Chapter 9: Interception of MiG-25

  Two brilliant flames flashed by like shooting stars, and then Raymond felt a lightness on his body, the ejection seat had separated from him. Since it was at low altitude, the parachute did not delay and opened directly.

  A dazzling umbrella flower slowly descended from the sky, but Raymond didn't have the mood to appreciate the beautiful scenery on earth. He knew that he was about to encounter the biggest trouble of his life.

  Compared with those companions who have already died, he is still relatively lucky because he is still alive. However, how long he can live, I'm afraid only heaven knows.

  Here in the heart of Iraq, near a heavily guarded nuclear reactor, although rescue helicopters are on standby at all times, it is absolutely impossible for him to escape from the borders of Israel and Jordan, he can only rely on himself to return to Israel.

  If unfortunately caught, the best way is to end it early for oneself, relying on the hatred of Arabs towards oneself, and one will probably be worse off than dead.

  Raymond landed on the ground with a conflicting mood. Fortunately, due to the wind, he was already several kilometers away from the nuclear reactor.

  He brought his legs together, bent them when he hit the ground, buffered for a moment, and then rolled with the momentum to complete the landing.

  Parachuting is not as simple as it looks, if the landing action is not done well, lightly breaking a leg bone, and unfortunately dying. Although Raymond does not fear death, he wants to preserve his useful body to fight for the establishment of a great Jewish state.

  After landing, Raymond cut off the parachute with a utility knife and ran quickly to the west. To the west was a forest, beyond which there was a small river, and after crossing the river, there was a village. By nightfall, he planned to get a car from inside and be able to quickly leave this dangerous area.

  "Operation Babylon terminated, all aircraft return to base immediately."

  Bahari, enraged beyond control, dove his plane and strafed the hidden anti-aircraft guns with machine cannons, cutting down several unfortunate gunners into pieces, before calming down afterwards.

  On radar screens, a dozen or so light spots flashed, fighter jets taking off from Iraqi air bases were rushing here at full speed.

  With its advanced fighter jets and powerful air-to-air missiles, Bahari was not afraid of those outdated MiG aircraft. However, continuing to fight had become unnecessary; he already knew that this bombing mission had thoroughly failed. What came next was to bring back the remaining people intact. At this point, the plane's fuel was running low, and if they continued to linger here, by the time the fuel ran out, his entire fighter jet squadron might also be left behind.

  Bahari calmed down and immediately ordered a return voyage.

  Yevgeny's eyes gradually brightened as he recalled his recent experience, and he felt a lingering fear. If he had pulled the control stick one second later, it would have been a disaster. He glanced to the side and found that a white parachute blossom had appeared in the sky.

  Raymond! Evita knew it was him, Raymond, he crashed!

  Looking down again, a thick smoke has risen from the nuclear reactor.

  "Operation Babylon terminated, all aircraft return to base immediately." Upon hearing the voice coming from the earphone, Iftach did not fly over to assess the bombing results again, and immediately turned his plane westward, preparing to follow the F-15s back to base.

  Behind, the MiG fighter has caught up. Although his own fighter's performance is outstanding, he only has two life-saving Sidewinder missiles left. If surrounded by the MiGs, he'll probably be slaughtered.

  As for Raymond on earth, can only wish him good luck.

  "Formation, disengage from high altitude, bearing 270, low-altitude rapid withdrawal." Bahari ordered calmly.

  In just a few minutes, at least three or four radar beams had swept over Bahari's aircraft. To avoid being hit by the enemy's surface-to-air missiles, Bahari immediately ordered his pilot to disengage and fly low.

  Because the Earth is curved, after flying low altitude, it can effectively avoid being locked by the opponent's radar. As long as you leave the vicinity of Baghdad, the air defense firepower in other parts of Iraq will be greatly reduced. However, low-altitude flight has great air resistance, resulting in increased fuel combustion, and the remaining fuel is not much. Therefore, after entering Saudi Arabia, it can only return by high-altitude flight. However, after entering Saudi Arabia, it will be protected by other fighter jets of the Air Force, and the danger will be greatly reduced.

  Although they had gone through drastic changes, those who could pilot fighter jets were all elites in the army. They quickly calmed down, formed a formation and flew low to the west at high speed.

  Ivetic flew his F-16 several kilometers behind a formation of F-15s ahead.

  Ivanchenko flipped the afterburner switch, and instantly, the powerful engine produced even greater thrust. A white fog-like shockwave appeared in front of the plane, and it broke through the sound barrier, entering supersonic flight.

  The F-16 is a single-engine aircraft, its acceleration performance can't compare with the twin-engine F-15. In the treacherous Iraqi airspace, with only two short-range Sidewinder missiles on his own, it would be very dangerous. So, Ivftach chose to open the afterburner and quickly catch up with the formation in front of him.

  Flying at supersonic speeds in low altitude is strictly prohibited, as it would create a massive sonic boom on the ground and have a strong impact on people on the ground. However, Ivachtchenko couldn't care less about that, besides, there were Iraqis down below anyway.

  As he opened afterburners, the fuel began to be consumed at an alarming rate, and Yiftach looked at the F-15 formation closing in on him and shut off the afterburners.

  "Report, Drill Four's fuel is insufficient, Drill Four's fuel is insufficient." Yiftach glanced at the instruments on the instrument panel, calculated carefully, and was certain that they would not make it back to Israel, and would have to crash-land in Saudi Arabia or Jordan.

  Bahari heard Ivanchuk's voice in the headphones, Chisel Four was his call sign, although he was the commander of the formation, but Ivanchuk's military rank was higher than his own, moreover, among the eight F-16s that went out on the expedition, only this one was left, Bahari didn't want to crash again due to insufficient fuel.

  Anyway, these F-15s were originally to protect the bomber formation. Now that only one is left, it must be brought back no matter what. Moreover, they have already flown into Karbala Province, where the air defense forces are extremely weak. In another ten or so minutes, they will have exited Iraqi airspace. As for those planes that just took off and were preparing to intercept them, they are probably still a hundred kilometers away. By the time they catch up, we will have already flown out of Iraq.

  "Bahari made up his mind, 'Formation attention, altitude 10,000, speed 400, direction 270.'"

  Yiftach watched as the F-15 flew out of his sight, and he immediately pulled back on the control stick, lifting the nose of the plane and starting to climb upwards.

  As soon as he entered low altitude, the radar warning receiver on Yiftach's instrument panel lit up with a red light, and the urgent voice of the onboard computer came through the headphones: "You have been locked on, you have been locked on."

  "Radar jamming pods open immediately, formation turn right as a whole, break the lock."

  Four MiG-25s, just like mantis catching cicadas, yellow sparrows in the back, they have been following behind the formation, Long Machine is Iraq's genius pilot, "Tian Yun" Rayel.

  MiG-25 was imported from the Soviet Union in the spring of 1980, which is an important interceptor for the Soviet national air defense. It is a high-altitude high-speed interceptor fighter developed by the Soviet MiG Design Bureau. Is the world's first fighter with a speed exceeding Mach 3. The NATO codename is "Foxbat".

  To overcome the heat effects caused by high speeds, the MiG-25 did not use a common aluminum alloy structure, but instead used large amounts of stainless steel. With its speed advantage, the MiG-25 was very advantageous in intercepting combat, while the MiG-21 and MiG-23 were still slowly catching up behind.

  However, the avionics system of the MiG-25 is very backward, with large-scale use of electronic tubes and poor results. The most obvious one is that the high-power radar lacks the ability to look down and shoot down. The power of the MiG-25 is said to be able to cook a rabbit at 300 meters away, and the search distance is also 100 kilometers. However, the resolution is not very good, especially when the opponent is in low altitude, the ground echo will turn the radar screen into snowflakes, but the target cannot be found.

  So Rayyal was always behind the enemy, and due to lack of AWACS support, Bahari did not notice that in a matter of minutes, a group of unwanted guests were following from behind.

  Raiyer saw the opponent pulling up from low altitude and was overjoyed. He commanded his formation: "Radar on, lock in immediately."

  MiG-25 carried 2 R-40R semi-active radar homing medium-range air-to-air missiles and 2 R-40T infrared homing medium-range air-to-air missiles, as well as 2 R-60 infrared air-to-air missiles. Although the main combat object of R-40 was slow-moving bombers, Reyler also did not want to give up the opportunity and ordered the formation to attack with medium-range missiles.

  At this time, Bahar was in a very embarrassing situation. The enemy planes appeared behind him and had locked onto his formation. In the next moment, missiles would definitely be launched. If his formation turned to engage in combat, regardless of whether they could repel these few planes, their own formation would be blown into pieces by the incoming fighter jets. If they didn't engage in combat, their formation would just take a beating without fighting back, which was not the style of the Israeli Air Force.

  Suddenly, an urgent alarm sounded in the headphones, and the other side had launched a missile!

  "Radar jamming pods, activate immediately. Formation, right turn, break lock." Bahari didn't have time to say anything else, shake off this attack first.

  The formation immediately changed direction, releasing electromagnetic interference, especially the two-seat F-15s, which had an additional weapons operator, quickly activating the jamming pods slung under their wings.

  And the direction of transformation, as long as the aircraft's heading and the direction of the opponent's radar beam are consistent, the opponent's radar will lose its target, and the missile that has been launched will not be able to find its target due to unlocking and self-destruct.

  It's no use, the missile is still rapidly approaching.

  The jamming pod under that wing can't even emit half the power of a MiG-25 radar, let alone interfere with it. And that turn didn't work either.

  In a moment of desperation, Bahari had an epiphany: it seemed that they could only go back down to low altitude.

  "All squadrons, dive immediately."

  The Soviet electronics are no good, that's well-known. Otherwise, why didn't the opponent lock onto their own formation just now when they were at low altitude? As soon as they pulled up, they came under attack. Now, they can only return to low altitude again.

  This is also extremely dangerous, if the trick doesn't work, flying at low altitude loses the height advantage, and in a subsequent dogfight with incoming MiGs at low altitude is very disadvantageous, especially against the MiG-21, which excels in low-altitude combat.

  The light spot on the radar screen disappeared, he hated to smash the radar screen with his gloved hand, this radar was really too weak, if it could hold on for two more seconds, the missile would enter autonomous flight and no longer need the help of airborne radar.

  The medium-range air-to-air missile is not a fire-and-forget weapon, it needs to use the radar of the launch platform to illuminate the target for two-thirds of the range, providing targeting data for the missile. Now that the radar illumination has been lost, these missiles have all lost their targets.

  The first salvo did not bring down any enemy aircraft.

  The opponent must have entered the low altitude, MiG-25 is an excellent high-altitude high-speed interceptor and is not suitable for entanglement with the opponent at low altitude. Reyel had no choice but to order the formation to slow down and wait for the opponent to reappear, otherwise, it would only be possible to let those slow-moving MiG-21s and MiG-23s solve it.