It's a summer morning in 1946, somewhere east of Moscow. A roar of engines shatters the silence, explosions ripping across the nearby airstrip. All of a sudden, one of the 4 raiders, an Il-2, gets hit by a hailstorm of 20mm cannonshells. The Il-2 is ripped apart. In the matter of 2 minutes, another two plummet towards the ground.
Circling high above in large circles, Lt. Klaus Bekker pulls his aircraft back towards the airfield. 'Damn, that last one got away. But at least we got 3 of those pesky Russians. It's about time we get that early warning radar up and running. Leninskoye Airbase is no use if those pesky Shturmoviks hit it every morning!'
Lt. Klaus rounds up his wingmen, and returns to Leninskoye. Luckily the runway has escaped unharmed. Back on base, Klaus marvels at his lovely new plane. Nicknamed the Huckebein, the Focke Wulf Ta-183 is the very latest among jet fighters. With it's sleek swept-back wings, it is supposedly able to go supersonic in a dive!
A bell rings, and an officer runs out of the tower towards Klaus. 'B-17s! Spotted on the banks of the Kubyshevskoye! 8 of them! Get as many Huckebeins up there as possible, and shoot them down before they can do any damage to our supply lines!
Klaus runs towards his plane, starts up his engine and taxies out to the runway. The Ta-183 shudders as the engine throttles up the maximum power, and screams off the runway. A single wingman follows. The 3 other Huckebeins had broken down.
Speeding across the countryside, the two pilots form up. The ground crew had managed to refuel and rearm the jets, and they had even been equipped with 4 X-4 air-to-air missiles.
'There! 4 early version B-17s! 1000 meters, heading west-south-west!' shouts Klaus into the microphone, jubilantly ordering his wingman to attack at will! They both fire a missile each. They hit their respective targets, blowing the tail section right off and sending 2 B-17s tumbling down. As the two jets approach, they open fire with a lethal barrage of four 20mm cannons. The second B-17 explodes right in front of Klaus. He pulls up hard, looping around for a second run. Spotting his target, he runs in, guns blazing. The B-17 is shredded.
SLAM! BANG! 'Damn, one of the B-17s wingmen must have gotten a lucky hit!' shouts Klaus, as fragments tears through his canopy, engine and cannons.
'Time to get out of here'. Klaus explains to his wingman that he has been hit, and is going to eject. Thank god for the ejection seat. Klaus pulls out of range of the bombers, and pulls that handle. A powerful rocket egnites, sending Klaus rocketing into the sky.
Klaus reaches the ground without any trouble. He grabs for his emergency radio, calling for pickup. After a short while, he hears the familiar 'whup whup whup' sound of the CSAR helicopter, a Flettner modified with heavy weapons and night vision gear. At least Klaus will live to fly another day.
