boat to stealthily attack its unsuspecting target. Guided by the coded signals of their own version of AWACS plane, the flying boat crept on the waves undetected. It passed by an escort frigate eight miles to its starboard unnoticed, twenty minutes later it acquired the aircraft carrier through its infrared sensor. The hulking carrier was an easy target for the flying boat. It was a lumbering behemoth, with straight-running course, with no capability for evasive maneuver. The craft prepared for attack. Revving hard its main engine, the craft gained speed. Another boost of power, it slowly took-off from the water. But instead of continued ascent, the flying boat leveled its flight after fifty feet of altitude. It gained speed at that height until it speed reached 300 knots. The craft chalked up the distance easily that separates it from the carrier. Few minutes passed it continued its closure still undetected. At close range it released its torpedoes with four minutes of time to impact. The signatures of the incoming torpedoes were picked up by the carrier’s sonar trailing on its wake. Scramble and panic occurred at the control room. They knew that there was no maneuver that can evade the torpedoes. The carrier threw out its available sonar decoys to lure the torpedoes away. The torpedoes angled toward the decoys, hundred meters on its wake. The torpedoes homed onto it and exploded.
But it was a nuclear explosion!
Awesome force bombarded the carrier. The area around the carrier was bathed with blinding flash, followed by instantaneous destruction within the radius of half mile from ground zero. Most of the carrier’s escorts who were not affected by the impact suffered damaged on its electronics equipment.
After the explosion the flying boat left the area unaffected for it attacked its target from a safe distance. It simply turned back and headed toward the direction of its escape.
This scenario was incredible and cruel but this could happen if the U.S. government does nothing about this threat. China has the capability to build this kind of weapons. This scenario was based on the accounts of various eyewitnesses who actually saw the existence of the said flying boat and bolstered by the intelligence compiled and analyzed by the espionage network. Based on the facts gathered, our sources summed up these specifications.
The shape of the flying boat resembles to that of the stingray. It has a very thin V-shaped hull. Its wing span presumed to be 136 feet in length with overall body length of 63 feet. It has an assumed weight of 79,000 pounds. And when loaded, it is capable of carrying stores up to 110,000 pounds. To counter its weight it was designed to carry two powerful jet engines with individual thrust of 49,000 pounds. It also assumed to possess an auxiliary drive, a water jet coupled to a lightweight turbo-prop engine. Its strategy was to run silently above the waves until it reached the position where it can fire its weapons effectively, while concealing itself from its enemy’s sensor because of his stealth characteristic. Above the water, its structure protrudes to only ten feet, and the rest of its body submerged underwater. In order to support the craft’s stealth characteristic, its electronics components must also be impervious to detection by the enemy’s electronics support measures. With regards to these matters, the assumptions were; the flying boat has an advance infrared tracking system, it has also passive sonar device and the most important is its low-wattage radar system that emits signals that were weak enough to be detected.
The threat of stealth flying boat was plausible and could not be simply ignored. It was a direct threat to the U.S. forces in the region as well as to its allies. The U.S. government should be in the position to counter this new threat. The flying boat warfare countermeasure has not been the priority of the U.S. Navy, nor does it have the plan to conduct exercises against flying boat attacking tactics even the threat comes from the outdated models.
How much more if it was facing a more advance flying boats?
The U.S. military was ignorant about this kind of war machines. They may possess a little knowledge about it, but this little knowledge was too obscure to be trusted.
The article ends.
3. ENCOUNTER
Darkness of an early evening night blanketed the whole of Pag-asa Island. It has been a week since the last time Andro went out to the sea. Continued rain and bad weather prevented him to go out fishing. Now, the storm has gone. Andro has been living in Pag-asa for many years. He left his family in the island of Palawan, more than two hundred miles away. The opportunity to earn a living in Pag-asa was considerable compared to that of his hometown. There were many civilian residents living in Pag-asa and some of them brought all their family members with them and settled on this island they called, the Promised Land. There were military troops stationed on the island. The military fortified the island, developed an airstrip, deep water pier and established a logistics depot, serving the whole Philippine held territory.
Pag-asa Island is the biggest island of the Philippine held territory called Kalayaan Group. The other islands were smaller and scattered. Some islands have no fresh water. The Kalayaan Group also forms part of the group of islands, islets, cays and reefs most widely known as The Spratlys. The Philippine government claimed that Kalayaan Group is not a part of the Spratly chain of islands because the Kalayaan Group of Islands is much nearer to the main island of Palawan than that of the center of the Spratly.
Diego, a diver by occupation was one of the permanent residents of Pag-asa. One of his lucrative sources of income comes from sea cucumbers, which abound the surrounding coral reefs. Andro was ahead of him in their stay on the island. He recruited him from his hometown in Cavite. He enticed Diego to come to the island because of good opportunity offered by the bountiful sea. Diego agreed and joined him. Now he had proven that it was indeed rewarding to work on this remote island of their country. He left behind his family but they have comfortable lives compared to the other residents of their village whose main occupation were fishing. Diego even sent his children to a private school.
The permanent stay of Andro, Diego and together with all the civilian residents was one of the many reasons why the government garrisoned the whole island of Pag-asa. They were told that they were legitimate citizens of the Republic of the Philippines; together with the islands they must be protected. Since Pag-asa island is a sovereign territory of the Philippines, the residents also voted on the last held presidential election complete with media coverage to show to the international communities that the citizens of the island were doing their sacred right as a citizens of a democratic country.
After reaching their destination, Andro stopped the boat. He looked around then looked back at the island. It was not visible anymore. The only visible landmark that can be seen from their position was the steel tower, a private communication antenna with a blinking red light atop of it. They have no navigation instrument that is why a landmark is essential in their navigation. They would simply target the blinking light in heading toward their home base. Just a simple straight route is what they need in going home.
A battery powered lamp glowed steadily. It was the only visible light in a wide expanse of darkness. A Philippine flag floated in front of the boat, attached to a meter long pole. The flag was their identification to what nationality they belong because sometimes when patrol boat of other claimants happened to passed by on them and saw the flag, they simply passed by.
There was an overlapping claim of territorial sea. Between Philippine held Kalayaan Group and the Chinese occupied reef. The Philippine government observed this unsettled claim by not intruding the disputed area. But the Chinese showed arrogance. They blatantly patrolled the waters of Pag-asa Island.
The two prepared their gear. They used hand line in fishing for frigate tuna that abound the area. Then from the horizon, they saw a light appeared.
“Ship approaching,” cried Diego pointing to the direction of light, heading toward the island of Pag-asa. “Could it be our ship?” asked Andro.
“It might be. It was so slow. Considering that kind of speed, it is our ship. No doubts about it” commented Diego.
; Later, the ship passed by few meters away from them, revealing its marking. It was a Philippine Navy ship, a World War II vintage landing tank ship. The crew of the ship noticed them and they flooded their boat with searchlight upon seeing the flag. They blinked their light and sounded their horn in acknowledgement.
Andro was bothered by the sudden arrival of the ship. All those years of their stay in Pag-asa the ship always arrived on schedule, in exact monthly intervals. Now the ship changed its routine. They never knew the reason of the unscheduled visit but felt that the situation had changed.
“The ship was loaded with construction materials,” commented Andro. “They are constructing again. Maybe they will build another bunker for us.”
“With these things coming, I could smell that trouble is brewing in the area.” added Diego.
“There might be. Our soldier might have knowledge about this. If not, why are they not allowing us anymore to venture to our former fishing ground which was claimed by the Chinese?”
They decided to sail home when they found out that all the foam boxes they brought were all filed. Then, from the east, Andro noticed a different kind of craft slicing the water violently. It was fast. The craft’s shadow resembles that of a speedboat and it was creating enormous waves on its both sides. In front of the craft waters splashed upward few meters above the height of the craft. The direction of the craft was toward them.
“What kind of craft is that?” asked Andro.
“It might be a Chinese hydrofoil,” guessed Diego. “They used that kind of craft in patrolling their territory before. I’ve seen a lot of them.”
Later they noticed that the craft did not alter its direction. It was directly heading toward them and it was closing rapidly.
“It was too fast. It’s going to ram us!” exclaimed Andro in controlled panic.
Diego staggered upon seeing the fast approaching craft.
“Start the engine now!” shouted Andro to Diego who is much closer to the engine.
Diego obeyed him nervously. He grappled on the body of the boat as he searched for the ignition key. The craft was steadily closing on them, and they can hear now the muffled roar of its engine.
“Diego, by gosh…. Start the engine now! What are you doing?” shouted Andro in panic as he rushed toward Diego.
The engine started and roared to life. Diego immediately revved hard the engine and the boat leaped and rushed away from the path of an unknown craft that was speeding up toward them.
Their boat was tossed as it felt the surges of the wave created by the passing craft just few meters away. The two grappled hard on the boat as it swayed dangerously. The craft almost overturned the boat.
“Devilfish!” exclaimed Diego. “It’s a devilfish boat!”
“What a powerful craft!” commented Andro as he shook his head. “It almost sinks us.”
Andro focused his handy searchlight toward the passing craft and caught its dark-colored skin reflecting in the dark. The shape of the craft resembled to a devilfish, a kind of stingray with sharp triangular body shape and pointed nose, unlike the ordinary stingray with rounded body and nose. When the craft was too far away to be acquired, he switched off the light. They looked at each other, wondering about the nature of the craft they had encountered. Each one has a question on its eyes.
“Is it our craft, Andro?” asked Diego with mix feeling of fright and panic.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen this kind of craft before, “said Andro calmly. “Probably that was a Chinese flying boat,’ he added.
“Look at it now, Andro,”