"The Israeli Air Force is flying in tight formation. That way, even if ground radar picks them up, they'll read as a single large airliner instead of several fighters—maximum concealment," the instructor intoned.
"Question, sir." Zhang Feng—always the first to think deeper—raised a hand.
"Speak."
"Their f－16s are each hauling two tons of bombs. Handling will be shot. How could they hold a rock-close stack down on the deck? Turbulence would bang them together. Our own August 1st Aerobatic Team only keeps that tight a show-clean."
An F-16 is a single-engine light fighter; empty, it's barely ten tons. Hanging another two on it and still staying fingertip-close? This wasn't an air-to-air fit with a couple of light missiles—impossible.
"The IAF is among the best on Earth. Their pilots were forged in war; the Fourth Middle East War alone cost them a hundred aces. Combat breeds excellence. We train for safety—they train for survival. To us it looks suicidal; to them it's Tuesday. And the F-16 has the most advanced fly-by-wire of its day—no problem at all." The words echoed under the classroom rafters.
"While the realm is calm, forgetting war courts ruin. Every one of you in uniform must hone your craft without mercy—that is how you live when the shooting starts. A perfect score is survival; anything less is death."
That lecture had left Zhang Feng awestruck. Armed with the open-source version of the Israeli raid, he had planned accordingly.
Reality, however, showed the instructor had never actually seen it—only stitched it together from declassified memoirs. Or perhaps Zhang Feng's own transmigration had nudged events off script.
In this timeline the IAF did not send one giant eight-ship cell. They split into two looser four-ships—not one stack, but two.
Zhang Feng cursed himself: fighters organize by pairs, flights, squadrons. Two aircraft make an element, four a flight, three flights a squadron.
Eight jets meant two flights—four per stick.
He had just splashed the first four; the second four were still coming.
If even one bomber got through, two mk84s would obliterate the reactor.
"Heavy flak ahead—climb, climb NOW!" the element lead, Lieutenant Colonel Amir Nahumi, barked in his headset.
The instant the first four birds were shot out of the sky, Nahumi knew it was a trap. Someone had leaked the ultra-secret strike—why else park an AAA ambush beside a worthless lake? They'd been waiting.
Damn Mossad—how did they bungle intel on something this big?
No time for blame; staying alive came first.
The gun line sat cunningly on the exact spot where he would break. Unless he wrenched a 180 with a 500-metre radius—impossible—he'd fly right through it.
Even in an air-superiority load an F-16 needs 5 000 m to turn; twenty years later Japan's F-2, built from the same bones, only whittled that to 1 600 m.
Can't turn—so go up. Two thousand metres and the flak can't touch us.
But clawing that high in a handful of seconds? Impossible.
Still better than sitting still to die.
Nahumi snapped on afterburner and firewalled the throttle; several extra tonnes of thrust slammed him back. He hauled the stick into his gut; the nose leapt for the sky.
Climb—climb—climb—out of the flak basket, now.
"Give me the bloody missile—now!" Zhang Feng snapped.
Ghassar heaved the SA-7 tube onto Zhang Feng's right shoulder.
"Careful, Second Young Master."
"Less chatter—other tube, quick!"
Ghassar gaped; when had the young lord learned to use a high-tech SAM—let alone fire two back-to-back?
Zhang Feng would rather not lug twenty kilos of launch rail, but the window was three heartbeats. Four jets, eight bombs—if they escaped, the plant would be vaporised.
The SA-7 is heat-seeking. Ignoring the crushing weight, Zhang Feng flipped up the sight, centred the pipper on the afterburner plume streaking overhead, and squeezed.
"Beep!" The headset immediately confirmed a solid lock, and without hesitation he squeezed the launch trigger.
"Whoosh!" A tongue of flame spurted from the tail; the SA-7 shot out of its launch tube.
Ignoring the scorching back-blast, Zhang Feng swung the launcher on his left shoulder toward the second plane; the moment the headset chirped "locked," he fired again.
Two missiles streaked one after the other toward the struggling, climbing aircraft.
When they were away, Zhang Feng felt every scrap of strength leave him; he tossed the empty tubes aside and dropped to the ground, gasping.
Nahumi was crushed against his seat by the crushing g-force; his g-suit clamped his lower body, forcing blood upward to keep his brain from blacking out—five g's, well within tolerance.
He glanced at the altimeter: 1,000 metres. He was pushing the F-16 to its limits, yet the wing roots still hadn't snapped under the strain.
Iraqi anti-aircraft guns were obsolete spray-and-pray junk, no real threat; the enemy had merely laid a clever ambush at his turn point, costing them four aircraft.
Climbing had exposed them, but the instant an F-15 pulled skyward it announced their presence; the only thing that mattered now was realigning to bomb the reactor.
Their bombs were plain iron, no guidance; they would have to dive-bomb, demanding practiced nerves, and they had rehearsed that dive a thousand times.
The route was set—turn here, pull-up there—but now the entire plan lay in tatters.
As leader of Team "Chisel," Nahumi's single thought was how to shepherd the four remaining jets onto the correct bombing vector to smash the Iraqi reactor.
A titanic blast rocked the rear cockpit; before Nahumi could turn, the canopy blazed crimson, a wave of heat washed over him—and he became ash in the inferno.
The SA-7 had slammed square into the F-16's after-burning engine; the warhead detonated inside, shredding the turbofan with shrapnel and igniting the fuel, turning the fighter into a fireball that broke apart in mid-air.
The second jet climbing beside Nahumi met the same fate.
Cheers erupted across the ground.
Even after the missile struck home, Ghassar could scarcely believe it—when had the Second Young Master learned to handle a sophisticated SAM, let alone fire two?
"Second Young Master, you're incredible," Ghassar exclaimed.
"Move—pull out, now!" Zhang Feng shouted, voice tight with urgency.
The escorting F-15 air-superiority fighters circled at 5,000 m, ready to swat any Iraqi MiG-21 or MiG-23 that dared take off. They had switched on their radars—thieves shining flashlights, utterly fearless.
Yet no enemy fighters rose; instead, ground fire had obliterated the strike planes they were meant to shield.
Bakhari snarled an order over the radio, and the f－15s stooped like hawks, screaming down toward the lake.
Although the Eagles carried only air-to-air missiles, each still had an M61A1 Vulcan cannon in the right intake fairing—perfect for venting fury on the gunners below.
A fearless gunner might duel a Vulcan with flak, but Zhang Feng had no wish to try; knocking out the f－16s had already spoiled the reactor strike. An F-15 with only AAMs attacking a hardened bunker was like trying to kill with a back-scratcher—harmless.
So when the Eagles dived, Zhang Feng barked the order to scatter, sprinting for the lakeside woods.
Give me a couple more SA-7s and I'll show those bastards, he thought as he ran.
He plunged into the trees, caught his breath, and glanced back.
The sight froze his blood: two bomb-laden f－16s were thundering eastward, mission intact.
He had done everything he could, yet history refused to be rewritten.