As the F-16 streaked across the sky, Bertinetti’s brain seemed to slow down, initial brain-freezing panic over, as he started to analyze the data his aircraft’s computers and his eyes were feeding him. It was the same as on his beloved Honda Firebird motorcycle; the faster he drove, the slower the world seemed to move around him.

He sensed the Sukhoi T-50s were inside his missile range and by moving his head and looking at each target in turn, he could slew the reticle, the fine sighting lines on his joint helmet-mounted cueing system. As he put the reticle onto the first Sukhoi the “lock on” tone sounded in his helmet until, when it reached a crescendo, he released an AIM-9X Sidewinder infrared missile with a solid, steady trigger pull. “See how you like that, you fuckers,” he muttered.

There was a fractional pause, a white streak across the sky and another fireball where, a split second earlier, there had been a Russian fighter.

One-all, thought Bertinetti as he put the reticle on his next target. That’s leveled things a bit.

“Lock, Lock.” The radar warning receiver sounded in his ear. He instinctively pulled the throttle out of afterburner and then rolled his left hand onto the chaff-and-flare button on the cockpit wall by his left knee, in a desperate attempt to decoy the incoming missiles from the Russians.

Too late. Next moment his aircraft was being blasted violently to the right and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a chunk of his left wing disintegrate.

Without realizing he had done so, his right hand was already grabbing and then pulling up on the ejection-seat firing handle, set in between his legs and next to his crotch. Then his head was violently compressed into his spine as his ejector seat fired, followed by a sudden blast of ice-cold air, as he was hurtled up and out of the aircraft. His first instinct was one of blessed relief at being clear of his aircraft, followed a couple of seconds later by the sickening sensation that he was beginning to fall.

“Deploy, you bastard. Deploy!” he started screaming to himself, as he began to accelerate toward the earth, still strapped helplessly into his seat. And then he was jerked upward. He heard a sharp crack above his head and the seat fell away below him. Looking up, he saw the wide silk of his parachute canopy. Now instead of noise and wind, there was instant peace.

He was alone in the sky. The Russian planes had vanished and, below him, he could see his plane tumbling, left wing missing, before it smashed into the open cornfields of Ukraine below. There was a split second, perhaps he imagined it, perhaps not, when he thought he saw the F-16 shatter on the ground, like a plastic toy dropped onto a stone floor. Then the fuel tanks ruptured and it disappeared in a massive red-and-yellow fireball.