducting radar
was energized, and through that system he knew down to the
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 67
millimeter how far Cheetah was parked from him. He knew the
position of Drearnstar's canards, the pressure of the fluid in the
primary hydraulic system and the RPMs of the ninth-stage en-
gine's turbine, just as one might know which way his toes were
pointing without seeing them or the way one picks up a pencil
and begins to write without consciously thinking about the ac-
tion. ANTARES had cut James off from monitoring his own
body, had relegated that function to a deeper portion of his brain
and had shifted his conscious mental capacity to the task of
operating a supersonic fighter plane.
Suddenly, DreamStar ceased its wild preflight movements, and
the engine throttle returned to idle . . .
"Storm One, TWo is in the green, ready for taxi," James
reported.
"My radar's not even timed out," Patrick said to JC. Pow-
ell. "How are you coming on your preflight?"
"Few more minutes."
"How can he accomplish an entire systems preflight in just a
few minutes? "
"How long does it take you to wake up from a nap?"
told him as he put the finishing touches on the preflight he had
begun long before. "How long does it take you to ask yourself
how you feel? That's what ANTARES is like. If something was
wrong with DreamStar, Ken would feel it just like he'd feel a
sprained ankle or a crink in his neck."
Where Ken had banks of computers to check his avionics,
manually had to "fail" a system to check a backup system,
or manually deflect Cheetah's control stick and have the wing
flex checked by a crew chief to verify the full range of motion
of the fighter's elastic wings. But after a few,minutes of setting
switches and checking off items in a checklist strapped to his
right thigh, he was ready to go.
Patrick keyed his microphone: "Storm Control, this is Storm
One flight. Wo birds in the green. Ready to taxi
General Elliott was now on top of Dreamland's portable con-
trol tower, a device fifty feet high that was set up and taken
down for each mission to confuse attempts by spy satellites to
pinpoint Dreamland's many disguised dry-lakebed runways.
Major Hal Briggs had just come up the narrow winding stairs
and handed Elliott another computer printout when Patrick made
his call.
68 DALE BROWN
"Those Cosmos peeping Toms start their first pass over the
range in fifteen minutes," Briggs said. "They've got our test
time scoped out almost to the minute. Those satellites will be
overhead every fifteen minutes for the next two hours-exactly
as long as this scheduled mission."
"Another damned security leak. And I scheduled this mission
only two days, ago."
"But those spy birds weren't up there two days ago," Briggs
said. "I checked. You mean-?" I
"I mean the Soviets took only two days-maybe less-to
launch two brand-new satellites just for this test flight, 'I Elliott
said. "Well, at least they won't catch our planes on the ground.
He picked up his microphone. "Storm Flight, this is Alpha.
Taxi to hold point and await takeoff clearance. Winds calm,
altimeter . . . " Elliott checked the meteorological data readouts
on an overhead console ". . . three-zero-zero-five. Taxi clear-
ance void time is one-zero minutes. Over."
"Storm Flight copies ten minutes. On the move." Moments
later both fighters emerged from the satellite bluff and -fell in
behind a jeep with a large sign that read "FOLLOW ME." The
caravan moved quickly across an expanse of hard-baked sand to
another smaller satellite-bluff hangar that had been towed out to
the end of one of the disguised runways that crisscrossed Groom
Lake in the center of the Dreamland test range. Now Cheetah
and DreamStar pulled alongside each other and set their parking
brakes while technicians and specialists did a fast last-chance
inspection of each.
"Pre-takeoff and line-up checks," Patrick said over inter-
phone.
"Roger," replied. "In progress."
"Storm Tvo ready for release," James suddenly radioed in.
"Amazing," Patrick said to "He's already done with a
pre-takeoff checklist twice as complicated as ours." He keyed I
the UHF radio switch. "Standby, Storm Two."
"Roger.
"MAW switch set to V-sub-X, max performance takeoff."
read off the most critical switch positions for the mission- I
adaptive-wing mode, and Patrick saw that the leading and trail- I
ing edges of the wings had curved into a long, deep high-lift
airfoil.
"Canard control and engine nozzle control switches set to
T_
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 69
AUTO ALPHA,' continued. "This will be a constant-alpha
takeoff." JC. Powell always briefed his back-seater on the
takeoff, abort, and emergency procedures, even though he and
Patrick had flown together for almost two years and Patrick knew
the procedures as well as JC. "Power to military thrust, brakes
off and power to max afterburner. We'll expect negative-Y push
after five seconds, with a pitch to takeoff attitude. After that we
monitor angle-of-attack throughout the climb and make sure we
don't exceed twenty-eight alpha in the climb-out. I'm looking to
break my previous record of a seventeen-hundred-foot takeoff
roll on this one . . . In case we don't get the push-down I'll
cancel auto-alpha and switch to normal takeoff procedures-
accelerate to one-sixty, rotate, maintain eight alpha or less, ac-
celerate to two-eight-zero knots indicated and come out of
afterburner. Same procedures if we lose vectored thrust after
takeoff . . . All right. " Powell slapped his gloved hands to-
gether, finished off the last few items of the checklist: "Circuit
breakers checked. Caution panel clear. Canopy closed and
locked. Seat belts and shoulder harnesses?"
"On and on," Patrick intoned.
"Checked up front. Lights set. Helmets, visors, oxygen mask,
oxygen panel."
"On, down, on, set to normal."
"Same here. Parking brakes released." JC. touched a switch
on his control stick. "Takeoff configuration check."
"Takeoff configuration check in progress, " responded a
computer-synthesized voice. It was the final step in Cheetah's
electronics array. A computer, which had monitored every step
of the pre-takeoff checklists being performed, would make one
last check of all systems on board and report any discrepancies.
"Takeoff configuration check complete. Status okay. "
"I already knew that, you moron," murmured to the
voice. He never relied on the computerized system although he
consulted it. It was, as he would frequently remind everyone
within earshot, another computer out to get him. "We're ready
to go, Colonel," he said.
Patrick keyed the radio switch. "Storm Control, this is Storm
flight of two. Ready for departure."
Hal Briggs, on the narrow catwalk of the portable tower, spoke
four words into a walkie-talkie. "Sand storm, one-seven."
70 DALE BROWN
His cryptic message activated a hundred security officers
spread out within some four-hundred square miles of the takeoff
area. They were the last line of defense aga ' inst unauthorized
intrusion or eavesdropping on the test that was about to begin.
Each man checked and rechecked his assigned sector with an
array of electronic sensors-sound, radar, heat, motion, electro-
magnetic-and once secure, reported an "all secure" by send-
ing a coded electronic tone. Only when all of the tones were
received would a "go" signal be sent to Briggs.
Five seconds later he received that coded tone. "Good sweep,
General," he reported to Elliott. The general took one last look
at the satellite overflight schedule, picked up the mike:
.'Storm flight of two, clear for unrestricted takeoff. Winds
calm. Takeoff clearance void time, five minutes. Have a good
one."
Patrick hit a switch, and the faint hum of the big gyrostabilized
video camera mounted on Cheetah's spine could be heard. "Ca-
mera's slaved on DreamStar, ," he said. "Don't lose him."
"A cold day in hell before any machine can outrun me."
They saw DreamStar taxi a few feet forward just ahead of
Cheetah, until the tip of DreamStar's forward-swept right wing-
tip was just cutting into JC.'s view of Ken James.
"Comin' up," said. He brought the throttles forward,
keeping his toes on the brakes. Cheetah began to quiver, then
shake with a sound like the distant rumble of an earthquake.
"Turn 'em loose, baby," murmured. He scanned his
engine-instrument readouts on the main display, running down
the graphic displays of engine RPM, fuel flow, nozzle and louver
position, turbine inlet temperature and exhaust gas temperature.
Each bar grap
h lined up in the normal range, everything right
smack in the green-both engines in full military power, one
hundred and nine percent of rated thrust, sixty thousand pounds
of power. His grip on the stick and throttles unconsciously tight-
ened "Turn 'em loose .
James also performed a last-second engine instrument check.
But he had no bar graphs to check out with his eyes. ANTARES
reported information not only through the visual nervous system
in the form of words, numbers and symbols that he could "see,
but, to avoid overload of the visual senses, also as sensations
DAY OF THE CHEETAH 71
that he could detect with his other senses. He could feel the
power of the engine as clear and as real as air inflating his lungs
or strength rippling down his arms. He knew in an instant that
the engine was at full military thrust. At a thought-command,
a computer that metered fuel flow performed a retrim of the
engine to compensate for pressure altitude and outside temper-
ature, which yielded a few hundred pounds extra thrust. The
engine-fuel trim would be accomplished every six seconds there-
after as DreamStar began its test flight, accomplished as easily
and as subconsciously as a person might ride a bike or drive a
car along a much-traveled highway.
James briefly activated the search radar, which transmitted its
signals as visual images-no obstructions or targets within thirty
miles. A fast scan of VHF or UHF frequencies-no emergency
calls, air traffic control challenges, no abort call from the tower.
One quick check of hydraulic systems-all running normally.
Electrical-one generator on the engine running a bit hot. On a
mental suggestion, a digital flight-data recorder logged the time,
conditions and readouts on the left generator for the crew chiefs
to analyze after the flight.
The check of the secondary systems, including the flight-data
recorder entry, had taken less time than it took JC. Powell to
tighten his grip on his throttle quadrant.
James now ordered the brakes to be released . . .
saw DreamStar shoot forward. "Here we go," he said.
Patrick took a firm grip on the steel "handlebars" surround-