Locked On by Tom Clancy EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Tom Clancy
- Language: English
- Genre: War Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
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The Russians call their Kamov-50 helicopter gunship Chernaya Akula—
Black Shark. The name suits it, because it is sleek and fast, and it moves with
cunning and agility, and, above all, it is a supremely efficient killer of its
prey.
A pair of Black Sharks emerged from a predawn fog bank and shot through
the moonless sky at two hundred knots, just ten meters above the hard earth
of the valley floor. Together they raced through the dark in a tight, staggered
formation with their outboard lights extinguished. They flew nap-of-theearth, following a dry streambed through the valley, skirting thirty kilometers
to the northwest of Argvani, the nearest major village here in western
Dagestan.
The KA-50s’ contra-rotating coaxial rotors chopped the thin mountain air.
The unique twin-rotor design negated the need for a tail rotor, and this made
these aircraft faster, as more of the engine’s power could then be applied to
propulsion, and it also made these aircraft less susceptible to ground fire, as it
reduced by one the points on the big machine where a hit will cause a
devastating malfunction.
This trait, along with other redundant systems—a self-sealing fuel tank,
and an airframe built partially from composites, including Kevlar—makes the
Black Shark an exceptionally hearty combat weapon, but as strong as the
KA-50 is, it is equally deadly. The two helos streaking toward their target in
Russia’s North Caucasus had a full load-out of air-to-ground munitions: Each
carried four hundred fifty 30-millimeter rounds for their underbelly cannon,
forty 80-millimeter unguided finned rockets loaded into two outboard pods,
and a dozen AT-16 guided air-to-ground missiles hanging off two outboard
pylons.
These two KA-50s were Nochny (night) models, and they were
comfortable in the black. As they closed on their objective, only the pilots’
night-vision equipment, their ABRIS Moving Map Display, and their FLIR
(Forward-Looking Infrared Radar) kept the helos from slamming into each
other, the sheer rock walls on either side of the valley, or the undulating
landscape below.
The lead pilot checked his time to target, then spoke into his headset’s
microphone. “Semi minute.” Seven minutes.
“Ponial”—Got it—came the reply from the Black Shark behind him.
In the village that would burn in seven minutes, the roosters slept.
There, in a barn at the center of the cluster of buildings on the rocky
hillside, Israpil Nabiyev lay on a wool blanket above a bed of straw, and he
tried to sleep. He tucked his head into his coat, crossed his arms tightly, and
wrapped them around the gear strapped to his chest. His thick beard insulated
his cheeks, but the tip of his nose stung; his gloves kept his fingers warm, but
a cold draft through the barn blew up his sleeves to his elbows.
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