Bayani, who had already completed the scheduled evacuation mission, did not immediately choose to return home, but still followed the target for a while.

This is also the experience he gained during the Iran-Iraq war.

When faced with a fighter with a long range, if you see the opponent turn around and immediately end the mission, then the enemy pilot who has calmed down may still choose to make a comeback, and then the passive will become himself.

In particular, after the F4 fighter of the Turkish Air Force experienced a sharp turn of 180 degrees that greatly affected the altitude and speed, it did not seem to have a very urgent desire to accelerate, and had been flying west at a slow and subsonic speed, looking like it wanted to play with the drag knife, which made the lieutenant colonel feel even more worried.

Eventually, he drove the F4EC all the way to the western border of West Azerbaijan Province, at one point approaching about 35 kilometers behind the opponent and adjusting the radar to tracking mode.

It was only then that the target on the radar display seemed to finally feel threatened, and after a rather rapid acceleration for F4, it broke through the speed of sound and fled westward.

Watching the number representing speed next to the target on the HUD continue to jump upward, Bayani finally breathed a sigh of relief, and while retracting the throttle valve to slow down, he gently carried the lever with his right hand, and adjusted the course to the south through a small slope turn - he had just been able to clearly see the main peak of Mount Ayr at an altitude of more than 5,000 meters not far ahead, indicating that the plane was quite close to Turkish airspace.

Although relations between Iraq and Turkey were not good, there were no border conflicts between the two sides, and in 1932 the two countries engaged in a rare exchange of territories that both sides thought they had earned, and there was no idea of changing the status quo, so he could not go further west anyway.

"Report to Command, the eviction mission has been completed."

He reported his successes to the command on the radio,

"Well done, Kawa 01, you can go back."

Kawa is a hero of Persian mythology who has been using this call sign since Bayani achieved his first aerial victory and was promoted to squadron leader.

But after receiving the order, he hesitated for a moment, and then applied to the command:

"I still have some fuel to patrol near the border for a while."

There was no immediate response from the radio, perhaps communicating with the higher-ranking command staff around him.

After a few seconds, the voice resounded:

"Approve the request, but pay attention to the fuel situation."

Compared to Lieutenant Colonel Bayani, who was in a good mood here, Major Zehra Ergai, who was in another F4E 40 kilometers away, only felt that he had just walked through the ghost gate.

"Is that radar signal still locking on to us?"

Although the shrill alarm of the RWR had died down, he gasped for breath as he asked Lieutenant Hakan Dange in the back seat.

The latter was just a humble ballast who had just graduated from the Air Force Academy, and when he saw that the major in front of him was so flustered, he was already panicked, and he didn't even hear the voice from the radio, and he didn't react until Elgai called him twice:

"Uh...... The warning lights are no longer on. ”

However, the young man who participated in the actual combat mission for the first time was obviously still immersed in the panic of being locked up:

"But Major, I heard that Su ...... The Russians have an infrared-guided medium-range air-to-air bomb, will they have already launched one? ”

After all, El Gai is a little more experienced, and has calmed down a little at this time:

"How is it possible, the Persian Air Force can launch the R29ET only with the MiG-27, but just now it was definitely not the radar of the MiG-29."

Having said that, he hesitated for a moment, and then put his hand on the closest position to the infrared decoy launch button:

"If you're really worried, just look back and let me know as soon as you notice anything unusual."

The strategy for dealing with radar-guided weapons and infrared-guided weapons is completely different, and it is difficult for Major to make accurate judgments, but what he has learned in the past has taught him that it is always right to maintain a high speed at this time.

Theoretically, the tail pursuit range of any R27 series missile against a supersonic target will not exceed 20 km, and the faster it is, the safer it is.

……

After about a minute, Elgai finally recovered from the panic he had just had:

"Lieutenant, you should know how to report back to the top when you get back."

The purpose of their sortie was actually to bomb the separatist armed forces located in the mountains of the southeastern border, for which they carried up to three tons of bombs.

However, when they actually flew to the mission area, they found that a considerable part of the target had been transferred to Persia, so they lingered near the border for a while, hesitating to carry out a cross-border bombing.

The result almost caused a catastrophe.

Just now, his radar did not detect any targets in the air during the whole process, but the radar warning device sounded one after another.

Even after it turned to return, the ghostly source continued to lock on for a long time, so much so that the Major had to ask Dange behind him to drop all 12 bombs and fuel tanks at once to speed up the escape.

If this kind of thing is known to his superiors, then he probably won't have any good fruit to eat.

However, the young man in the back seat is clearly not deep enough in this regard:

"Let's just say that we encountered an unknown enemy plane during the mission, so we dropped the bomb halfway?"

The honest answer almost made El Gai breathless and suffocated:

"Idiot, if you report like this, then you won't want to become a full-fledged pilot in this life!"

The cockpit of the F4 fighter will also have a cockpit voice recorder similar to that of an airliner, but the data is stored for a short time, and the major has never seen anyone call up the information inside except in the crash, so he is not worried about these conversations being heard.

The effect of such a threat was immediate, and Dange was immediately frightened by the major:

"That'...... So what should we say? ”

"Alas......"

El Ge sighed for his unenlightened partner, but in this case the two of them are grasshoppers on a rope, and they still have to be pointed out anyway:

"Let's just say we found a Kurdish training camp near the border, but the angle was not good, so we used all the bombs to destroy it, and then on the way back, we encountered the Persian planes that came to intercept it, and we lost the auxiliary fuel tank in order to maintain mobility."

After saying that, he felt that this explanation was still a little inappropriate, so he revised the statement:

"No, don't talk about the training camp, just say that we found a convoy, so there is no proof of death."

The Major now regretted that he had thrown all the loadouts away in a hurry, and if he had kept two auxiliary fuel tanks, he could have at least behaved a little more calmly.

"Good...... Good. ”

To Dange, this seemed inappropriate, but when he thought of his dream of flying a plane alone, he finally decided to follow Elgei's advice:

"Major, let's just say we met the Persian F14?"

"That signal is clearly not AN/AWG9, and it's ......"

Elgei did not continue.

Although the AN/AWG9 paper detection data reaches a very exaggerated nearly 200km, judging from the examples of the Iran-Iraq war, either this number is seriously waterlogged, or the Americans simply exported the monkey version of the product, in short, at least the Persian F14 is difficult to really lock on to a fighter-sized target at a distance where the AN/APG59 is completely unable to see the target.

What's more, he had just tried some maneuvers that worked well against the old radar, but apparently to no avail.

And there is a more important point -

Saying that I had encountered an F14 did not seem to be enough to convey the urgency of the situation.

"No, we just encountered a stealth aircraft of unknown type, so the radar could not find the target during the whole process, so we had to be forced to turn back."

"Huh?"

This statement made Dange feel that it was a bit of a big game.

"Questions?"

"Nope."

Under the flight helmet, the young lieutenant noticed that a cold sweat had broken out on his forehead.

(End of chapter)