Wounded Eagle: Washington's Air Defense Shield Is Down

Copyright © 2016 Dr. Dave Felsburg.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 (866) 928-1240

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation

Used by permission. www.Lockman.org.

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-6742-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-6743-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-6741-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016920112

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/14/2016

Contents

Introduction

The Cold War Era: The Past that Predicts our Future

About the Author

Chapter 1 The Science of Radar Evaluation

Recalling those Earlier Years

Continuing the Trip to Work

Beginning the Workday

The Radar Evaluator’s Qualification Training

Chapter 2 The Science of Systems Engineering

Influencing Future Sensor System Design

Systems Engineering Opportunity Knocks

The Commander’s Vision for Systems Acquisition Involvement

The Primary List of ESD Programs of Interest

The Secondary List of ESD Programs of Interest

Mathematics Opens a Door

Chapter 3 Scientific Agility

Fort Lee Direction Center Disabled

Recommendation for a Near-Term Intervention

Recommendation for a Mid-Term Intervention

Recommendation for a Long-Term Intervention

Chapter 4 Near-Term Intervention: Immediate AWACS

Soviet Reconnaissance Reports

AWACS Meetings at Headquarters Space Command

Headquarters SPACECOM Coordinates with the Direction Centers

RADES Intervention Team Arrives at Syracuse and Panama City

AWACS Checks in with Hancock and Tyndall

Chapter 5 Mid-Term Intervention: Redistribute Sensors - Preparation

Coordinating with the Direction Center Commanders

Identifying the Eight Crucial Radar Sites

Coordinating with the Federal Aviation Administration

Coordinating with the Local Telephone Companies

Chapter 6 Mid-Term Intervention: Redistributing Sensors – Completion

Modifying Direction Center Operational Software

Day Two at Hancock Field and Tyndall AFB

Successful Out Briefing to the General

Chapter 7 Long-Term Intervention: Computer Resurrection

The Generals Talk via Encrypted Telephone

Planning the Long-Term Intervention

Travelling Back to Hill AFB

Beginning the Long-Term Intervention

The Voice of the Past with the Knowledge of the Future

The Hancock Team Recaps Travelling to Colorado Springs

The Long Trip to Fort Lee Recovery

Updating the Colonel from the Airport

Back at the RADES – Admin has All the News

Briefing the Colonel on a Highly Successful Week

Chapter 8 Exploiting the ESD Opening

Initial ESD Program Briefings

Height Finder Upgrade (HFU)

SEEK IGLOO

SEEK FROST

The North Warning System (NWS)

SEEK SKYHOOK

Chapter 9 Consulting with the Past

Back to the Fort Lee Direction Center Restoral

Fort Lee Direction Center Initial Computer Damage Assessments

Back at the Fort Lee Direction Center

Getting the B-Side Up and Running

Getting the A-Side Up and Running

Chapter 10 Epilogue: Future Decades of Challenge

From Self-Actualization to Survival

The Challenges of Ideological War

After Wounded Eagle

References

Appendix A Sensor-Related ITW/AA Work

Appendix B The Other Books by this Author

Table of Figures

Figure 1 RADES Organization Chart

Figure 2 Sensor-Related ITW/AA Work – Primary List

Figure 3 Sensor-Related ITW/AA Work – Secondary List

Figure 4 Sensor-Related ITW/AA Work – RADES Openings

Figure 5 Plans and Programs Appointed Program Managers

Abstract

Wounded Eagle is a fictional account of actual events that took place in the late 1970s during the US-USSR Cold War. The title was actually a top secret code word used to describe situations that reduced or eliminated advance warning of an aircraft attack on the US Capital. Such advanced warnings are provided by a network of long-range radar sensors deployed on or near North American borders. Digital data from these sensors are combined and integrated into overall aircraft status presentations covering hundreds of miles over the ocean and an equal distance inland. The FAA and NORAD jointly use this data for real-time air traffic control as well as early warning of intrusion or attack on the homeland. The 20th NORAD Region (20 NR), originally named the Washington Air Defense Sector (WADS) at Fort Lee AFS, VA, provided data to NORAD to accomplish those functions for the Mid-Atlantic States including Washington, DC.

In the early morning hours of 8 August 1977, the 20 NR Senior Director made an emergency telephone call to NORAD Headquarters at Cheyenne Mountain AFS, CO, to report an air conditioning system failure in the Fort Lee AFS Blockhouse. The residual heat from more than 49,000 high-voltage vacuum tubes in the AN-FSQ-7 computers would force a facility evacuation even though the computer power was shut down immediately after air conditioning system failure. As a result, the 20 NR could provide no integrated warning, flight-path tracking or intruder interception of aircraft attacking the Mid-Atlantic States, including the nation’s capital. Without air conditioning, the temperatures within the blockhouse could quickly ignite fires on all four floors, making near-term recovery unlikely. In other words, Washington’s Air Defense System was down and there was no estimated time of recovery. NORAD designated the situation Wounded Eagle.

Acknowledgements and Dedication

Wounded Eagle is woven around the work of the myriad of dedicated military and civilian personnel of NORAD. They are involved in defending our continent against the unthinkable threat of attack from the air, using conventional and/or nuclear weapons. In the uniforms of all four services of the United States and Canada, these men and women are trained in the complex disciplines of computer hardware and software systems, and human intelligence data gathering and interpretation. They routinely spend countless overtime hours in steel-reinforced, four-story cement buildings housing first-generation vacuum tube computers. Wounded Eagle is dedicated to those who protect our country and our way of life, then and now, by assuring our enemies that we can detect, track, identify and destroy airborne threats quickly and effectively.

As the Cold War moves from our past into our immediate future, this book describes a history that may well predict our very near future. Many people, ideas and resources, combined with immeasurable hours of research, were needed to complete Wounded Eagle, but certainly no one sacrificed more than my wife, Isabel. This novel is dedicated to them and the Savior who motivates me daily.

Introduction

The Cold War Era: The Past that Predicts our Future

As political relations between the United States and Russia are once again heating up, a reminder of what is at stake for the US and the international community seems appropriate. Wounded Eagle is a fictional account of actual events set in the Cold War era during the late 1970s. The US and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had completed the largest buildups of nuclear weaponry in history. Recognizing the overwhelming dangers for themselves and the rest of the global community, top leaders of both nations entered negotiations to reduce existing stockpiles of nuclear weapons and prevent further nuclear weapon proliferation. Discussions between Communist Leader Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, and President Richard Nixon in November 1969 resulted in a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), which would significantly slow down the arms race. Two treaties were signed on May 26, 1972, comprising SALT I. They were the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty and the Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. While the US was the only nation in history to have used nuclear weapons against an enemy, all nations feared a repetition of the massive destruction, loss of life and long-term results of the release of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, to end World War II.

As if the horrible truth of that destruction was not bad enough, members of the science fiction community were competing to present the worst versions of calamity imaginable resulting from nuclear detonations and subsequent radioactive fallout. They created gigantic mutations and monstrous creatures of all kinds to fill the world’s movie and television screens. Other writers and producers were concentrating on the realities of the nuclear threat between the US and the USSR. The newest weapons were called hydrogen bombs (H-bombs) and had destructive capabilities and radioactive fallout that dwarfed the earlier atomic, or A-bombs. Both countries had developed, produced and deployed hundreds of aircraft capable of carrying the lethal bombs, as well as lighter versions for delivery on long-range missiles. The smaller versions could also be loaded on Sea-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) that could be positioned in submarines based in international waters just a few miles off the other country’s coasts. Further, scientific research resulted in new capabilities for single long-range missiles to carry multiple, independently targetable nuclear warheads. Discussions of the massive destructive capabilities of these terrible weapons gave way to evaluations of how many times over either nation could be destroyed by the nuclear stockpile of the other. The threat to the North American Continent naturally evolved to include combined attacks from aircraft, ballistic missiles and SLBMs.

The sensor systems used to detect and initiate warnings evolved as well. The missions became Missile Warning, Space Surveillance and Atmospheric Defense. The threat of attack from hostile aircraft, especially those carrying nuclear weapons, remained gravely serious. Hundreds of air surveillance radar systems detected, tracked and supported identification of foreign and domestic aircraft of all types and sizes. The typical long-range radar sensor could detect aircraft between 200 and 250 miles from the radar site at any azimuth within their 360-degree coverage. The long-range radar, along with collocated height finder radar, could report distance from the site, azimuth and velocity relative to the site, and altitude of any aircraft of reasonable size traversing its coverage. The radar data from these sensors were shared between the Federal Avionics Administration (FAA) and the Aerospace Defense Command (ADCOM) for the United States and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) for the entire North American continent.

The FAA compiled the radar data from several sensors electrically connected to Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs) for air traffic control and inflight safety. The FAA typically used search radar data as its Primary Surveillance Radar (PSR) data. Its Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) was an aircraft interrogation system required aboard most commercial aircraft. The FAA equipment at the air surveillance radar stations would send an interrogation signal to the aircraft and the transponder equipment aboard the aircraft would automatically send responses containing detailed information on its speed, direction, position, altitude and specific identity codes. The information received from the transponder was compared to the flight plan filed for the aircraft to maintain flight safety for the thousands of aircraft sharing the airspace. The SSR system was also known as the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF), Selective Identification Feature (SIF) or simply IFF/SIF.

ADCOM and NORAD used the search radar information from those sensors located near the periphery of the nation to provide warning of attacking aircraft from hostile nations. For the air sovereignty mission, radar data were of paramount importance. While the transponders of the commercial aircraft cooperatively provided positional information to the FAA, no such cooperation could be expected from an attacking aircraft or any other aircraft with evasive intensions. NORAD received and processed radar data regionally by a network of massive computers comprising the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment or SAGE System. The analog radar signals received by sensors were converted to digital data by Burroughs Corporation data converters at each radar site called Army-Navy Fixed Special Transmitter (AN/FST-2). The receiving computers at Direction Centers (DCs) were International Business Machine (IBM), Army-Navy Fixed Special Equipment (AN/FSQ-7) computers. The T-2 and the Q-7 used vacuum tube technology extensively. There were twenty-three Direction Centers and four Control Centers (CCs) originally planned – one for each geographic quadrant in the US, one in Canada and one in Alaska. Only three of the four CCs in the United States were deployed.

New satellite-borne surveillance systems were designed and deployed into near-earth and deep-space orbits to provide earlier warning than the traditional ground-based (line-of-sight) platforms could deliver. Even newer technology placed infrared surveillance systems as far as 23,000 nautical miles into space and allowed detection of missile launches several minutes before detection by traditional sensors. The additional warning of missile launch activity provided more time to react to such events. New words like interception, retaliation, reconstitution and reconstruction entered the vocabularies of military strategists. With sufficient warning of a nuclear attack, whether by missile or aircraft, it was almost certain that the country under attack would protect its nuclear arsenal and launch a lethal retaliatory attack. In brief, mutual destruction was assured and that truth generated a natural deterrent against taking the initial action.

Quickly responding to the early warning of an aircraft attack became absolutely crucial to national survival. Once an aircraft was detected that did not match a fight plan in the FAA or NORAD databases, it would be labeled on the Direction Center display consoles as an UNKNOWN and immediately assigned for identification. Radio contact would be attempted. If no response was received, fighter aircraft attached to the appropriate Direction Center would be scrambled to intercept the unknown aircraft to identify, intimidate or destroy the threat. The data link routines in the Q-7 were able to fly the aircraft to a position to the rear and under the belly of the target aircraft. Given appropriate authorization from the Direction Center Weapon Controllers, a fighter pilot could eliminate the intruder or request BOMARC or Nike-Zeus missile support to accomplish that end. The importance of quickly responding to a potential aircraft threat was multiplied in the skies over our Nation’s Capital. Eliminating government and military leadership with a single set of bombs would be an enemy’s desired objective.

At 0430 hours (EDT) on Monday, 8 August 1977, the NORAD Command Post (NCP) within the Cheyenne Mountain Complex was notified that an air conditioning outage inside the Fort Lee Direction Center had damaged the SAGE computers. No processed radar data, interceptor control or missile warning tasking could be provided for the airspace over the Mid-Atlantic States, including the Washington, DC area. The nation’s capital was unable to get advance warning of aircraft attack, nor were the Fort Lee weapons controllers and surveillance technicians able to track and identify these aircraft. The NORAD Command Director declared Wounded Eagle; the Top Secret code word for significantly diminished capabilities for protecting the Commander in Chief and other top political and military leaders in Washington. Twentieth NORAD Region leaders at Fort Lee AFS, VA, could provide no information on an estimated time for the system’s recovery.

About the Author

Twelve years earlier, in June of 1965, our author was graduating from high school and beginning a civilian career in industrial chemistry. Six months into that career, however, the country’s military draft system required his services in a new career of international Command, Control, Computer, Communications and Intelligence (C4I) systems for the nation’s missile warning, space surveillance and atmospheric defense. After seven years as an Air Force enlisted man, Dr. Felsburg was awarded a scholarship toward an undergraduate degree in electronics engineering at New Mexico State University.

Two years later, as an Air Force officer, he accepted an offer to join the 4754th Radar Evaluation Squadron (4754 RADES or simply RADES) at Hill AFB, UT. After completing certification as a Radar Evaluation Officer, he was appointed as Chief of the Plans and Programs Section (DVX) in the Advanced Plans Branch (RADES/DV). His assignment was to lead the squadron into the Air Force-level plans and programs world within Air Force Systems Command’s (AFSC’s) Electronic Systems Division (ESD) at Hanscom AFB, MA. Appendix A lists many of the system acquisition efforts that matched the sensor expertise of the RADES with a need for expert consultation at ESD.

The overarching system for which the Air Force and other services were acquiring these sensor and command and control upgrades was the Integrated Tactical Warning and Attack Assessment (ITW/AA) System. It provided missile warning, space surveillance and atmospheric defense to the North American Continent and was the mechanism through which Dr. Felsburg gained entry into the world of defense systems design, engineering and integration for the RADES. Over the ensuing three years, the RADES would become a valued systems acquisition partner for sensor-oriented engineering consulting.

Dr. Felsburg published six books prior to Wounded Eagle, including five Christian textbooks: Talkin’ about Christ – Over the Back Fence (Xulon Press, 2010), How God Gets You Back (CrossBooks Publishing, 2010 & Xulon Press, 2015a), Profiling the Prospect (CrossBooks Publishing, 2011 & Xulon Press, 2015b), Making the Little Much (CrossBooks Publishing, 2012 & Xulon Press, 2015c) and Inside the Church (CrossBooks Publishing, 2013 & Xulon Press, 2015d). His sixth book was the novel, The President Had Ninety Seconds (WestBow Press, 2015) detailing a series of missile warning attacks on our nation. More details on these books are available in Appendix B of this book, on the author’s website at www.fishersinc.net, or on Facebook page Fishers of Men Ministries.

Now, we begin the journey into the history of the Cold War era of 1977 – a time when one of our SAGE Direction Centers was damaged by an air conditioning outage, leaving the Mid-Atlantic States and the Washington, DC Government – Military Complex without Air Defense processing. The NORAD Command Director was required to declare grave damage to the warning system by using the Top Secret code word: Wounded Eagle.

CHAPTER 1

The Science of Radar Evaluation

C aptain Doug Dugan wanted to get to work at the 4754 th Radar Evaluation Squadron (4754 RADES or simply RADES) a little earlier this morning. It was a cool morning, about 66 degrees with an expected high of 86. Yeah, that sounded like a heat wave for early August at Hill AFB, Utah, about thirty miles north of Salt Lake City. The time was a little before 5:00 AM on Monday, August 8, 1977, when Dugan pulled out of the driveway on his side of the government-provided, duplex housing unit. Military people would say the time was 0500 hours (pronounced oh five hundred hours) on 8 August 1977. The house was on the up-scale, Hancock Circle cul-de-sac intended for Field-Grade Officers; i.e., majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels. Any of those officers would be senior to Captain Dugan, of course. The houses were constructed as two, four-bedroom/three-bathroom homes with one common wall. It was that wall that qualified them as duplex units. They were massive homes, as government quarters went, and Dugan was grateful to live in one.

Major Dan Roberts was Dugan’s Air Force sponsor into the RADES about ten months earlier. Generally, the unit to which the new member was being assigned had the responsibility for assigning a person of similar rank and family structure to make advanced preparations for the new member to get him or her settled and off to work as quickly as possible. Roberts and Dugan had graduated from the same Communications Engineering Class at Keesler, AFB, MS; Roberts in November 1975, and Dugan in the next class in February 1976. Roberts was a rated officer (USAF navigator) placed in the training course as career-broadening from his flying career. Dugan was in the class as a follow-on assignment for career advancement after completing his work at Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado Springs, CO. The Dugan and Roberts families got to know each other well while in the technical school. Roberts had twelve years of commissioned service behind him while Dugan was a freshly promoted captain with over nine years of enlisted and four years of commissioned Air Force experience. When Roberts started his assignment at the RADES about three months before Dugan arrived, the Major volunteered to serve as the Captain’s sponsor. Getting Dugan assigned to a house two doors down the street from his own was a part of Roberts’ outstanding performance of his sponsorship duties.

Recalling those Earlier Years

During Dugan’s enlisted time, he had opportunity to