Chapter 3 Excerpt: Man Vs Machine in the Simulators

Before he had turned thirty degrees, Lancer thought quickly to himself, “Kelly’s got an advantage here. He can process my position and maneuvering faster than I can process his.”

Looking down to the Stratus cloud layer, on an impulse, Lancer rolled inverted into a slit-S and dove for the cloud layer.

In the conference room, where everyone could see both aircraft, Simon shouted. “What’s he doing? He’s going to give Kelly an altitude advantage for an easy dive kill.”

As Lancer entered the cloud layer, his DAS display went blank because the clouds were too thick for any images or infrared to be seen.

But, Lancer knew Kelly couldn’t see him, either.

Lancer rolled to wing level and, as he pulled out of his dive, he reached up with his left hand and punched the stopwatch on the display. Lancer leveled at four thousand feet in the cloud layer. But, instead of continuing his left turn to counterclockwise mirror Kelly’s turn, Lancer reversed course to a right turn and throttled back to three hundred and sixty knots.

Both of these were suicidal moves if it weren’t for Lancer staying hidden from Kelly’s view.

Lancer spoke into his mask, knowing that Nate would hear him, and said, “I decided to turn this into a game of hide-and-seek while I’m still alive. Gonna see if I can sucker Kelly.”

Kelly continued its climbing, accelerating a right turn to four hundred and eighty knots at sixteen thousand feet to maintain a speed and altitude energy advantage. The AI pilot came back around to the original heading at which it had passed Lancer. Not knowing where Lancer would pop out of the cloud deck, Kelly relaxed its turn into a wider circle, knowing the energy advantage would let the AI respond in a maneuvering dive whenever and wherever Lancer popped out.

In the meantime, Lancer flew in an elongated arc away from the center of the dogfight, still shielded from Kelly. He knew that the simulated cloud deck would have a consistent top at six thousand feet, so he stayed hidden at four thousand feet. As his stopwatch showed thirty-four seconds, Lancer believed Kelly’s neural network was running out of offensive options. It might choose a defensive posture soon because it knew Lancer could surprise him with a sudden distant high climb out of the cloud bank.

Lancer spoke into his mask, “About now, Kelly should be starving for sensor data and going wild for options.”

Sure enough, Kelly was sequencing through all his sensor data and finding nothing. A more rudimentary default was now kicking in to consider defensive posturing as a potential protective measure against all the potential contingencies that Kelly considered Lancer may do down there in the invisible realm.

To elevate his defensive posture, Kelly’s last observation was Lancer’s defensive maneuver to descend into the cloud layer. So, Kelly mimicked Lancer’s maneuver as it started its third orbit from the engagement start point. Kelly dove for the cloud layer, accelerated to five hundred and forty knots to maintain its energy, and leveled at six thousand and five hundred feet, just above the cloud level.

While Kelly turned downwards, Lancer watched his stopwatch. At forty-one seconds, he accelerated and made a sharp turn to the right, back to the original starting point.

He spoke into his mask, “Something tells me it's time to take this fight to Mr. Kelly.”

He rolled out on a heading, where his mental dead reckoning told him he might find Kelly in a defensive posture just above the cloud deck.

In the conference room, Simon watched as the two airplanes, offset by two thousand five hundred feet in elevation and invisible to each other, converged on each other. Their headings were about thirty degrees apart, but they were headed for a crossing.

Simon shouted. "This can't be happening!" How did Lancer know to come to that heading? This is bogus!”

Jane Wilson made some quick notes, capturing Simon’s comments and scribbling a sketch of the engagement this far.

Victor responded to Simon, “You don’t know Lancer. He’s got quite a neural network of his own.”

Lindsey glanced at Victor and cracked a slight smile at what was happening.

Lancer glanced at his stopwatch as he armed an AIM-9X and gave it a Lock-On After Launch (LOAL) setting to look for a target at three kilometers anywhere around its launch vector.

Lancer spoke into his mask, “Here’s hoping.”

When the stopwatch hit fifty-one seconds, Lancer pulled the nose up to a forty-five degree climb. Passing five thousand five hundred feet, he blindly fired the missile. If Kelly was anywhere near where he was thinking, the first AIM-9X would surprise him into an evasive action. That would give Lancer time to gain an advantage for his last shot.

If that didn’t work, he didn’t know what to do next.

The AIM-9X broke out of the cloud layer, already going eight hundred knots. Kelly was just two kilometers away, slightly to the right.

A moment later, its seeker locked onto Kelly.

Kelly's fast speed caused aerodynamic heating on his aircraft skin, so the AIM-9X seeker tracked it accurately. Lancer burst out of the cloud layer to see his AIM-9X going terminal on Kelly.

Another moment later, Kelly’s DAS came to life with the bright rocket motor of the AIM-9X bearing down on it.

The next moment, Kelly started a reactive right roll to dive into the cloud layer, but it was too late. Flares ejected from Kelly's F-35C, but the missile still had a solid lock on the aircraft at the head of the flare stream. The right roll made it easier for the missile to track.

As Kelly rolled past ninety degrees, the missile impacted the underside of the fuselage, and Kelly’s F-35C disappeared into a ball of simulated fire.

Lancer pulled up sharply and did a triple roll as he climbed past the fireball. He keyed the mic. “Woohoo! Splash one Kelly!”

In the conference room, Simon steamed. “This wasn’t a fair fight. I’m going to get the results decertified.”

Victor shot back. “What’s the problem? Lancer followed the ROE. He just out-thought your thinker.”

“Game over,” Shake called from in the simulator control room, “Lancer, you’re frozen. Unstrap. I’ll pull the playback, and we’ll debrief in the conference room in ten minutes. This fight was less than a minute, so it won’t take long to replay it.”