You've chosen to issue the command as a 'vector,' rather than as a turn to the left or right. This gives the leader of the element the choice to make the most efficient turn to the commanded direction. The descent will take the flight to a level two thousand feet below the altitude of the oncoming hostile. This tactic takes advantage of any look down deficiencies of the hostile's radar, enhancing an already stealthy approach, considering the low radar signature of the Raptor.

The statement 'cutoff' is, of course, to let the pilots know the intended type of intercept. You're starting to build a mental picture in their minds of the attack, more commonly known as 'situational awareness.'

After you've issued heading, altitude and speed direction for your attackers, the next thing the pilots need is 'bogey dope.' This is the flight size, bearing and range relative to due north, and heading, altitude and speed information.

Then you tell the flight that they can select weapons 'safe', indicating that this is an identification intercept. Just like a hand gun, you don't draw your weapon unless you intend to use it. You don't want your F-22's to bear down on a potentially friendly or non-hostile aircraft with their weaponry ready to launch.

The last bit of the initial communication is both a reminder to the pilots and verification for your own planning use. The pilots of such fuel thirsty beasts monitor their fuel state like a vulture over potential carrion - without JP-4 any fighter aircraft becomes a very expensive sailplane, and in aerial combat, a sitting duck. No kidding. In fact, there are two fuel state calls any controller listens for closely, and they are the two most misinterpreted calls I've seen abused by the folks from Hollywood.

The first is 'BINGO.' BINGO means that its time to go home, no questions asked, as the aircraft will arrive over home plate with minimal fuel. This is a dynamic amount determined by the weather at the departure / destination air field, and the flight time to the designated alternate base if said weather deteriorates.

A variety of factors can influence this figure up or down, the most prominent, of course, being the potential for aerial refueling. But it is a threshold, not the end of the go-juice, as EF2000 would have you believe when your Eurofighter uses up the last of its fumes, and the HUD flashes 'BINGO' as your EuroJets start to spool down.

The other pilots' fuel state call of significance is JOKER. This is an arbitrary amount above BINGO that is used to trigger consideration of ending the mission and finding an aerial gas station or returning to base. If a pilot finishes a task and is at or near JOKER, he's going to have to determine if the pad between JOKER and BINGO is sufficient to accomplish anything more of a mission effective nature. If the answer is no, there's nothing wrong with calling it a day and arriving over the runway threshold with a little extra gas. Far better to have too much than too little. "Vectors for home plate, please!"

That's a lot of information in one radio transmission, eh? That's the idea.

Ok, back to the chase. Your two Raptors are now heading north at the speed of queep, diving down to their combat approach altitude. (What's 'queep?' Damned if I know, but I hear it's very fast. Another one of those fighter pilot terms that you won't find in any of the manuals).

There are three things you'll be doing constantly. The first is evaluating your intercept vector. The AWACS computer is going to give you steering information for what it thinks is going to be a perfect cutoff intercept. Keep that symbology updated! But watch out. The bearing to the target should remain constant as long as the both fighter and target heading and speed remain the same. Since the second thing you're going to do is call out bearing and range to the target rather frequently, this is a good source of data for this evaluation. Excuse me...

AWACS: "Bogey 0-3-0, thirty-six."

Click to continue . . .

The pilots' need to have constant bearing and range calls to keep their situation awareness up, especially if they're keeping their radar off to maintain EMCON. They'll also need current range and bearing once they do reach the point where they'll turn on their radar so they can start painting and lock up the target with a minimum of effort.

The third thing you'll be doing is watching the bogey for any change of flight parameters. If it starts to turn, not only will this change your vector to the intercept, it may indicate that the bogey is aware of your inbound fighters, two facts that your pilots need to be aware of immediately! The AWACS computer will usually note the change in bogey vector and give you steering instructions for a new cutoff point.

However, this is a dynamic situation now, so you may wish to anticipate the vector to give as the computer is likely to lag behind the bandit a beat, especially if the turn represents a jinking maneuver to avoid intercept. It is very important to keep your fighters updated with the latest heading altitude and speed. If this represents a continuing maneuver, state the fact succinctly. Brevity is the key.

AWACS: "Bogey 0-3-0, twenty-five."

But this particular bogey is a dufus, and hasn't got the faintest idea that two loaded for bear F-22A Raptors are closing in. The bearing to the bogey stabilized early and your flight has been able to maintain stealth.

Here's where you start to earn your pay.

AWACS: "Dagger 0-1 flight, individual control. Dagger 0-2, left, 2-5-0."

You're splitting the flight into two individual elements. You're intercepting a lone aircraft, so the tactic of mutual support can be put aside for the moment. Yes, I know the target could be multiple bogies in a very tight formation. I saw Top Gun too. Trust me. The bogey is a singleton.

What you're trying to do here is to be efficient. The lead Raptor is now your eyeball, and will confirm the identity of the bogey as either hostile or friendly. If the news is bad, you'll shortly have a second Raptor beaming in right behind the 'eyeball.' He's the shooter. Don't forget to turn Dagger 02 back towards the bogey. All he needs to do is develop a small amount of separation from Dagger 01.

You now have to give bearing and range to the bogey for both of the individual interceptors, by the way.

At ten miles to go for the 'eyeball' things start to happen fast. The closure rate for the two aircraft is easily over 1000 knots. The lead pilot will probably pick up the bogey on his IRST before his Mark I eyeballs can resolve the dot he may or may not see into something he can identify.

DAGGER 01: "BANDIT BANDIT BANDIT... Single ship MiG 2-3"

The call comes just before he passes the bogey beak to beak. You react:

AWACS: "Dagger 0-2, cleared hot. Bandit 0-5-0, eight"

DAGGER 02: "0-2 contact."

AWACS: "Contact BANDIT."

DAGGER 02: "Roger. Judy."

Dagger 02 then takes control of the intercept, turns his radar to active from stand-by, and proceeds to shoot the Flogger in the face with an AMRAAM.

DAGGER 02: "Splash one bandit."

Bergen has been spared yet again. Whew...(!)

Ok, so what's a 'stern' intercept, you ask?

Boy, you don't tire easily, do you?

A stern approach is an intercept wherein cutoff guidance is given to a turn point, at which the interceptor(s) can execute a turn into the stern quarter of the bogey. In the example above, the stern approach could be used to keep the two F-22's together if you were unsure of the bogey's actual flight size. They would remain together through the ID, thus maintaining mutual support should the intercept degrade into a dogfight.

The calculation of the turn point is agony in the manual Air Weapons controller's world. You have to take into account the airspeed and altitude of your interceptors as well as the bogey's airspeed. This is because each aircraft type has a turn radius that varies according to altitude and speed. Then you must apply this radius to a turning circle that has the bogey's flight path on one tangent and your interceptors' flight path on another.

Fortunately, the whole process is easily automated, and if you've kept your symbology updated accurately, the computer steering commands for the stern approach are a rapid cure for the headache. Suffice it to say that a treatment of the generation of a stern intercept would take far more space than we took with the cutoff. The only key difference in the 'sound' of the approach would be that bearing to the bogey would gradually wander away from a bearing directly off the nose of the interceptors towards the side the bogey was on.

The question remains in my mind... to what degree will DID model either of these two standard intercept approaches? It is a certainty that all of the intercepts created by WARGEN2 will have to use, at the very least, some form of intercept control. In EF2000, with WARGEN1, those intercepts were pure pursuit, in which the steering vector to the target is the bearing to the target.

This works, but is inefficient and is not, in fact, used with any frequency in the 'real world.' Will F-22:ADF give us the ability to work this out as a real WC must, or will we be more like a Weapons Assignment Officer, the WC's boss, merely delegating which group of fighters will intercept which target? Like you, I'm waiting eagerly to find out.