The bus ride to the aircraft shelters was deathly quiet. Each man was locked in his own thoughts. For his part, Sultan wondered why they were fighting this war. He thought about the Iraqis, brother Arabs, united in Islam, who had savagely violated Kuwait, also brothers. He thought about an old adage: If someone points a gun at you, and you think he’ll shoot, then you must kill him. Well, the Iraqis were pointing their gun at Saudi Arabia, so he and his WSO Mohammed had killing work to do.

At the aircraft, number 760, the crew chief was busy pulling off the dust covers. Sultan did not do a preflight, since the crew chief had already done that, and he appreciated Sultan’s trust and confidence. As he swung his right leg into the cockpit, a warrant officer on the ground crew asked if they could write a message on the bomb load slung under the fighter’s belly. With a grin, Sultan told them to write whatever they wanted to, then went through the time-honored procedures of strapping the jet to his body. He never learned what message he carried to Iraq, because he was too engrossed with engine start and system check to find out.

Because Sultan had skipped the preflight, he and Mohammed reached the runway first. Though they rolled into their takeoff position eight minutes behind schedule, they knew they could make up the time because slack had been built into the inflight refueling delay. The engine run-up was good, and the afterburners lit off, blasting the night’s silence and darkness with a roar and yellow-blue flames. As they rolled down the runway, however, Sultan realized he had never flown so heavily loaded and had not computed the takeoff data, check speed, nosewheel liftoff speed, takeoff speed, and distance.

“What’s the takeoff speed?” he asked Mohammed on the intercom.

“I don’t know,” Mohammed replied. In true WSO fashion, the backseater had no intention of doing the pilot’s job for him, even if it meant he might wind up in a ball of blazing twisted metal off the end of the runway.

“Okay,” Sultan told Mohammed, “I’ll take her to the end of the runway, and then if we can’t get off, I’ll eject and take you with me, okay?”

Mohammed did not answer, as the fighter was now going over 150 miles per hour.

Aware that the heavy bomb dispenser fastened under the aircraft required added speed for a safe takeoff, Sultan watched until the “3,000 Feet Remaining” sign flashed by, then tenderly pressed the front part of the control stick, and the nose of the Tornado started to fly off the runway. As the last of the runway flashed by, the jet was waddling into the darkness.

Sultan had never flown in worse weather—thunderstorms, rain, and lightning buffeted the jet as they searched the night sky for their RSAF KC-130 tanker aircraft; yet when they reached the air refueling contact point over northern Saudi Arabia, they were now only four minutes behind schedule . . . only, there was no tanker. They had to refuel or they could not get to the target and make it back home.