Science: Interceptor Mission

Crouching spraddle-legged on the parking strips at McGuire Air Force Base, N.J., a line of sleek, grey jet planes with round plastic noses waits day & night for the summons to take the air. They are “all-weather interceptors” (Lockheed F-94s of the 52nd Fighter All-Weather Wing), ready to leap at a moment’s notice into action against an enemy invader. The signal they are waiting for is a speck on a radarscope, picked up perhaps in Newfoundland or on a ship at sea. If the Russians come over the pole or Greenland (the shortest route), interceptors from New England bases will be first in the air. If they come over the Atlantic, McGuire will “scramble” to meet them out at sea.

McGuire’s jet planes are always ready; their engines need no warming up. The crews are waiting, too, close to the waiting planes. It takes them only minutes to jump into their gear, clap on their helmets, cram themselves into the cockpits and lower the plastic canopies. The engines whine, shoot a fine mist of kerosene from their tail pipes, then a burst of flame that shrinks to a faint blue cone.

The Hunt. As each plane begins to roll down the runway, a vast, bright flame bursts from its tail. This is the afterburner: extra fuel dumped into the tail pipe to give extra power. The flame looks as big as the airplane, and it roars like continuous thunder. It shoots the plane forward and then upward as if a gigantic elevator were pulling it into the sky. As the plane rises almost vertically, the great flame shrinks to a small, bright point like a moving star. Then it blinks out suddenly; the fighter is at its search altitude, and the stealthy hunt has begun.

In the cockpit of the F-94, a wealth of information crackles in on the headsets of the pilot and his radarman. Ground radars are tracking the target and feeding their reports to a central station (location secret). Back come crisp directions for the local G.C.I. (Ground Control Intercept) to relay to the planes aloft. For a time there is nothing for the crew to do but fly the directed course at 600 m.p.h.

The Kill. Inside the plane’s plastic nose (transparent to radar) is a metal “dish” antenna that spins rapidly on its axis and at the same time swings with an odd back & forth motion. In doing this mannered dance, it probes the air ahead with far-reaching radar pulses. If the air is empty, a single line of light glows on the radar-man’s scope. When a pulse bounces back from the enemy, a jog or “blip” appears in the line.

The observer makes his adjustments; the radar “locks” to the enemy and steers the plane toward him. The “blip” grows brighter and clearer. By this time the pilot is watching his own radar, which shows a bright green targetlike circle with a smaller circle inside it.

That smaller circle is the enemy, who may be invisible still in the clouds or the darkness. It grows smaller & smaller as the distance diminishes. The pilot steers carefully, keeping a dancing dot in the center of the shrinking circle. When the circle (with the dot at its center) gets small enough, he knows that the enemy bomber is within range of his guns. He fires a long burst—and pulls up sharply to avoid a collision. In a real attack in bad weather he may never see the bomber that his guns have destroyed.

The Invader. This deadly “blindman’s buff” has never been played to conclusion over U.S. territory, but McGuire’s pilots have had plenty of training missions and plenty of dead-earnest practice. Into New York’s International Airport each day come swarms of transatlantic airliners which look, to a radar, just like long-range bombers. Because one of them could be a Russian bomber that has shot down an airliner in mid-Atlantic and taken its place in the traffic pattern, McGuire’s interceptors roar into the sky and fly out to investigate whenever an incoming liner deviates even slightly from its scheduled flight plan.

For all the scientific equipment available, McGuire’s airmen do not pretend that they can ever put up an airtight defense; some enemy bombers are always bound to get through. But with their new gear and new tactics, the all-weather pilots are sure that they can make an attacker pay dearly.