On an MSQ mission, a pilot might take off single-ship near the end of the day and fly at 40,000 feet to a contact point on the East German border. At the contact point, he’d call in the blind; that is, he’d broadcast without receiving an answer. Meanwhile, in the upper-left-hand side of his instrument panel was a four-inch-round dial on which were a number of small symbols, windows, and icons. One arrow pointed to the left, another arrow to the right; one window said one minute, and another said thirty seconds; and at the top of the dial was a single red light. When that one lit, he knew the radar was locked on to his jet. Then he followed the instructions it was sending him, which were relayed through the arrows, windows, and icons on the dial. Most frequently, they sent you north along the western edge of the East German border. To be on the safe side, the pilot would also tune the low-frequency navigation set on the floor between his legs to a series of twenty-five-watt navigation beacons. These gave him a cross check to make sure he didn’t stray over the border.

Meanwhile, in the darkening sky, he would see the contrails of a Russian fighter shadowing him, hoping the pilot would stray over the border so he could try to shoot him down.

Soon, the one-minute light would come on, meaning that the pilot had sixty seconds to release. At the same time, he would be getting left or right arrows, while maintaining his altitude and airspeed at the prebriefed values. Then the thirty-second light would come on, and thirty seconds later, he’d hit his bomb button. This would cause his radio to emit a tone, which the radar site would score. (Both the pilot and the radar site were given a score.)

Afterward, he’d turn away to the west and either return to the contact point for another run or head for home, hoping to hit his bed by midnight, because he had to be at work at 4:00 A.M. for a six o’clock takeoff the next day.

★ Fighter pilots never get enough of air-to-air training—dogfights—yet, for some reason, probably having to do with the nuclear delivery mission, U.S. pilots in the late fifties and early sixties were given very little air combat training; and what they were allowed was rudimentary. As a result, they all went underground. They practiced against other NATO fighters that happened to be in the air at the same time they were.

So, for example, if a pilot was flying the nuclear delivery profile above, a Mirage fighter might well start a practice intercept run on him. When the pilot saw the Mirage, he tried to do what he would do in actual combat. He’d push the power up and turn into the attack. Then he and the Mirage pilot would conduct a series of maneuvers aimed at foiling the other while winding up at his six o’clock for a heat-seeking missile or gun attack. All of this was unbriefed and there were no rules. In fact, it was illegal. Worse, you were often in a dangerous configuration, carrying, say, four external fuel tanks and a practice nuke bomb, which made the fighter apt to go out of control.