One of the world’s finest single seat fighters

During the early war years the Bf 109 was one of the world’s finest single seat fighters. Its basic design provided the potential for it to take new engines and armament so that it remained the backbone of the Luftwaffe fighter forces throughout World War Two.

The Messerschmitt Bf 109 began as an entry by the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke in a Luftwaffe (German Air Force) fighter competition in the early 1930s. Willy Messerschmitt’s creation incorporated one of the most advanced aerodynamic designs at the time, with retractable landing gear, an enclosed cockpit, automatic slats, cantilever wings and stressed skin construction. During the trials, the Bf 109 clearly outperformed the larger and heavier favorite, Heinkel’s He 112. The first production model, the Bf 109B, began coming off the lines in 1936. The redesignation of the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG (Aktiengesellschaft or Corporation) to the Messerschmitt AG in 1938 led many to call it the Me 109, although the official Luftwaffe designation of the aircraft remained the Bf 109 throughout the war.

The Bf 109B first entered combat with German-manned Condor Legion units during the Spanish Civil War, and they were a welcome replacement for the obsolete Heinkel He 51 biplane fighter. The Bf 109C, introduced in 1938, retained the twin 7.9mm MG 17 machine guns mounted above the engine but replaced the single MG 17 firing through the propeller spinner with two MG 17s in the wings.

After less than 200 Bf 109Ds were built, the Bf 109E entered production with the Daimler Benz DB 601 in early 1939. Early in World War II, the Bf 109E completely dominated the Polish PZL fighters. In the invasion of France in May 1940, the Bf 109E outfought French Morane-Saulnier MS 406s and British Hawker Hurricanes.

Spitfire Vs Bf 109: handling tests

In the air battles over the English Channel and later during the Battle of Britain, the Bf 109E not only exposed its Achilles heel — its short range — but also met its equal, the Supermarine Spitfire.

As explained by Neil Page in his book Luftwaffe Fighters: Combat on all Fronts Volume 1, both the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the Spitfire had their rolling manoeuvrability at high speeds seriously curtailed by aileron heaviness.

The following data for the Bf 109 E is extracted from a British test document entitled Messerschmitt Bf 109 Handling and Manoeuvrability Tests by the Ministry of Supply. September 1940: “More detailed aileron tests (measurement of stick forces and time to bank) were made. These tests showed that although the Bf 109 ailerons felt much heavier than those of the Spitfire at speeds between 300mph (483km/h) and 400mph (644km/h), the a/c could be made to bank at about the same rate as the Spitfire at these high speeds.

“The more ‘solid’ feel of the Bf 109 ailerons at high airspeeds is attributed to the smaller stick travel (+/- 4in compared to +/- 8in on the Spitfire), fairly rigid control circuit, and partly to the awkward seating position of the pilot… at 400mph (644km/h) the Bf 109 pilot, pushing sideways with all his strength, can only apply about 1/5 aileron, thereby banking 45 deg. in about 4 secs.; on the Spitfire also, only 1/5 aileron can be applied at 400mph, and again the time to 45 deg. bank is about 4 secs…”

Turning more readily to the right than to the left

The Spitfire’s ailerons did not feel as ‘solid” at 400mph as those of the Bf 109; this was because there was rather more ‘stretch’ in the aileron control circuit of the Spitfire. The maximum sideways force a pilot could exert on the stick worked out at around 60lb on the Spitfire, but only about 40lb on the Bf 109. The reason for this difference was that the cockpit of the Bf 109 was so cramped that a pilot could not bring his arm round into the position most favourable for applying a large side force to the stick. And it was not only the ailerons that caused problems for the 109 pilot.

The following is again from the Ministry of Supply September 1940 test report: ‘It is at high speeds that lack of a rudder trimmer most seriously inconveniences the pilot. At 215mph (346km/h) the a/c is trimmed directionally, no rudder being required. At higher speeds left rudder must be applied, and at 300mph (483km/h) about 2 deg. of left rudder are needed. The rudder is very heavy at high speeds, and a large force is required to apply even such a small amount. This becomes very tiring, and affects the pilot’s ability to put on more left rudder to assist a turn to the left. Consequently at high speeds the Bf 109 turns more readily to the right than to the left.”

Luftwaffe Fighters: Combat on all Fronts Volume 1 is published by Mortons Books and is available to order here.

Photo credit: Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK via Wikipedia

The Starlifter

Introduced to replace slower piston-engined cargo planes such as the C-124 Globemaster II, the C-141 was designed to requirements set in 1960 and first flew in 1963. Production deliveries of an eventual 285 planes began in 1965: 284 for the Air Force, and one for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for use as an airborne observatory.

The C-141 Starlifter was the workhorse of the Air Mobility Command from the 1970s into the early 2000s. The Starlifter fulfilled the vast spectrum of airlift requirements through its ability to airlift combat forces over long distances, delivering those forces and their equipment either by air, land or airdrop, resupply forces and transport the sick and wounded from the hostile area to advanced medical facilities.

Looking back to Starlifter’s layout, Lockheed’s Wilfred C. Garrard recalls in George Cox and Craig Kaston book American Secret Projects Vol 2:

`During the preliminary design phase of the C-141 aircraft a small team was given the task of comparing all configurations that could be conceived for performing the C-141 mission. The hope was that a new configuration could be developed which would be superior … either in speed or cost or some other major characteristic. One factor in our minds was that something new or different would catch the imagination of USAF and if it offered one or more advantages, we would have an overwhelming competitive advantage. Unfortunately our hopes were dashed in this endeavor..’

Lockheed opted for a high-wing, T-tailed configuration with four turbofans slung on wing-mounted pylons. The wing’s moderate sweep (25° at quarter chord) traded a reduction in cruise speed for an increase in payload for the same size wing. The reduced sweep also decreased approach speeds, allowing Lockheed to eliminate leading edge slats.

C-141A

In March 1961 the Air Force ordered the building of five development aircraft under the designation C-141A. Even before the first of these had flown, a contract was placed for 132 production aircraft, which was subsequently increased to 248. Lockheed delivered the first C-141A to the USAF in October 1964 and the final example in February 1968.

Lockheed also designed a version of the Starlifter aimed at the civil market, known as the L-300 Super Starlifter. The company built a demonstrator that flew in 1963, but it attracted no orders.

The C-141 was arguably the USAF’s first strategic jet airlifter. It was not, however, without its limitations. A report published in January 1973 by the USAF’s Office of MAC (Military Airlift Command) History, noted that it had ‘a shorter fuselage than the C-133 and DC-8F; its maximum payload of 34 tons less than that of the Boeing 707-300 series (44.9 tons) and Douglas DC-8F (38.7 tons); its economy cruise speed fell 35mph short and 64mph below the 707-320B and DC-8F respectively; while its maximum range was some 500 miles less than that of either the 707 or DC-8F. In addition … the C-141 was incapable of carrying the outsized cargo that the C-124 or C-133 could.’

C-141 Airlifter Design

Nevertheless the report makes clear that the C-141 gave MAC what it had long wanted: a fast cargo aircraft, with a troop-carrying capability. It may not have had the outsize cargo capability of the C-124, but it did cruise at twice the speed and, compared with the other fast aircraft, the 707 and DC-8, it could carry cargo that they could not. Like all designs, it was a compromise, and overall it proved a successful one. Having entered service in 1964, the last examples of the C-141 were not retired until September 2004.

This very lengthy operational life was in no small part due to a substantial mid-life modification programme. The process extended the fuselage by adding two plugs, one of 13ft 4in (4.07m) ahead of the wing, the other of 10ft (3.05m) aft of it. It also added in-flight refuelling capability by inserting a boom receptacle in the top of the fuselage aft of the cockpit. These changes were tested on a prototype (designated the YC-141B) in 1977, and over the following five years 270 C-141As were converted into C-141Bs. Some of these aircraft received avionics and cockpit display upgrades, becoming C-141Cs.

The C-141 is also significant in the history of airlifter design for its configuration, which would become the norm for virtually every future large military transport: high-mounted swept wings, T-tail, and fuselage-attached main undercarriage. In years to follow the Lockheed C-5, McDonnell Douglas Boeing C-17, Ilyushin IL-76, Kawasaki C-1 and C-2, Embraer KC-390, Xi’an Y-20, and Airbus A400M would all embrace the C-141’s basic design features.

American Secret Projects Vol 2 is published by Crecy and is available to order here.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

Used exclusively on the F-14A/B/D

The AIM-54 Phoenix Missile, used exclusively on the F-14A/B/D Aircraft, is a radar guided, air-to-air missile consisting of a guidance section, armament section, propulsion section, control section, interconnecting surface cables, wings, and fins. The missile is designed for ejection launch using the LAU-93 or LAU-132 launchers. Semi-active and active homing radar and hydraulically operated fins direct and stabilize the missile on course to the target. This is one of two known Phoenix 54C missiles to be on display in the U.S. The other is in the Smithsonian Museum.

Although, as explained above, the only aircraft capable of carrying the Phoenix (in clusters of up to six missiles) was the F-14 Tomcat, the odd photos in this post show an F-15 Eagle fighter jet carrying an AIM-54.

At the time these pictures were taken, researchers at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards, CA, and the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake, CA, investigated the use of surplus demilitarized Navy AIM-54 Phoenix air-launched missiles as possible hypersonic test platforms or testbeds. Hypersonic flight is defined as aerodynamic flight at speeds of Mach 5 or greater, and use of surplus Phoenix missiles was one of the methods being considered to obtain critical flight data in the hypersonic regime.

NASA F-15 with AIM-54 Phoenix

These missions, conducted over restricted military test ranges, involved launching a missile from a NASA F-15 aircraft flying at speeds up to Mach 2.0, with the missile then accelerating to speeds up to Mach 5.0, depending on its trajectory before fuel is exhausted. The missiles would carry experimental research payloads into the hypersonic regime, something that is currently difficult to achieve.

The Phoenix missiles used for hypersonic research had their explosive warheads removed, and their tracking and guidance systems replaced with a smaller, more lightweight guidance system. The missiles were also heavily instrumented to obtain and transmit test data from experiments in such areas as thermal protection materials, scramjet propulsion, guidance & control, boundary layer transition, and aerodynamics at hypersonic speeds.

NASA performed design, analysis, and testing that lead up to a Critical Design Review at the end of 2007. As part of the preliminary studies, several “captive-carry” flights were be flown by the F-15 with an inactive missile with no propellant carried on the aircraft’s centerline pylon to determine the performance of the aircraft when carrying the missile. However, the project was not been funded to conduct actual launches to obtain hypersonic flight test data.

APG-63

Since the photos in this post clearly show that the Eagle could be equipped with the mighty Phoenix one might ask why US Air Force (USAF) F-15d never carried the AIM-54.

‘I was with the F-15 program for about 10 years, maybe a little more. I know the airplane extremely well,’ said James Cowan, former F-15 Eagle maintainer, on Quora. ‘To begin with, the F-15A was equipped with the Hughes APG-63 radar, which worked well with both AIM-9 Sidewinders and AIM-7 Sparrow missiles.

‘There have been significant upgrades to that radar and with the AIM-120 replacing the AIM-7, the combination is very adequate in the F-15’s operating environment.

‘The AIM-54 Phoenix and AWG-9 radar were Navy-mission-specific and in and of themselves, were an integrated weapon system. The AWG-9 could also manage AIM-7 and AIM-9 missiles. The AWG-9 had the capability to fire missiles at six targets simultaneously, and track 24 more. This was essential because the F-14 at the time had one job: to protect the multi-billion-dollar carriers. So, the F-14 was optimized as an interceptor. And it excelled in that role.

An entirely different environment

‘The F-15 operates in an entirely different environment, and within Air Force Doctrine. While the F-15 is certainly a potent interceptor, most of all it is a tactical air superiority fighter—made to mix it up with other fighters—dogfighting, usually over land. Desert Storm was a made to order war for the F-15. Everything about the F-15 was virtually perfect for that environment. Of the 36 Iraqi fighters shot down, the F-15 got 34 of them. The Navy F-18’s got the other two. I will also note that both aircraft were built by McDonnell Douglas in St Louis MO, now folded into Boeing.

‘So, while the F-14 and F-15 have some outward similarities and some mission overlap, they’re really apples and oranges when you get right down to it. Because the F-14 is a Navy fighter, it has to be built much more rugged than USAF fighters. The abuse Navy fighters get is much tougher than USAF landing on long concrete runways.’

Cowan concludes: ‘I’m not sure in my own mind whether or not the F-15’s radar is compatible with the AIM-54, and even if it was, it’s too heavy for the F-15 to use and keep all of its fantastic air to air capabilities.’

Photo credit: Tom Tschida / NASA

The US’ first all-weather fighter and attack aircraft

The F/A-18 Hornet became the US’ first all-weather fighter and attack aircraft, and was designed for traditional strike applications such as interdiction and close air support without compromising its fighter capabilities. The F/A-18 A-D is employed in Marine Corps fighter attack squadrons, US Navy and Marine Corps Reserve squadrons.

The Hornet demonstrated its capabilities and versatility early in its lifecycle during Operation Desert Storm where the F/A-18 wherein the aircraft shot down Iraqi MiG-21 fighters and bombed enemy targets within the same mission. Other operations with the aircraft have been Operation Southern Watch from 1992 to 2003 and with flights over Bosnia and Kosovo in the mid-1990s. Hornets have also participated in Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. The F/A-18 has been replaced by the Super Hornet with the designations of F/A-18-E/F. The last operational flight by a Hornet as by an F/A-18C in October 2019.

F/A-18 rudders deflected inward during cat shot

One interesting thing about the F/A-18 is that during the cat shot its rudders are deflected inward.

Why is that?

William Lambert, former US Air Force (USAF) F-15 Avionics Technician, explains why on Quora;

‘To ensure the plane starts climbing upon launch from the catapult while the pilot’s hands are off the stick and throttles.

‘Basic aerodynamics. The vertical stabilizers on F-18s aren’t straight up and down, they are canted from true vertical to make a “V” shape. This means the rudders will impart a small pitch (nose up/nose down) force in addition to a yaw (nose left/nose right) force when they move. When they move synchronously (both to the left or both to the right) the pitch forces cancel out because one will apply pitch up and the other pitch down.

‘On the F-18, automatically moving both rudder surfaces inwards at the same time results in a net “nose up” force during launch. This is important because when the catapult is initiated the pilot is hands off the stick and throttle so that the launch forces don’t cause unintended stick/throttle input. The Takeoff Trim settings allow the plane to have the necessary inputs during the short time the pilot is hands off the controls.

‘Many modern aircraft have a Takeoff Trim setting for the flight controls which sets them into position(s) that reduce the amount of stick/rudder movement needed from the pilot. Many aircraft so equipped will takeoff on their own with no additional pilot input provided the runway is long enough. Since Takeoff Trim already applies some “nose up” input, the amount of input from the pilot is reduced.’

F-15EX in Takeoff Trim

Lambert concludes;

‘Example (photo below) of flight controls on an F-15EX in Takeoff Trim. The leading edges of the horizontal stabilizers are lower than the “neutral” position and remain in place with no pilot input. While Takeoff Trim is engaged this position becomes the new “neutral” position meaning if the pilot moves the stick, the flight controls will move from and return to this position. Once airborne and Takeoff Trim is turned off the flight controls will return to their normal neutral positions. NOTE: The rudders are turned to the left here because the pilot is making a left turn, not because of Takeoff Trim.’

Photo credit: Photographer’s Mate Airman Benjamin Dennis / U.S. Navy and Ilka Cole / U.S. Air Force

Speed: an essential factor

In 1952, the British aircraft industry gradually emerged from the economic crisis. All elements of the aircraft industry were present at the annual Farnborough fair to exhibit their new projects to the public.

As explained by Bart Vandamme in his book Mach Busters, in total, 120,000 aviation enthusiasts could see the Avro A-698 delta bomber and the Bristol Britannia. This airliner weighed almost 85.3 tonnes (84 tons) could transport 104 passengers over a distance of 6,000km (3,728 miles) at a speed of 503km/h (313mph). In addition, the Vickers Valiant and the Gloster Javelin, the successor of the Gloster Meteor, were on display for the first time. The Hawker Hunter, first Proposed in 1951, was back on the official program.

Because speed had become an essential factor in the latest generation of fighter jets, the aircraft manufacturers showed sonic “booms” or “bangs.” At the beginning of the 1950s breaking the sound barrier was exciting to witness for spectators as well as for the pilots to fly. One of the British manufacturers that wanted to provide a spectacle was de Havilland.

The tragic death of John Derry

With the Comet, the manufacturer had sent its best test pilot John Derry (who is believed to be the first British pilot to break the sound barrier to have exceeded the speed of sound in flight*) to the aviation fair. On Saturday, September 6, John would present a flight with the two-seater DH-110.

Taking off with his observer Tony Richards, with the second prototype of the DH-110 (WG240), Derry embarked on a spectacular speed demonstration. After a few sonic booms, John was getting ready to land. He intended to fly over the runway one last time at a low altitude. When John reduced his speed and made a turn, the jet suddenly broke apart. Pieces of the fuselage, cockpit and the Rolls-Royce Avon jet engines fell over the square. The crash claimed the pilot and his observer as well as members of the audience. In total, 28 people died during this air disaster and the emergency services counted at least 63 spectators wounded.

A tribute to deceased friends

One of the eyewitnesses of the accident was Neville Duke, RAF’s highest-scoring fighter pilot in the Mediterranean theatre and later a test pilot of supersonic jets. To regain the public’s confidence without hesitation, Neville took off as soon as the runway was cleared. Although deeply saddened and shocked by the disaster and the loss of his close friend Derry, Duke, ever the professional, flew an immaculate display. Eight miles above Odiham, he dived at 40 degrees descending at 15,240m (50,000ft) a minute. Minutes later, the Hunter’s sonic boom reverberated around Farnborough. The show had gone on. For Neville, a tribute to his deceased friends.

“My dear Duke,” the Prime Minister wrote the next day, “It was characteristic of you and of No 615 Squadron, to go up yesterday after the shocking accident. Accept my salute. Yours in grief, Winston Churchill.”

Neville Duke

For many British people, the Hawker Hunter was an aircraft with which Neville Duke became synonymous. By 1952, the pilot dressed in white overalls had dispensed with the old-style leather flying cap for what became part of his trademark, an American white helmet, born of gridiron football and soon adopted by teenagers and motorcyclists for their Tiger 110s. The breathtaking demonstrations that he gave at Farnborough, year after year, are legendary.

Neville Duke became an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in January 1953 and was awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air in 1955.

*He is widely believed to have exceeded the speed of sound on 6 September 1948, when he lost control of his aircraft and the Mach meter supposedly ‘briefly showed’ supersonic speeds in a shallow dive from 12,195 m (40,000 ft) to 9,145 m (30,000 ft). Despite lack of substantial evidence (the recording apparatus was switched off during the flight), the news was promoted by the British press as having broken the sound barrier.

Mach Busters is published by Key Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: KSAK:s tidning Flygrevyn and unknown

The Foxbat

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 (Russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-25; NATO reporting name: Foxbat) is a supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft that was among the fastest military aircraft to enter service. It was designed by the Soviet Union’s Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau and is one of the few combat aircraft built primarily using stainless steel. It was the last plane designed by Mikhail Gurevich before his retirement.

The first prototype flew in 1964, and the aircraft entered service in 1970. As told by Peter W. Merlin in his book Dreamland The Secret History of Area 51, it was reportedly capable of cruising at Mach 3.2 and reaching altitudes above 80,000 feet. This perplexed Western experts, who wondered how the Soviets had apparently achieved unexpected breakthroughs in metallurgy, engine and airframe design, and perhaps even avionics. In 1973 Air Force secretary Robert C. Seamans asserted that the MiG-25 was “probably the best interceptor in production in the world today.”

Records set in 1967 with stripped-down prototypes achieved a speed of 1,852 mph and a zoom- limb altitude of 118,898 feet. If the MiG-25 proved to be as formidable as analysts believed, the American government would be forced to respond with costly and urgent defense appropriations. If, on the other hand, Western fears proved unfounded, then the DoD and Congress could more efficiently and intelligently allocate resources to counteract real threats.

The defection of Viktor Belenko

Those answers were delivered on a silver platter on Sep. 6, 1976, when Lt. Viktor Ivanovich Belenko, with the Soviet air force departed from his assigned flight plan during a training sortie, dove to treetop level to avoid being tracked on radar, switched off his radio, and flew toward Japan. With only thirty seconds of fuel remaining, Belenko broke through the clouds near the island of Hokkaido, where his only option was to land immediately at Hakodate Airport. On approach he narrowly missed a departing commercial airliner before touching down at high speed, skidding off the runway, and blowing a tire. The MiG-25 came to rest in the grass beyond the end of the runway. As soon as he exited the cockpit, Belenko tried to communicate to airport officials that he was re- questing political asylum in the United States.

Upon learning of this momentous event, Dave Ferguson from 6513th Flight Test Squadron (the “Red Hats”)* called Maj. Gen. Stafford (then Air Force Flight Test Center commander) to request an urgent meeting to discuss the exploitation possibilities. Belenko’s defection had ignited a political firestorm. The Soviets were furiously demanding that both plane and pilot be immediately re- turned. Though it was unlikely that such a valuable defector would be denied asylum, US authorities would probably agree to return the MiG-25 as a matter of diplomacy Ferguson made a strong case that if the Red Hats were to examine the plane, then time was of the essence.

One of the Soviets’ latest, most sophisticated production aircraft

Ferguson traveled to Hakodate with SMSgt. Robert O. “Bobby” Ellis and other maintenance technicians and a team of Foreign Technology Division (FTD) analysts, eleven men in all. The mission, dubbed Project STABLEMATE, was carried out under the remit of HAVE BRIDGE. Western diplomats fended off Soviet entreaties long enough for the Red Hats to airlift the MiG-25 via C-5A from Hakodate to Hyakuri Japan Air Self-Defense Force Base, east of Tokyo, for a more comprehensive exploitation.

Belenko’s plane had been manufactured between December 1975 and February 1976 and was thus one of the Soviets’ latest, most sophisticated production aircraft.

The results of mechanical, electronic, and metallurgical analysis surprised FTD specialists. The airplane’s electronic systems still used vacuum tubes instead of transistors. Analysts surmised that the Soviets must have reasoned that vacuum tubes would not be affected by electromagnetic pulse in the event of nuclear attack, were more resistant to temperature extremes than transistors, and were easier to replace at remote airfields where transistors might not be readily available. All welding was done by hand, and rivet heads were left exposed in areas not subjected to critical levels of parasitic aerodynamic drag. The airplane’s metal skin was flecked with rust; it had been made from steel alloys rather than titanium, although strips of titanium were used in areas subject to the most-severe heating.

Surprising information

Information provided by the pilot’s flight manual and data supplied by Belenko himself under initial interrogation by the CIA seemed surprising and, at first, contradictory to what was already known about the MiG-25. “You cannot safely exceed Mach 2.8, but actually we were forbidden to exceed Mach 2,5,” Belenko explained. “At high speeds the engines have a very strong tendency to accelerate out of control, and if they go above Mach 2.8 they will overheat and burn up.” Three years earlier, according to intelligence reports, a MiG-25 was tracked overflying Israel at Mach 3.2 and reportedly landed in Egypt with its engines completely wrecked. Western analysts had thought this was a freak accident, but Belenko assured his interrogators that it was simply the inevitable consequence of operating the Foxbat’s Tumansky R15D-300 engines to maximum performance capability.

The MiG-25 was not an air-superiority fighter, but rather an interceptor designed to climb at tremendous speeds, fire missiles during a single pass, and then land.

With a gross weight of 64,200 pounds, the MiG-25 could carry a weapons load of two missiles to a maximum operational altitude of 78,740 feet for a maximum du- ration of two minutes; carrying four missiles reduced the maximum altitude to 68,900 feet. Although experts had feared that the MiG-25 would be a threat to the SR-71, Belenko assured them this was not the case. The Blackbird flew too high and fast to be caught in a trailing pursuit. Additionally, Soviet air-to-air missiles lacked sufficient velocity to overtake a target cruising at Mach 3 speeds, and in the event of a head-on intercept the missile’s guidance system could not adjust to the high closure rate of the SR-71.

Free of mechanical problems

Not at all surprising either to the Red Hats or FTD analysts were Belenko’s claims that the MiG-25 had been remarkably free of mechanical problems. Like other Soviet airplanes, it had been designed for ease and simplicity of maintenance. Even a mechanic with modest skills and training could quickly check critical systems by inserting plugs from portable test sets.
Once the Americans and Japanese had finished methodically mining the MiG-25 of its secrets, they finally agreed to return the plane to the Soviets.

Critics, most notably Rep. Milton R. “Bob’ Carr of the House Armed Services Committee, were quick to disparage the MiG-25 as being barely equal to the aging F-4 Phantom and “hopelessly outclassed by our new-generation McDonnell [Douglas] F-15 and General Dynamics F-16… our two newer Air Force fighters [that] can out-climb, out-accelerate, out-turn, out-see, out-hide and out-shoot the Foxbat by margins so wide that our expected kill-ratio advantage is almost incalculable.”

Yet, having closely examined one during its brief visit to Japan, some American analysts were very impressed with the MiG-25. One reportedly said that some aspects of the plane were brilliantly engineered. Though relatively crude by Western standards. The plane seemed likely to be capable of performing its mission effectively at a frac- ion of the cost of a US equivalent, should one have been built.

A damned good plane

“We thought it was a damned good plane, and that’s what it turned out to be,” another analyst commented “We’re belittling it because it’s unsophisticated or because it rusts; in fact, it can fly higher, faster, and with a bigger payload than any plane in the world.” As had been seen during previous exploitation of Eastern Bloc military hardware, it was readily apparent that Soviet designers were efficient cost managers who used only as much quality as was needed to accomplish a task. One expert summed up the situation: “They [Soviet designers seem to ask, ‘Why go to the expense of developing something new when we have something proven and cheaper on the shelf?’ They could come over here and teach us something in the way of cost-conscious management and design.”

*The 6513th Flight Test Squadron (known as the “Red Hats”) was activated at Edwards AFB, CA on 1 Dec 1977 as part of the USAF Flight Test Center. The squadron was assigned to Edwards, although it operated from Tonopah Test Range Airport, NV to perform technical evaluations of acquired Soviet Aircraft. Ferguson started as Suit’s deputy and eventually became commander of the Red Hats.

Dreamland The Secret History of Area 51 is published by Schiffer Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: CIA and unknown

“Fresco”

The design of the MiG-17 was undertaken to correct the deficiencies that the earlier MiG-15 had at higher speeds. It was the first Soviet fighter to have an afterburning engine, the Klimov VK-1. In 1949, the Mikoyan-Gurevich (MiG) design bureau began work on a new fighter to replace the MiG-15.

The prototype MiG-17 (NATO code name Fresco) first flew in January 1950 and was reported to have exceeded Mach 1 in level flight. Production began in late 1951, but the aircraft were not available in sufficient quantities to take part in the Korean War.

The MiG-17 has served in the air arms of at least 20 nations throughout the world – including China.

After Mao’s communists took control of mainland China in 1949, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) developed an uneasy partnership with the nationalist Chinese government on Taiwan for covert air operations over the mainland – dropping agents and propaganda, and collecting signals, imagery and nuclear intelligence. But Communist China’s air defences reacted with determination and ingenuity to the unwelcome intruders.

CIA Spy Planes

In fact, as explained by Chris Pocock with Clarence Fu in the book The Black Bats CIA Spy Flights Over China from Taiwan 1951-1969, Chinese military technicians adapted Soviet hardware as well as tactics. During 1957, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) 11th Aviation School and the 14th and 18th Air Divisions worked to improve the performance of the newly-arrived MiG-17PF fighters. The shortcomings of this aircraft’s RP-5 intercept radar were already apparent to Western intelligence as well the Chinese. First, the effective range was only two-and-a-half miles. Second, operating below about 3,000 feet it could not discriminate aircraft targets from ground clutter.

One solution explored by the Chinese to the second problem was to inhibit the radar’s -14 degree downward scan in elevation. The upward scan started from two degrees below the horizontal, and might still be adequate for interception, provided that the MiG pilot was well-vectored by Ground-controlled interception (GCI) to fly towards the target at the same altitude. But the PLAAF soon realised that, in order to intercept a relatively slow-flying target like the B-17, the MiG-17 had to be flown at an Angle-of-Attack (AoA) of 4-5 degrees to keep it from stalling. At this attitude, the -2 degree scan was useless, unless the target was above the interceptor. Since the intruders from Taiwan were flying at 1,000 feet they were usually below the interceptors. And it would be suicide for the MiG pilots to try and fly lower at night.

The Chinese pilots and technicians thought again. The downward scan of the radar was inhibited by only seven degrees. When the MiG flew at 4-5 degrees AoA the radar can was effectively 2-3 degrees below horizontal. This could provide a scan of the target without including lots of ground clutter.

12 Chinese MiGs scrambled to intercept lone CIA B-17 Spy Plane

The radar-equipped MiG-17PFs were thrown into the battle to intercept the intruders. On the night of Mar. 13, 1958, one Mig-17PF flown by Wang Guo Shan of the 18th Division was the PLAAF’s last chance against a 34th Squadron (Black Bat) B-17 that had flown for six hours over the southern provinces. No fewer than eleven MiG-15s had previously been scrambled further north when Wang took off from Shati airfield, in Guangdong. As the B-17 left the mainland and flew low out to sea Wang pursued it for 50 miles. Running short of fuel, he was directed by GCI to land at Shuixi airfield, on the Leizhou peninsula north of Hainan Island. But fog rolled over the airfield and Wang crashed and was killed as he tried to approach.

It was the second fatal loss of the night for the PLAAF. Earlier a MiG-15bis flown by Yang Yu Jiang took off from Changsha to act as a radio relay aircraft in the hunt for the B-17. Contact with the pilot was lost soon after takeoff, and the MiG crashed near Datuopu airfield at 2300.

The Black Bats CIA Spy Flights Over China from Taiwan 1951-1969 is published by Schiffer Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

The Dragon Lady

The US Air Force (USAF) jointly managed U-2 Dragon Lady development, testing and missions with the CIA from the start. Pilots for overflights of the USSR, though, were civilians working for the CIA. President Dwight D. Eisenhower believed sending military pilots over the USSR would be perceived as an act of war, so USAF Reserve fighter pilots voluntarily quit the service and went to work as CIA pilots. Officially, they were Lockheed test pilots.

The first U-2 flight over the USSR took place on July 4, 1956, and it brought back photos of Leningrad’s shipyards. Several more flights followed, and the photos they produced helped the US conclude that there was no “bomber gap” or “missile gap” in favor of the Soviets, as many feared. Eventually the CIA flew 24 U-2 missions over the USSR, and numerous flights over other communist nations.

These early flights over the Soviet Union in the late 1950s provided the president and other US decision makers with key intelligence on Soviet military capability.

Carmine Vito

Carmine Vito, one of the first six pilots trained to fly the high-altitude reconnaissance craft for the CIA, is the only U-2 pilot to fly directly over Moscow. As explained by Eric Hehs in his article Carmine Vito: U-2 Pilot for Code One Magazine, his flight was the third operational flight over potentially hostile territory, or what the pilots called ‘hot’ flights. Carl Overstreet flew the first such flight of the U-2 on Jun. 20, 1956. The mission covered Poland and East Germany. Then Hervy Stockman flew over Soviet territory on Jul. 4, going as far north as Leningrad to photograph naval shipyards and then west to the Baltic States to cover jet bomber bases. The fourth, fifth, and sixth missions were flown by Marty Knutson, Glen Dunaway, and Jake Kratt. All were successful.

“The Russians launched planes to intercept Overstreet on the first flight,” notes Vito. “But they couldn’t reach him.” Stockman’s flight was also detected by Soviet radar. Several MiG fighters scrambled to intercept him, too. As with previous flights, the intercepts failed. Soviet fighters could not approach the altitude needed to shoot down the lofty U-2.

Selection

Vito’s selection for the Moscow mission was more a function of circumstance than of design when the orders came to fly. The U-2 detachment at Wiesbaden was typically given an alert notice from headquarters twelve hours before takeoff. The notice usually came before five p.m. During those twelve hours, ground crew and pilots prepared for the flight. Lockheed, Pratt & Whitney, and Kodak crews conducted ground checks of the airplane, engine, and cameras. Pilots suited up in their specialized partial pressure suits and breathed pure oxygen to ward off the effects of rapid decompression (the bends). To purge nitrogen from their blood, U-2 pilots had to be “on the hose” for at least two hours before they were given the green light for takeoff.

“Without a go signal from headquarters, everyone headed for the club after five that evening,” explains Vito. “On that particular weekend, the 4th of July, most everyone was celebrating. When the late go came down from headquarters, I was the only one who had had only one drink. So, even though our order of mission flights had been predetermined by drawing straws, I was selected for the mission.”

The Mission

After all of these years of describing this particular U-2 mission, Vito can’t be certain if he’s telling the story from actual memories or telling it from memories of previous descriptions. Whichever the case, he remembers the firework display keeping him awake that night and the obligatory steak and egg meal early the next morning. “They always fed us steak and eggs before a flight,” he says. “I didn’t want steak and eggs at two in the morning, but they were on the checklist. So I had to eat.”

Vito’s route took him over Kracow, Poland, and then to Brest and Baranovici in the Ukraine. He stayed on this east-northeasterly route, overflying Minsk on his way to the Soviet capital.

U-2 pilot flying over Moscow

The mission began in bad weather. “We had about 200 feet of visibility on the ground,” recalls Vito. “The sky was clear at 3,000 to 4,000 feet, but I had undercast halfway inbound.” The weather cleared as Vito followed a railroad line from Minsk to Moscow. At an altitude of more than 66,000 feet, he listened to Peter and the Wolf, a Russian musical composition with narration, transmitted from a Soviet radio station. Small mosaic fields of the collective farms passed below him. “Those fields reminded me that Russian farmers tilled the land by hand,” he says. “I couldn’t get mad at people who work that hard. I was never mad at the Soviet people themselves, just at their government.”

Vito’s mission took him directly over Moscow and its extensive network of newly built air defenses, which ringed the city in three concentric circles at twenty, forty, and sixty miles from the city center. A smoggy sky hid the city below. “My bubble burst,” Vito recalls. “I thought, Gee I came all this way for nothing. But the filters on my camera cut through the haze. A year or so later, I learned that the resulting film picked up some remarkable detail.”

According to a CIA history of the U-2, Vito’s mission came back with images of the Fili airframe plant where the Soviets were building their first jet bomber (known as the Bison to the West); a bomber arsenal in Ramenskoye; a rocket engine plant in Khimki; and a missile plant in Kaliningrad. From just east of Moscow, he turned north to the Baltic coast and then back south to West Germany.

‘Ace-in-a-day’ without firing a single shot

“I learned later that the Soviets launched at least five fighters to intercept my flight,” says Vito. “Two planes took off initially. The lead plane aborted takeoff, ran off the runway, and exploded. The wingman went through lead’s flames and then bailed out. Two more airplanes scrambled and were refueled in the air. Those airplanes got lost or collided. The pilots bailed out. A fifth plane scrambled but couldn’t find the tanker. He was lost and never found to this day.” Vito never received credit for five aerial victories. “After all, I never fired a shot,” he says.

On his way back to West Germany, the Canadian radar came on the air: “Lone Ranger, this is Tonto. Keep heading the way you are going. You have twenty-two minutes to touchdown.”

“I knew they were talking to me because they had the best radar around and had picked us up on previous flights,” recalls Vito. “But U-2 pilots had to observe complete silence on the radio. To this day, I wish I could have replied, ‘Ti Ee Kemosabe.’”

Vito accumulated about 450 hours in about sixty-five flights in the U-2 from 1955 to 1959. His last flight was in the first U-2C at Edwards AFB. He left U-2 headquarters at the CIA in August 1960.

Photo credit: Lockheed Martin / U.S. Air Force

The centerpiece of America’s Naval forces

Aircraft carriers are the centerpiece of America’s Naval forces – the most adaptable and survivable airfields in the world. On any given day, Sailors aboard an aircraft carrier and its air wing come to the fight trained and equipped across a full range of missions. They are ready to control the sea, conduct strikes, and maneuver across the electromagnetic spectrum and cyberspace. No other naval force fields a commensurate range and depth of combat capabilities.

Today the US Navy operates 11 carriers, all nuclear-powered: ten 101,000-ton, 1,092 ft long Nimitz class carriers and Gerald R. Ford (the lead of the class Gerald R. Ford) 110,000-ton, 1,106 ft long carrier.

Aircraft carrier fantail opening

As the images in this post show, each aircraft carrier has a large aft opening called fantail.

Fantails “are small insectivorous birds of Australasia, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent belonging to the genus Rhipidura.” According to Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places, they fly in a very distinctive way with the feathers spread out to help them turn quickly so they can catch insects.

The very back end of an aircraft carrier kind-of protruded in a similar way. Anyway, someone thought so because they called it the fantail.

‘The fantail opening serves several functions,’ says Paul Montgomery, Boiler/Eng Controls USS JFK CV67.

Montgomery sums up just about all of the reasons for this large aft opening on Quora.

• It provides a sheltered area to access the ship when anchored away from a pier.
• It provides a means to tow stuff behind the ship while underway. Some of those things are secret, but a common item to tow was a barge used as target practice by the pilots. Brrrt.
• The jet engine shop is just behind doors at the center right. When open, they can extend a rail system where engines can be tested under full power after overhaul.
• It provides a diving platform for divers to do repairs to the four screws (propellers).
• You can fish off of it while anchored.
• Sailors sometimes break out the barbecue grill there and cook.
• It allows for excellent pictures of the wake of the ship extending out over calm waters for as far as you can see.

A wonderful place to go for relieving stress

Darald Daugherty, former Electronics Technician aboard US Navy aircraft carriers, adds;

‘I personally observed this area most routinely used for testing jet engines, but it was also used each morning for launching weather balloons. The Aerographer’s Mate’s weather balloon shop is on the far right side (of my CVN anyway).

‘As an added bonus, with flight ops secured, this area was a WONDERFUL place to go for relieving stress! It was both mesmerizing and tranquilizing to watch the frothy white wake of our ship’s four massive screws churning the sea. Within minutes, whatever or whomever had your mind on edge just simply didn’t matter anymore. And at night, if you were REALLY lucky, you might even be treated to a light show of bio luminescent algae which would leave a glowing green wake trail behind the ship. Such an experience is something that cannot be described or recorded, you simply have to see it first hand, out in the pitch black sky and open sea!’

As the following video taken from aboard USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) shows, it is also a great spot for watching incoming jets, although aircraft carrier crew members go out there during one of the rare quiet moments with nothing in the air. Moreover the fantail is normally secured during flight operations for safety reasons.

Top image: PH Rome J. Toledo / U.S. Navy

Det 4

The SR-71, the most advanced member of the Blackbird family that included the A-12 and YF-12, was designed by a team of Lockheed personnel led by Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, then vice president of Lockheed’s Advanced Development Company Projects, commonly known as the “Skunk Works” and now a part of Lockheed Martin Corp.

The Blackbird design originated in secrecy during the late 1950s with the A-12 reconnaissance aircraft that first flew in April 1962 and remained classified until 1976. President Lyndon Johnson publicly announced the existence of the YF-12A interceptor variant on Feb. 29, 1964, more than half a year after its maiden flight. The SR-71 completed its first flight on Dec. 22, 1964.

An SR-71 Blackbird first landed at RAF Mildenhall in September of 1974 when it made its international debut at the Farnborough Air Show. It flew into Mildenhall to prepare for its return flight back to the United States. The plan was to establish a world speed record from London to Los Angeles. Captain “Buck” Adams and RSO Maj. Bill Machoreck flew the 5,645 mile trip in 3 hours and 47 minutes, setting the world record.

On Mar. 31, 1979, Detachment 4 (Det 4) of the 9th SRW was established at Mildenhall. As a result, Habu traditions were carried over to Det 4. 

Habu tradition introduced to Soviet Su-27 Pilots

One Habu tradition was once introduced to old rivals—Soviet MiG pilots! SR pilot Capt. Steve “Griz” Grzebiniak, tells his story in Richard H. Graham’s book SR-71 Revealed The Inside Story.

‘Jim [ Maj. Jim Greenwood, his RSO] and I were TDY to Det in June 4 in June of 1989. The Det was tasked to send an SR-71 to the Paris Air Show. Lieutenant Colonel Tom Henichek was the Det 4 Commander at the time and became the Air Show deployment commander.

‘We flew a brief arrival show, landing in showery weather at Le Bourget airport for four days of static display. The big attraction at the `89 Paris Show was to be the unveiling of the Soviet SU-27 Flanker, for the first time on western soil. The SU-27 was an impressive example of the cutting edge of Eastern Bloc air superiority. It was a large fighter, with massive engines and silenced the crowds daily with its aerial demonstration. Victor Pugachev, the head test pilot for Sukhoi aircraft in the Soviet Union, and the inventor of the unbelievable “Cobra Maneuver” in which the fighter would make a slow speed, high angle pass at low altitude, then snatch its nose back beyond the vertical, an recover with AB’s blazing, was there, along with an elite cadre of other Soviet pilots.

Introducing Victor Pugachev to the Blackbird

‘The Soviets were attracting a lot of attention and press coverage, as was anticipated. However, it seemed that a 25 year old aircraft on display only a few hundred yards away was drawing an even bigger crowd each day. The air buzzed with tension each time Jim, myself, or Tom Henichek would approach the Soviet aircraft displays.  We were finally granted a personal tour of the SU-27, and we reciprocated with an “up-close and personal introduction to our HABU.” The Soviets were extremely interested in the tour Jim gave, and so was the foreign press. It seemed like every time the Soviet pilots got near us, there were cameras and microphones bristling everywhere. This seemed to unnerve the Eastern visitors, and all statements were made by the very flamboyant and eloquent speaking Victor Pugachev. He was obviously schooled in what we would call, “politically correct speech.”

‘Jim and I decided we had to meet these pilots in a less formal manner. After all, they were flying some of the same aircraft, and indeed could have been the same pilots who regularly attempted high altitude intercepts against us in the Barents Sea! The day prior to our departure, after the final aerial demonstration of the afternoon, a note was passed to one of the Russian pilots reading, “Meet us at the base of the tower for a drink—the US pilots.”

‘We avoided being seen in numbers together. We arranged to meet at the Hughes Aircraft chalet. No press was informed, in fact not even Hughes knew why we requested the use of their conference room. We all took round-about paths to the Hughes chalet to avoid being intercepted by the press.

SR-71 Blackbird pilot: “we had a secret party with Victor Pugachev and other Soviet Su-27 Pilots”

‘There was no prior coordination between us and the Soviets, but it became apparent that they had the right idea from the beginning. One of our resourceful maintenance supervisors, Robby Butterfield, obtained two bottles of Cuervo Tequila from a source at the US Embassy. Once behind closed doors, we all introduced ourselves and told our Soviet guests that we invited them for a traditional HABU flyer’s drink—a “Tequila Hooker” [also known as “Tequila Shooters”]! To our surprise, one of the Soviets produced two bottles of Russian vodka. They were prepared! We toasted our guests, showing them the proper “Tequila Hooker” technique, and they did the same for us with their native beverage.

‘They were acting very proper and cordial as Victor announced that they were ready to receive the “press” now. I told him there was, “no press, no cameras, no recorders, nobody knows we’re here Vic!” At that announcement, the room erupted with revelry! Victor was no longer the “mouth piece” for the group. Everyone was eager to learn more about their “comrades” from across the ocean. Victor said to me,

‘Steve, the next time you are spying on us in the Barents Sea, please come up on my radio frequency so we can say hello.” I jokingly said, “Vic, I’ll be glad to do that, but if my voice sounds clear, it’s not because we are very near your border in the Barents Sea, I’m really far away on a training mission, but our radios are very powerful.” We all had a good laugh, realizing that in a week, we would indeed be over the Barents, and we would see those tell-tale contrails of Soviet interceptors, hopelessly fluttering out of airspeed and ideas, far below us.

GLASTNOST, Paris, ’89

‘The spontaneous party lasted about an hour. We signed our bottle of Tequila, and our guests signed an unopened bottle of vodka, and we exchanged them as gifts. The following day, Jim and I departed Le Bouget with a series of afterburner passes. Our departure was to be the last aerial demonstration that day, immediately following the Soviets regular daily flying demo. All Soviet flying demos were mysteriously canceled that day. Could it have been the Tequila, or did they all want to be in place to see the HABU thunder past the crowd and disappear out of sight?

After returning to the Det, we placed the signed bottle of Russian vodka in a small glass case with a simple plaque reading, `GLASTNOST, Paris, ’89.’

Photo credit: Alchetron and Brian Shul / U.S. Air Force

YF-23 Black Widow II

The US Air Force (USAF)’s Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program aimed to produce a fifth-generation air superiority fighter that would be better matched against emerging new aircraft such as the Su-27 Flanker.

In fact, during the late 1970s, a new generation of Soviet fighters and Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs) prompted the USAF to find a replacement for the F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter.

For this reason in 1986, the USAF awarded demonstration contracts to two competing industry teams, the Lockheed-Boeing-General Dynamics (whose proposal was the YF-22A) and the Northrop-McDonnell Douglas (whose proposal was the YF-23A), which would have competed one versus the other in the ATF program.

The Northrop YF-23A was designed to meet USAF needs for survivability, ease of maintenance and supercruise. To satisfy the latter requirement two different engines (the Pratt & Whitney YF119-PW-100L and the General Electric YF120) were competing one versus the other too. Called Augmented Turbofans, these new engines would have allowed both the YF-22 and the YF-23 to fly supersonic without using the afterburner, resulting in fuel savings and increased combat radius and effectiveness.

YF-23A Prototypes

Northrop built two YF-23A prototypes: the first YF-23 (serial number 87-0800), Prototype Air Vehicle 1 (PAV-1), was rolled out on 22 Jun. 1990 and took its 50-minute maiden flight on Aug. 27 with Alfred “Paul” Metz at the controls while the second YF-23 (serial number 87-0801, PAV-2) made its first flight on Oct. 26, piloted by Jim Sandberg. The first aircraft was painted charcoal gray and was unofficially nicknamed “Spider” and “Black Widow II”, the latter after the Northrop P-61 Black Widow of World War II because it featured a red hourglass marking resembling the marking on the underside of the black widow spider before Northrop management had it removed. The second prototype, which was powered by General Electric YF120 engines, was painted in two shades of gray and nicknamed “Gray Ghost”.

The YF-23 emphasized stealth characteristics: in fact to lessen weight and increase stealth, Northrop decided against using thrust vectoring for aerodynamic control as was used on the Lockheed YF-22A.

The first YF-23, with Pratt & Whitney engines, supercruised at Mach 1.43 on Sep. 18, 1990, while the second, with General Electric engines, reached Mach 1.6 on Nov. 29, 1990. By comparison, the YF-22 achieved Mach 1.58 in supercruise. The YF-23 was tested to a top speed of Mach 1.8 with afterburners and achieved a maximum angle-of-attack of 25°. The maximum speed is classified, though sources state a maximum speed greater than Mach 2 at altitude and a supercruise speed greater than Mach 1.6.

Combat demonstration

The aircraft’s weapons bay was configured for weapons launch, and used for testing weapons bay acoustics, but no missiles were fired; instead Lockheed fired AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles successfully from its YF-22 demonstration aircraft.

PAV-1 performed a fast-paced combat demonstration with six flights over a 10-hour period on Nov. 30 1990. Flight testing continued into December, and saw the two YF-23s flying 50 times for a total of 65.2 hours. The tests demonstrated Northrop’s predicted performance values for the YF-23: the YF-23 was stealthier and faster, but the YF-22 was more agile.

The two contractor teams submitted evaluation results with their proposals in Dec. 1990 and on Apr. 23, 1991, Secretary of the Air Force Donald Rice announced that the YF-22 was the winner, while the YF119 was chosen over the YF120 to power the F-22. The Lockheed and Pratt & Whitney designs were rated higher on technical aspects, were considered lower risks, and were considered to have more effective program management.

Following the competition, both YF-23s, without their engines, were transferred to NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, California, where NASA planned to use one of the aircraft to study techniques for the calibration of predicted loads to measured flight results, but this did not take place.

Both YF-23 airframes remained in storage until mid-1996, when the aircraft were transferred to museums.

YF-23-based bomber

Noteworthy in 2004, Northrop Grumman proposed a YF-23-based bomber to meet a USAF requirement for an interim bomber, for which the FB-22 and B-1R were also competing. Northrop modified aircraft PAV-2 to serve as a display model for its proposal, but the chance for the YF-23 to serve in this role ended in 2006, when Quadrennial Defense Review favored a long-range bomber with much greater range, that evoleved in the Next-Generation Bomber program and then in the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) heavy bomber program. Eventually the LRS-B competition was won by Northrop-Grumman with its B-21 Raider.

Today the YF-23A PAV-1, Air Force serial number 87-0800, is on display in the Research and Development hangar of the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio, while the YF-23A PAV-2, AF ser. no. 87-0801, is on exhibit at the Western Museum of Flight, at Torrance Airport, Torrance, California.

However, rumours persisted that despite the two prototypes being retired, a classified strike variant of the YF-23 was developed to fulfil a role similar to that of the F-111.

Source: U.S. Air Force

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

The Raptor

The F-22 Raptor is combination of stealth, supercruise, maneuverability, and integrated avionics, coupled with improved supportability, represents an exponential leap in warfighting capabilities. The Raptor performs both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions allowing full realization of operational concepts vital to the 21st century Air Force.

In short, the F-22 was designed to be a no compromise air to air killer that would be able to defeat anything in air to air combat. The cost was painful even for the US Air Force (USAF) as a result of this attitude. Other designs that are supposed to be much cheaper don’t have the same F-22’s all-aspect stealth let alone the same stealth from the rear.

“The F-22 exhaust nozzles are very expensive and are the only exhausts to provide rearward stealth over a reasonable radar frequency range in a fighter plane,” Mark Knight, a pilot and an aviation expert, says on Quora. “To provide thrust vectoring using a circular nozzle would produce slightly more thrust from the same engine, but a circular nozzle would compromise the stealth of the F-22 from many rearward angles. Yes, the F-35 has a circular nozzle, and yes, it does compromise the stealth of the F-35 from some rear hemisphere angles. The philosophy with the F-35 design was to concentrate on forward hemisphere stealth and not to spend so much on rearward stealth. The F-35 still has reasonable rear hemisphere stealth, but it cannot come close to the F-22 in that regard.”

F-22 Rectangular Exhaust Nozzles

The radar in fact will see the F-35 nozzle as a curved continuous surface which will generate specular reflections. “In a very narrow band of frequencies it is stealthy from the rear, but nowhere near as wide a range of frequencies as the F-22,” Knight explains.

“This is one of the most subtle problems that has to be solved in the stealth design world,” he points out. “The fact that radar systems don’t necessarily see the shape of the actual object, but their own version of the shape dependent upon the relationship between surface feature sizes, surface curvature and wavelength. As wavelength significantly exceeds surface feature size the feature effectively becomes rounded over to the radar and it will reflect as if the object was a different shape. That’s why the subtle curvature of the F-22 nozzle is better, because it is effective until much lower frequencies than the F-35 nozzle.”

Knight continues. “The Su-57 was going to have F-22 style nozzles developed for it but once the engineers got started and discovered how expensive it was going to be the Russian government decided that the improved rear aspect stealth was not worth the extra cost. So, the Su-57 was developed with frontal stealth as a priority. The Chinese did not even consider such designs for their stealth fighters as front hemisphere stealth was all that they considered important.”

Stealth considerations

However, the rectangular exit port of the F-22 nozzle design is not the most important part of it from the point of view of its stealth. “The stealth comes from the pointed projections and the complex shape of the exterior parts of the nozzle. I have highlighted some of these features on the picture included [Below].”

Knight concludes: “These stealth considerations forced the cross section of the nozzle into the rectangular shape as a side effect. The exterior parts that provide the stealth are not rectangular but have a series of subtle curved and saw-toothed shapes that avoid reflecting radar energy back the way it came from a wide range of angles. This cannot work so well with a circular nozzle.”

Photo credit: Mark Knight via Quora, Capt. Dale Greer / U.S. Air Force

Stratotanker crew providing support of trans-pacific ferry missions

As reported by the Carswell Sentinel, a squadron-based newspaper at Carswell Air Force Base (AFB) [Carswell AFB is no more, it’s now Naval Air Station, Joint Reserve Base, Ft. Worth] in February 1977 the crew of a KC-135 Stratotanker belonging to the 7th Air Refueling Squadron’s (7 ARS) compiled an impressive refueling record while on deployment to Andersen AFB, Guam and the Pacific Tanker Task Force.

The KC-135 Stratotanker provides the core aerial refueling capability for the United States Air Force and has excelled in this role for almost 60 years. This unique asset enhances the Air Force’s capability to accomplish its primary mission of global reach. It also provides aerial refueling support to Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and allied nation aircraft. The KC-135 is also capable of transporting litter and ambulatory patients using patient support pallets during aeromedical evacuations.

Capt. E Brady King, 7 ARS information officer said in the article appeared on the Carswell Sentinel that the KC-135 crew was deployed to Andersen to provide support of trans-pacific ferry missions of F-4s, A-7s and a re-deployment mission of F-15s from Korea to the United States.

KC-135 low on fuel giving 6,000 pounds of fuel to F-4

“The most significant accomplishment of the crew, was the emergency air refueling of a F-4 being ferried from Hickam AFB, Hawaii, to Andersen AFB,” said Captain King, “As the crew was leading the F-4 into Guam, the weather rapidly deteriorated and the primary approach aids (electronic means to descend through the clouds to land) were inoperative,” explained King.

“Because of low fuel the aircraft could not divert to Kadena, Okinawa,” he added. The KC-135 crew orbited over Guam while the F-4 attempted six landing approaches.

After the sixth approach failed, the F-4 pilot informed the Andersen command post that he needed fuel immediately, and that he could not wait for the strip alert aircraft from Andersen to take-off. At that point the KC-135 crew took over.

Captain Larry C. Beam, the aircraft commander, declared an emergency and climbed to refuel the desperate F-4. Through precise coordination of the pilot-navigation team, and the calm, confident actions of the boom operator, the rendezvous and aerial refueling was successfully accomplished, giving 6,000 pounds of fuel to the F-4.

After the refueling, the F-4 landed at Agana Naval Air Station, Guam.

Despite the bad local weather conditions, Captain Beam landed at Andersen AFB and shut down his own engines with 4,500 pounds of fuel remaining.

Thus, through the careful, deliberate actions of the KC-135 crew, a valuable F-4 aircraft was saved.

Stratotanker crew chief first TDY

Earl Belz, former KC-135 crew chief, told to The Aviation Geek Club;

‘I was the assistant crew chief on the KC 135 in this story.

‘It was my first TDY as a new Air Force crew chief. I was part of a pacific tanker task force that was ferrying F-4s from Hickam airbase in Hawaii to Andersen airbase in Guam. My tanker was on approach to land at Guam. When the pilot was asked to go back up and refuel the Phantom because it was almost out of fuel.

‘As a new crew chief, I was surprised that we went back up and refilled the Phantom as our fuel was pretty low in the tanker. However, we climb the altitude refuel the Phantom and managed to land at Andersen with only 4500 pounds of fuel registering in the fuel totalizer.

‘Part of our Pacific tanker, task force deployment, took us to Clark airbase in the Philippines and the crew chief and myself had our own patch (below) made signifying our participation, and that refuel.

‘The following patch instead is the official Pacific tanker task force patch that we were given to wear on our flight suit.

‘I have saved that article all these years along with those patches because that’s what a geek does.

Photos

Belz adds;

‘These four photos are ones I took from my KC-135 during that mission.

‘In the first photo taken from the cockpit, you can see an F-4 being refueled by another KC-135.

‘The second photo was taken from the over wing hatch window and shows one of the three F-4s we were ferrying to Guam.

‘The third photo is one of the F-4s moving into position for a top off. That grease pencil writing you see in the boom pod photo is something the boom operator does to help remind him of the call sign of the fighters that he communicates with.

‘I took this photo from the cockpit and is two F-4s on a KC-135 that was part of the Pacific Tanker task force.’

Photo credit: US Air Force and Earl Belz

The first USAF aircraft designed for close air support

The A-10 Thunderbolt II is the first Air Force aircraft specially designed for close air support of ground forces. They are simple, effective and survivable twin-engine jet aircraft that can be used against light maritime attack aircraft and all ground targets, including tanks and other armored vehicles.

The Thunderbolt II’s 30mm GAU-8/A Gatling gun can defeat an array of ground targets to include tanks.

Warthog Gun

The General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger is a 30 mm hydraulically driven seven-barrel Gatling-style autocannon that is typically mounted in the US Air Force’s Fairchild Republic A-10 Warthog.

Designed specifically for the anti-tank role, the Avenger is 20 ft long and delivers very powerful rounds at a high rate of fire.

The GAU-8 Avenger gun itself weighs 620 pounds (280 kg), but the complete weapon, with feed system and drum, weighs 4,029 pounds (1,828 kg) with a maximum ammunition load.

It measures 19 ft 5 1⁄2 in (5.931 m) from the muzzle to the rearmost point of the ammunition system, and the ammunition drum alone is 34.5 inches (88 cm) in diameter and 71.5 inches (1.82 m) long.

Power for operating the gun is provided by twin hydraulic motors pressurized from two independent hydraulic systems.

How many rounds does the GAU-8/A carry into battle and for how long can it fire continuously?

GAU-8/A cannon typical load-out

Former A-10 Warthog pilot Lynn Taylor explains on Quora;

‘From Wikipedia’s excellent article on the GAU-8 Avenger:

The magazine can hold 1,174 rounds, although 1,150 is the typical load-out.

‘Also…

The Avenger’s rate of fire was originally selectable, 2,100 rounds per minute (rpm) in the low setting, or 4,200 rpm in the high setting. Later this was changed to a fixed rate of 3,900 rpm.

‘Here, I’ll even do the math for you.

‘3,900 rpm = 65 rounds per second (rps)

‘1,150 rounds / 65 rps = 17.69 seconds of gun’

For how long can Avenger gun fire continuously?

Taylor continues;

‘Now, there are some other factors like barrel spin-up time in the first half second, so you can actually get a little more time out of it, depending on how many shots you take.

‘Also from that fine Wikipedia article:

In practice, the cannon is limited to one and two-second bursts to avoid overheating and conserve ammunition

‘We never really worried about overheating the barrels, though we did try to shepherd our bullets. It’s always better to run out of targets before you run out of ammo.

‘Still, you’re looking at anywhere from 9 to 18 gun passes before you’re dry. Not too shabby. And that’s not even counting all of the other care packages hanging from the wings.’

Taylor concludes;

‘Here is a short video of what that looks like on the receiving end, using high-explosive incendiary ammunition. Note that this is a gun run against a strafe target, not a point target. So, the bullets are spread out in a line, and the run lasts a little longer than usual to cover the target area.’

Photo credit: Terry L. Awell / U.S. Air National Guard and Senior Airman Chris Drzazgowski / U.S. Air Force

Air traffic controllers

Air traffic controllers (ATCs) are the unseen professionals who ensure passenger safety and efficient flight execution. ATCs manage aircraft safety in the air and on the ground, provide assistance and guidance to pilots, and coordinate air operations effectively.

Pilots and air traffic controllers (ATCs) don’t usually argue, but when they do it is usually about some misunderstanding or confusion about instructions. Other times it is when an aircraft is instructed to do something, and the pilot replies “unable” like being directed to turn in the direction of a thunderstorm or to make a crossing restriction altitude that can’t be done, or a speed that is imprudent.

The best pilot-ATC argument of all time

Ron Wagner, former pilot in the US Air Force (USAF) 89th Airlift Wing (the “Presidential Wing”), recalls the best pilot-ATC argument ever on Quora;

‘My old time aviation buddies can skip this because it’s an old mythical story. Probably didn’t happen, but if it did, this was the best pilot-controller argument of all time!

‘Allegedly the German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. German controllers are tough and run airports like, well, like Germans were known to run things. No sense of humor. No room for error. And they were quick with tongue lashings for anyone who didn’t obey perfectly and quickly. They, it is alleged, not only expect one to know one’s gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them.

Boeing 747 Speedbird 206 Vs Frankfurt Airport ATC

‘A British Airways Boeing 747 call sign Speedbird 206 (the call sign for British Airways jets is Speedbird) landed and was handed over to ground control and given taxi instructions.

Speedbird 206: “Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway.”
Ground: “Speedbird 206 taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven.”

‘The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.

Ground: “Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?”
Speedbird 206: “Stand by, Ground, I’m looking up our gate location now.”
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): “Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?”
Speedbird 206 (coolly): “Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark … and I didn’t land.”

Photo credit: British Airways / Crown Copyright

Royal Norwegian Air Force Starfighters

The development of the Lockheed F-104, America’s first operational Mach 2 fighter, was initially motivated by the threat posed by fast and agile Soviet-built MiGs of the Korean War. By the time of its introduction to the US Air Force (USAF) in 1958, the Starfighter, with its short wings and powerful General Electric J79 engine, had been tailored to an interceptor role. The sleek aircraft was quickly dubbed the “missile with a man in it.”

The USAF procured about 300 Starfighters in one- and two-seat versions. In addition, more than 1,700 F-104s were built in the United States and abroad under the military aid program for various nations including Canada, West Germany, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Turkey, Spain, Taiwan and Japan.

The Royal Norwegian Air Force (RNoAF) received 18 surplus CF-104s and four CF-104Ds from Canada in 1974, the country had initially received 19 Canadair built F-104Gs and four TF-104Gs in 1963 under the Military Assistance Program. The F-104 was phased out of Norwegian service in winter 1982.

A very unusual intercept

Former F-104 pilot Maj Rolf Noel, 334 SKV RNoAF, tells the story of a very unusual intercept he undertook with his Starfighter in Michael Napier’s book In Cold War Skies;

‘On 28 February 1979, I was launched from QRA at Bodø, leading another F-104G to investigate three Soviet Il-38 May anti-submarine aircraft that were operating in the Barents Sea, some 130km northeast of the North Cape. After identifying the ‘bogies’, we turned back towards our forward operating base at Banak in the northernmost part of Norway; this by now was some 240km away. I led us down to low-level to carry out a reconnaissance on some shipping on the return leg. At 200ft over the sea, we were out of radio contact with the GCI controller.

Suddenly I caught sight of a contrail coming towards us, high above and almost on a reciprocal course. It was moving fast; should we go for it. A quick fuel check said ‘no’, but with over 2,000hrs operational experience on the F-104, my brain said ‘yes’. I told my wingman to shut down his radar, IFF and TACAN and follow me in silence.

Royal Norwegian Air Force F-104 intercepting MiG-25

‘I gave him the sign to go into afterburner and we accelerated to 620kt. Then we pulled up into a slightly skewed ‘Immelman’, following a lead pursuit curve all the way up to whatever altitude we needed to catch the contact. Halfway through the manoeuvre we came back into radio coverage and the GCI controller suddenly broke in with some unnecessary chatter. It was very distracting, so I called ‘Judy’ (meaning that I did not need his help) and silence reigned once again. At this stage, my wingman fell out of formation and ended some trailing me by 16km, so I told him to head back towards Banak. The manoeuvre worked out perfectly for me since I arrived directly underneath the contact at 36,000ft and Mach 0.96. I could not believe my eyes: Was it really a Foxbat: Yes it was a MiG-25 Foxbat C. 

‘However, I was going in completely the wrong direction with my fuel getting critically low, but I knew that I had to take some photographs if I was going to be believed and took some ten images in around 15sec, ending up on his starboard side. Then he saw me and accelerated away, manoeuvring violently. I turned back towards the coast, picked up my wingman and we both landed at Banak with less fuel than I care to mention. Unfortunately, the GCI controller was given credit for the intercept, even though it had been a completely selfpositioned independent manoeuvre on my part. In reality it was only thanks to my own experience, judgement and also a healthy disrespect for fuel regulations – that we caught the Foxbat!’

In Cold War Skies is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: Mike Freer and Leonid Faerberg (transport-photo.com) via Wikipedia

The secret development of the F-117

The Lockheed F-117A was developed in response to an Air Force request for an aircraft capable of attacking high-value targets without being detected by enemy radar. By the 1970s, new materials and techniques allowed engineers to design an aircraft with radar-evading or “stealth” qualities. The result was the F-117A, the world’s first operational stealth aircraft.

The unique design of the single-seat F-117A provided exceptional combat capabilities.

The F-117A could employ a variety of weapons and was equipped with sophisticated navigation and attack systems integrated into a digital avionics suite that increased mission effectiveness and reduced pilot workload. Detailed planning for missions into highly defended target areas was accomplished by an automated mission planning system developed, specifically, to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the F-117A.

In true Skunk Works fashion, it was developed rapidly and in complete secrecy.

Though far from the traditional, sleek aircraft designs preferred by Skunk Works founder Kelly Johnson, the F-117’s unique design enabled it to reflect radar waves. With its angular panels bolstered by an external coating of radar-absorbent material, the aircraft was nearly invisible to radar.

In the summer of 1975, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) held a “pole-off” competition. Skunk Work’s design demonstrated unmatched low observability and won Lockheed Skunk Works the contract for Have Blue, the stealth demonstrator that led to the F-117 Nighthawk.

F-19 Stealth Fighter

DARPA awarded Skunk Works with the contract for the Nighthawk less than a year after Have Blue’s successful first flight in 1977, and a legendary partnership between the Skunk Works team and the US Air Force quickly made F-117 production a reality. The first flight took place in 1981 just 31 months after the contract award, and deliveries began the following year.

The aircraft achieved initial operational capability in 1983 but was kept under the strictest of secrecy for many years. It wasn’t until 1988 that the program was publicly acknowledged, and not until 1990 that it made its first formal public appearance. By this time, the aircraft had been operational for seven years.

Noteworthy the most mind blowing fact about the F-117 is that a very unclear picture of the jet led to the creation of one of the most legendary fictional aircraft, the F-19 Stealth Fighter.

Noteworthy the F-19 was based on some very unclear pictures which didn’t show the true shape of the actual plane.

Models of the F-19 Stealth Fighter started to appear in the eighties and were available from four manufacturers: Revell, Monogram, Italeri and Testors. All of them claimed that their models originated from a kit based on photos of an existing aircraft taken around Area 51.

The manufactures had decades of experience in producing highly detailed models that pilots and aerospace engineers purchased. The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and other media discussed the models after they hit market in the mid eighties; when the real stealth aircraft crashed in California in July 1986, news stories used the model to depict it. Representative Ron Wyden asked the chairman of Lockheed Corporation why an aircraft that Congressmen could not see was sold as model aircraft.

Cult classic

In the meantime, the F-19 became a cult classic: it appeared in Nintendo games and in GI-Joe cartoon series. Everybody agreed it was a real plane but nobody knew the actual look, the maker and the role played by the aircraft. The cartoonist who drew the famed Buck Danny comics series depicted all three the different models of the F-19 parked on the tarmac to make fun of the fact that nobody agreed on the actual shape of the “real” aircraft.

When the F-117 was publicly revealed in November 1988 it was clear that the F-19 did not really resemble it, which no doubt pleased those working with the real, black aircraft.

However, even though the F-19 Stealth Fighter never came to existence, this one-of-a-kind aircraft that never was will always be remembered as one of the ultimate Pop-culture icons of the 1980s.

Photo credit: Bill Abbott and Bsivko via Wikipedia and U.S. Air Force

The mighty Tomcat

Few aircraft of the Cold War era have attained such cult status and adoration among those that flew it, wanted to fly it or kept it flying as the mighty Grumman F-14 Tomcat.

The jet was the final fighter created by the Grumman Aircraft Corporation and it had a reputation for being a tenacious interceptor that proved its durability in combat.

With the thawing of the Cold War in the late 1980s, the Tomcat community was faced with a stark choice. Turn the aircraft into a multirole strike fighter platform, or retain the fighter mission only and face almost certain extinction.

In a mere five years, the F-14 transitioned from guarding against improbable Cold War scenarios to becoming the LANTIRN-equipped, self-escorting strike fighter of choice.

With its two-seat cockpit, substantial payload and superior speed, range and recovery capabilities compared to the F/A-18 Hornet, the F-14 transformed into the formidable “Bombcat.”

Its contribution in Operations Enduring Freedom (OEF, 2001–02) and Iraqi Freedom I–IV (OIF, 2003–06) proved its worth.

Unusual configuration

Here’s something you don’t see everyday: the incredible photos in this post in fact show an F-14 Tomcat (actually the F-14D BuNo. 164341) flying without canopy.

The U.S. Naval Aviator driving this Tomcat was then Lt. Geoff Vickers from Fighter Squadron 213 (VF-213) Black Lions and the story of how he was able to successfully land in this “unusual configuration” is quite interesting.

In 2002 Vickers and its squadron were detached to Naval Air Station (NAS) Fallon, Nevada, for strike training when he was tasked with giving the battle-group-air-warfare commander an orientation flight in the F-14D. As skipper of the cruiser in charge of the battle group’s air defenses he had the chance to experience several E-2C and EA-6B flights, and he remarked the fact that the Prowler guys hadn’t been able to make him sick.

As explained by Vickers himself to VFP62.com, his task for that flight was “to demonstrate the Tomcat’s performance and tactical capabilities. Though this flight was my first without a qualified radar-intercept officer (RIO) in the back seat, I had flown with a number of aviators who had very little Tomcat experience.”

The battle-group-air-warfare commander arrived at the squadron a half-hour before the brief to receive his cockpit-orientation lecture and ejection-seat checkout. Once in the ready room, Vickers and his wingman briefed the flight.

F-14D performance demo

Vickers recalls: “I told the Captain that after the G-awareness maneuver, we would do a quick inverted check to verify cockpit security. Looking back, I should have recognized his anxiety when he mocked me and said, ‘Just a quick inverted check?’ then laughed. I didn’t realize hanging upside down with nothing but glass and 11,000 feet of air separating you from the desert floor might not be the most comfortable situation in the world for a surface-warfare officer.”

Vickers told the battle-group-air-warfare commander that during the flight they should have done an F-14D performance demo, followed by a couple of intercepts and by an air-to-air refueling from an S-3 Viking. “I was determined to avoid the temptation to intentionally make him sick and uncomfortable” says Vickers.

After the take off, Vickers checked the airspeed and since it confirmed he was above the 300 knots recommended to do the check, he rolled the aircraft inverted. “I decided not to really put on a lot of negative G and unloaded to about .3 to .5 negative G’s-just enough to make anything float that wasn’t stowed properly. If he was uncomfortable in such a benign maneuver, it would be better to find out then, rather than when we were racing toward the earth during a radar-missile defense.”

My RIO just ejected

As Vickers started to push on the stick, he heard a loud pop, followed by a roar. The cockpit filled with smoke, and they suddenly lost cabin pressure. “I first thought a catastrophic environmental-control system (ECS) had failed. I said to myself, ‘This is new. I’ve never even heard of something like this happening.’ Time compression turned the next few seconds into an eternity. I knew the first thing I had to do was to roll the jet upright and assess the situation. About three seconds after the first indication of a problem, I had the jet upright and knew exactly what had happened. I transmitted, ‘Lion 52. Emergency, my RIO just ejected.’ “

While Vickers was thinking he would have to make all the calls in the blind since he thought that all the noise of flying at 320 knots without the canopy would have never allowed the communications, he heard Desert Control contacting him: “Understand your wingman ejected?” “Negative, my RIO ejected. I’m still flying the plane.” “OK. Understand your RIO ejected. You’re flying the plane, and you’re OK?” Vickers replied he was ok but he didn’t tell he was flying a convertible F-14.

F-14 Without Canopy after Backseater Bailed Out

“I was relieved to see a good parachute below me, and I passed this info to Desert Control. Very quickly after the emergency call, an F/A-18 pilot from the Naval Strike and Air-Warfare Center, who also was in the area, announced he would take over as the on-scene commander of the search-and-rescue (SAR) effort.” Vickers told his wingman to pass the location of the battle-group-air-warfare commander because “I could not change any of my displays. Once my wingman started to pass the location, I started dumping gas and put the needle on the nose back to NAS Fallon. One of our air-wing SH-60s was in the area and responded, along with the station’s UH-1N. The Captain was recovered almost immediately and transported to the local hospital for treatment and evaluation.”

After having raised his seat to have a better outside view during the landing, Vickers slowed the speed and decided to return to base “I did consider the controllability check, and I directed my wingman to check for damage to the vertical stabilizers-he found none. The faster I got on deck, the faster I would get warm. I slowed to approach speed in 10-knot increments at about 3,000 feet AGL (Above Ground Level) and had no problems handling the jet. As I approached the field,

“I was surprised at how quiet it got. The noise was only slightly louder than the normal ECS roar in the Tomcat. I’ll admit I felt silly saying the landing checklist over the ICS (the Intercom system, which allowed the F-14 pilot and RIO to communicate via the microphones built in to their oxygen masks and headphone speakers in their helmets) when no one else was in the cockpit, but I didn’t want to risk breaking my standard habit patterns.”

F-14 Pilot Landing his Tomcat Without Canopy

The landing was uneventful, and Vickers was surprised to find how many people had come out to see the spectacle. “The magnitude of the situation finally set in when my skipper gave me a hug after I got out of the jet.”

Vickers and the battle-group-air-warfare commander were very lucky since all of the ejection and aviation-life-support-systems (ALSS) equipment functioned well: actually the battle-group-air-warfare commander reported only two minor injuries to his face. But when Vickers talked to him he understood that even if he had briefed every single detail of the mission, he didn’t consider Captain’s fully perspective. “He said he didn’t know where to put his hands. Consequently, he just left them in loosely clenched fists on his lap, about two inches away from the ejection handle.

“It never occurred to me that someone would not know what to do with his hands. Obviously, I fly with the stick and throttle in my hands 95 percent of the flight, but I failed to consider his situation. The mishap board surmised that, during the inverted maneuver, he must have flinched when he slightly rose out of the seat and pulled the ejection handle. Now, before any brief, I try to place myself in the other person’s shoes (even if they are black shoes) and imagine what the flight will be like for him.”

Photo credit: Home of M.A.T.S. and U.S. Navy 

Uzbekistan to become J-10C’s second customer

Uzbekistan will become the second customer of China’s J-10C fighter jet, after Pakistan (which became the first country to purchase the Vigorous Dragon), a video broadcast on Uzbek television confirmed.

As the photos in this post show, the J-10 has a strong resemblance to Israel’s Lavi fighter jet conceived by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), whose production was canceled after a government decision in 1988.

Kfir

Designed as a refinement of the Dassault Mirage III using the General Electric J79 engine from the F-4 Phantom II, the IAI (Israel Aircraft Industries, later Israel Aerospace Industries) Kfir (Lion Cub) was first flown on Oct. 19, 1970.

First flown in June 1973, the Kfir-C1 was fitted with a suite of Israeli electronics. The jet was initially produced for Israeli service but later exported as the Dagger. The Kfir-C1 entered limited production (27 aircraft), with two squadrons equipped beginning in 1974, pending the introduction of more advanced derivatives.

The Kfir-C2, introduced in 1976 after a first flight in 1974, was a new version of the Kfir. The Kfir-C2 was designed to keep the type viable against all conceivable threats well into the 1990s. The result was a warplane with formidable combat capabilities thanks to its sustained maneuverability and control effectiveness resulting from its aerodynamic developments. The type is distinguishable from the Kfir-C1 by its dog-toothed outer wing panels, small under-nose strakes and, most importantly, swept delta canard fore-planes.

The Kfir-C7 is the definitive single-seat version introduced in 1983. The Kfir-C7 is based on the Kfir-C2 with a specially adapted version of the J79-GEJ1E with 1,000 pounds more afterburning thrust. The type has two extra hard-points and several advanced features including the capability for the carriage and use of ‘smart’ weapons.

Extension of the Kfir work

As told by Bill Norton in his book 75 Years of the Israeli Air Force Volume 2, when Kfir fighter bomber production ended in 1986 at 212 aircraft, Israel was eager to continue fighter-bomber development and production in-country as a means of remaining somewhat independent of foreign sources and for economic reasons. Aircraft production capabilities had grown alongside the Kfir with a business jet and light transport also being manufactured. Unique elements for upgrades of earlier jets and commercial aircraft were becoming a specialty along with offset arrangements with American firms and Israeli content in new-production foreign products.

By 1980, weapons sales made up 30 percent of national exports and employed 20 to 25 percent of the workforce. Therefore, IAI confidently conceived a new fighter that morphed as the Israeli Air Force (IAF) provided feedback.

As an extension of the Kfir work, this became a single-engine, delta-wing jet with canards called the Lavi (Young Lion). The decision to proceed depended on other procurements, especially as the IAF was seriously considering a large commitment to a unique strike variant of the F-18. When this faded during 1979-1980, the MoD encouraged the Air Force to consider the IAI design. It would replace the A-4 and Kfir within 10 years – the low end of the high-low mix. A two-seat variant was also to replace the TA-4 in advanced training.

The formal Lavi go-ahead came in 1980 with an expected budget of $1.8 billion. Full-scale development began in fall 1982. Plans evolved around a buy of 240 single-seat and 60 dualseat machines at a peak 30 to 36 per month and $10.8 to $30.0 million a copy.

The Lavi

Observing that low-end fighters like the Kfir had a shrinking role in the evolving battlefield, with possibly low survivability, the Lavi evolved into a highly integrated multi-role fighter-bomber with extensive avionics and electronic flight and engine controls, comparable to those being built elsewhere in the world. Consequently, program technological risk rose, costs increased, and the schedule grew.

By 1983, funds were becoming short, but the Israel lobby in the USA managed to get some aid money approved for use on the Lavi – an extraordinary reversal of long-standing American policy. American content expanded with US firms contributing to the design and expected to build 50 percent of the airplane. This would limit sales of the final product to those countries approved by the Americans, just as it had the Kfir.

The first Lavi flew on the last day of 1986, a year behind schedule and well over-budget. Initial deliveries were not expected until 1991. Planned production rate shrank to stay within budget and the IAF reduced its anticipated buy, both causing unit price to rise to as much as $50 million. Full capability and squadron mission readiness might be too late to meet Air Force needs. By 1987 the nation had spent $2 billion on the Lavi before production had even begun at a time when inflation as raging at over 1,000 percent. Some 90 percent of the effort was paid for by American military aid while USA manufacturers protested taxpayer support for an aircraft that would compete with their products.

Lavi cancellation led Israel helping China developing J-10

Although the Americans made clear the use of aid was up to Israel, they pointed out the future implications of such huge outlays. They offered alternatives, including coproduction of some American fighter. Many Israelis saw all this as entirely selfserving. As the Lavi came to consume 25 percent of USA aid, the General Staff backed away and some in the IAF also voiced doubts, the Knesset was split, and a contentious national debate ensued. Other priorities would suffer deeply with so much of the budget consumed by the Lavi. This was one of the first occasions when the legislature and many senior government voices spoke out against a major MoD undertaking.

The cabinet decided by one vote in August 1987 to terminate the Lavi program. This was tacit acceptance of American dominance of Israeli defense procurement and some indirect control of its military choices as their likely response would have to be considered. The Israeli aerospace industry took a big hit and struggled for years after. Its assistance to the People’s Republic of China in developing their J-10 fighter helped reduce the pain.

However, the USA concluded that the assistance had included unauthorized transfer of American technology shared during development of the Lavi. This caused a major row and the USA suspended technology transfers to Israel for a brief period.

75 Years of the Israeli Air Force Volume 1 is published by Helion & Company and is available to order here.

Photo credit: Retxham via Wikipedia and U.S. Navy, Danny Gotfried / Dan Hadani collection / National Library of Israel / The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection via Wikipedia

Fighter bomber

The F-4E Phantom II fighter bomber is essentially an F-4D with improved J79-GE-17 engines (900 pounds more static sea level thrust each) and an M61A1 “Vulcan” 20mm cannon.

Operational experience gained in Vietnam had a direct influence on the addition of the cannon. The air-to-air missile fire-to-hit ratios were low and air combat usually degenerated to subsonic “dogfighting” where the F-4 was at a decided disadvantage when flying against more maneuverable enemy aircraft (MiG-17 and MiG-21).

The hydraulically powered wing-folding mechanism and the emergency ram-air turbine were removed to save weight and a seventh fuel cell was added. The addition of self-sealing fuel tanks starting with block 41 aircraft lowered the fuel capacity by 139 gallons but provided much better combat survivability.

McDonnell Douglas produced 5,057 F-4s, of which 1370 were F-4Es.

Hahn Air Base

After completing his flying training, Eric Coloney was selected for the F-4 Phantom and attended the F-4 Replacement Training Unit (RTU) at Luke Air Force Base (AFB), Arizona between May, and December 1976. At the time, the training unit was operating old F-4C models.

Once Eric completed his course at Luke, he received orders to join the 50th Tactical Fighter Wing at Hahn Air Base, West Germany and was assigned to the 10th Tactical Fighter Squadron – the ‘Fighting Tenth.’

Eric’s training with the RTU at Luke was all flown with early F-4C model aircraft. At Hahn, the 50th Tactical Fighter Wing operated the F-4E model aircraft with wing slats.

Arriving at Hahn from Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, Eric had to get used to the European weather.

Glider flying close to target during F-4E training air-to-ground mission

He recalls in the bookazine F-4 Phantom Tales from the cockpit;

‘Our primary role was air-to-ground, dropping general-purpose bombs, laser-guided bombs which were just coming on board the operational squadrons at that time, and shooting Maverick missiles. They were the tasks that we were supposed to be most proficient at. But with the poor weather on the continent, we didn’t get to drop many bombs and range time was limited in West Germany and the Netherlands. So, there was a lot of demand and not much time on the ranges, and when we did have time, we didn’t always have suitable weather. So that was a real challenge to maintain any kind of proficiency in simple air-to-ground weapon delivery.

‘On one mission from Hahn, I was part of a four-ship with one target assigned. We flew line abreast and as we approached the target all four aircraft turned turn away from each other by as much as 60°, flew out to get spacing, before pulling up and rolling in on the target from opposite directions. That was done to confuse the gunners and the air defences.

‘Each aircraft arrived at the target at a different time, in part because we were at different distances from the target. As I rolled in on the target, I spotted a glider. The pilot was rocking his wings trying to make himself visible to us because we were flying through nearly the same airspace. Fortunately, we weren’t going to collide, nobody had to take evasive action, but I could see the glider pilot was quite concerned.

A real threat to air safety

‘On another mission over West Germany, we were flying as a four-ship in tactical formation along a US Air Force-designated low-level route. The low-level routes were supposed to be deconflicted between other USAFE units, but they weren’t deconflicted with anybody else. In other words, USAFE squadrons flew them in the same direction. but others flew them in reverse, or flew similar lines which overlaid. As I looked forward, I spotted an aircraft flying toward me, it was just a dot, couldn’t see the wings, just the engine smoke The rate of closure didn’t become evident until I could see the aeroplane. It was an F-104 which flew underneath us. He took evasive action, but such an encounter was a real threat to air safety.’

Eric served with the 10th Tactical Fighter Squadron based at Hahn between January 1977 and December 1979.

F-4 Phantom Tales from the cockpit is published by Key Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force and DG Flugzeugbau website via Wikipedia

Su-15 Flagon

In the late 1950s, the Sukhoi Design Bureau, already an established fighter maker, started work on a successor to its Su-9 and Su-11 single-engined interceptors for the national Air defense Force. Similar to its predecessors, the new aircraft designated Su-15 had delta wings; unlike the Su-9/Su-11, however, it had twin engines and lateral air intakes freeing up the nose for a powerful fire control radar. First flown in May 1962, the Su-15 officially entered service in 1965 and was built in several versions, the late ones having cranked-delta wings and a more capable radar. Being an air defense fighter, the Su-15 frequently had to deal with intruders.

ATC call sign KAL 007

On the night of Aug. 31-Sep. 1, 1983 at 1300 hrs. UTC (0400 hrs. local time), Korean Air Lines (KAL) Boeing 747-230B H L7442 (former Condor Flugdienst D-ABYH, c/n 20559, f/n 186) took off from Anchorage, where it had made a refuelling stop en route from New York City to Seoul as flight KE007 (ATC call sign KAL 007). On this leg of the journey the aircraft, with 246 passengers and 23 crew aboard, was captained by Chun Byung-in. According to the flight plan the 747 was supposed to follow the international airway R-20, which passes just 28.2 km (17.5 miles) from the Soviet (Russian) border at the closest point, and proceed straight ahead until it passed Hokkaido Island, whereupon it would turn to starboard in a wide arc toward Seoul.

However, just ten minutes after takeoff, HL7442 deviated to the right, assuming a heading of 245° instead of the required 220°, and strayed from its designated airway; the deviation steadily increased until presently the aircraft entered Soviet airspace near the Kamchatka Peninsula, a piece of Soviet territory packed with sensitive military installations (which makes its flight number an apt one, indeed). Of course, orders were given immediately to intercept the intruder.

As told by Yefim Gordon & Dmitriy Komissarov in their book Sukhoi Interceptors: The Su-9, Su-11, and Su-15: Unsung Soviet Cold War Heroes, the first attempt was abortive: a 528th IAP MiG-23 piloted by Maj. Vasiliy Kaz’min scrambled from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy/Yelizovo airport when the 747 flew over Kamchatka.

First interception attempt

Kaz’min 240 caught up with the target but soon had to give up the chase after hitting ‘bingo fuel’. The reason was that after Viktor Belenko’s notorious defection to Japan in a MiG-25P in 1976, the top command distrusted the ‘grassroots’, and the fighters were filled up with just so much fuel as to make a defection impossible! No one seemed to realise, or care, that this jeopardised the PVO units’ ability to fulfil their mission, and that one bad egg does not automatically mean that the whole box of eggs is bad.

Anyway, the 747 left Soviet airspace for a while as it continued in a straight line over the Sea of Okhotsk. However, its course was bound to take it into Soviet airspace again over Sakhalin Island. By then the Soviet PVO system was in turmoil; the aircraft was now assumed to be a spyplane, which was to be shot down, should it intrude again—which it did at 1816 hrs. UTC, being assigned the code ‘target 6065’. By then the airliner was 500 km (310 miles) west of the desired track.

At 1742 hrs. and 1754 hrs. UTC (0542 hrs. and 0554 hrs. local time), two 365th IAP Su-15TMs, each carrying a pair of R-98 missiles and a pair of UPK-23-250 cannon pods, scrambled from Sokol AB, near Dolinsk, in the south of Sakhalin Island. One of the Su-15s, piloted by Maj. Ghennadiy N. Osipovich, intercepted the 747, which was cruising at 11,000 m (36,090 ft.); some sources, though, report the flight level as 9,000 m (29,530 ft.). Osipovich tried to contact the crew by radio and fired warning shots from his cannons, ordering it to land. However, the cannon rounds were not tracers, and the Korean crew failed to notice them.

Shooting down

Since the intruder ignored all calls and pressed on toward the border, orders were given to destroy it. At 1826 hrs. UTC, Osipovich fired both of his missiles, which found their mark, damaging the hydraulics and the control system (contrary to some reports, the aircraft did not break up in midair). After climbing briefly to 11,600 m (38,060 ft.) the 747 suffered a complete decompression and began a spiral descent; at 1838 hrs. the jet vanished from the radarscopes at 5,000 m (16,400 ft.). Moments later it plunged into the Sea of Japan off Moneron Island, south of Sakhalin, disintegrating on impact and killing all 269 occupants.

Even today, debate continues as to what the KAL jumbo was doing for 2.5 hours in a place where it should not have been at all. Was it on a premeditated spy mission, as the Soviet government like has always maintained, or was the incursion a result of navigation error? There are several possible explanations and facts to support both theories.

Quite apart from the escalation of the Cold War under the Reagan administration, the spy mission theory is backed by the fact that a USAF 55th SRW RC-135 (designated as ‘target 6064’ by the PVC command post) was loitering at 8,000 m (26,250 ft.) over the Bering Sea near Karaginskiy Gulf on the northeastern coast of Kamchatka at the time of the incident—reportedly to pick up telemetry during a scheduled Soviet ballistic missile test. For a while the two Boeings were so close that, in the opinion of some sources, the Soviet AD radar operators may have mixed them up and tracked the 747 in the belief that it was the RC-135.

Mysteries behind KAL 007 shooting down

It may be that the 747’s mission was to provoke the Soviet air defence assets into revealing themselves—for the benefit of the RC-135, which would do the actual intelligence gathering. Also, the 747 was tracked by several civilian ATC radars and the US military radar at King Salmon Island, Alaska; yet, none of them alerted the Korean crew about the steadily increasing divergence.

Since the flight had originated on US soil and American nationals were among the victims, the National Transportation Safety Board began an investigation; however, the Reagan administration closed it down (on the pretext that it was not an accident) and turned over the investigation to the State Department—which, in turn, deferred it to the International Civil Aviation Organisation. The latter, unlike the NTSB, had no power to subpoena any politically or militarily sensitive information that might embarrass the Reagan administration or contradict its version of the story.

The navigation error theory is based on the fact that the use of the inertial navigation system (INS), with the aircraft following a preprogrammed route with waypoints, is required for the (mostly) overwater leg between Anchorage and Seoul, since the aircraft would be out of range of ground navigation beacons most of the time. It is based on the assumption that either the Korean crew had programmed the INS incorrectly at Anchorage or the INS had lose failed to activate, because the aircraft was already too far off the designated track. Thus the autopilot remained in heading hold mode, and the crew did not recognise the problem; in fact, they never realised they were way off course.

Video by US Information Agency about KAL 007 shooting down

The incident provoked a huge public outcry and a wild anti-Soviet campaign, with political battles in the United Nations Security Council, where a video prepared by the US Information Agency (USIA) was used as a ‘witness for the prosecution’. The Soviet Union was accused of anything from gross incompetence in the air defence system to an intentional and wanton attack on a civil airliner. Transcripts of the radio exchange were presented in such a way as to suggest that Ghennadiy Osipovich had shot down a passenger plane in cold blood. Not until much later, in 1996, was it admitted that the news agencies were given only selective information on the shoot-down.

Alvin A. Snyder, USIA’s director of television at the time of the incident, wrote in his 1996 story for the Washington Post: ‘The video became a key factor in what Secretary of State George Shultz promised in a memo to President Reagan would be a massive public relations effort “to exploit the incident”. The intent was to link the incident to nuclear disarmament issues. Raising concerns about Soviet integrity could do serious damage to the Kremlin’s peace campaign to dissuade NATO allies in Europe from placing upgraded American nuclear weapons on their soil…

Tapes compiled by ICAO

The tapes, which are compiled in the final report of the International Civil Aviation Organization’s investigation of the incident released in 1993, told me what I did not hear. The tapes, the content of which U.S. government officials were aware of at the time of the shootdown, show that Osipovich could not identify the plane, and that he fired warning cannons and tipped his wings, an international signal to get the plane to land. All this failed to get the crew’s attention.

The controller said, “The target is military. As soon as it has violated state borders, destroy it. Arm your weapons. . . . The target has violated the state border. Destroy the target”. Former U.S. officials involved in the coverup, who insist on anonymity, have told me that monitoring data was intentionally withheld from our U.N. tape. Beyond the propaganda value, the U.S. did not wish to tip the Soviets to the sophistication of its intelligence along the Soviet border.’

Moreover, as early as Sep. 10, 1983, Flight International raised other issues, questioning the general adequacy of internationally agreed-on interception procedures and asking why the crew of the 747 had not been warned of the deviation from the normal course if it was technically possible.

Sukhoi Interceptors: The Su-9, Su-11, and Su-15: Unsung Soviet Cold War Heroes is published by Schiffer Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: Hansueli Krapf via Wikipedia, CIA and unknown via War History Online

A-12CB: Blackbird Carrier Based Mach 3 Spy Plane

The A-12 reconnaissance aircraft was the product of Project Oxcart, a top-secret Cold War CIA program to develop a high-altitude supersonic aircraft. The aircraft was capable of carrying out sensitive intelligence-gathering missions while flying at speeds exceeding 2,260 miles per hour, or three times the speed of sound.

The CIA used A-12s for surveillance missions until 1968. Later versions, known as the SR-71 Blackbird, served in reconnaissance and test missions for the US Air Force (USAF) and NASA through the 1990s.

The A-12CB was a minor study for a major change in operations for the A-12: flight to and from aircraft carriers. As told by Scott Lowther in his book Origins and Evolution Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the A-12 certainly seems an unlikely aircraft to operate at sea… big, finicky, fragile and with blistering takeoff and landing speeds. Numerous changes would have been required.

Known so far from only two similar, but not identical diagrams, the A-12CB (Carrier Based) would have had sizable solid rocket motors attached to the underside. The motors were Rocketdyne RS B-202s, used for the F-104G zero length launch system.

A-12CB on deck of CVAN-65 USS Enterprise

With a total thrust of 130,000lb and a burn time of 7.9 seconds, these jettisonable take-off units would, with the aircraft carriers catapult system, have done a good job of lofting the A-12 forwards into the air. The A-12 would have required substantial internal modification both to the underside of the wings and the forward fuselage to tie these new sources of thrust into the aircraft structure. For landing, an arrester hook was fitted, which also would have required tie-in to the main structure. Presumably the landing gear would also need reinforcement.

The available diagrams show that the A-12CB was to be catapult-launched using the now-obsolete system of a bridle cable attached to two hooks located on the underside of the fuselage, straddling the centerline just aft of the inlets. The bridle cable attached to a very large catapult shuttle that seemed to serve as a support for the forward fuselage, perhaps intended to hold the nose of the aircraft down during the catapult launch. With the large booster rockets firing, it’s likely that substantial forces would have been in play that could have thrown the aircraft all over the deck until aerodynamic flow held it on course.

Nothing is known about what aircraft carrier or li carriers the A-12CB was meant to operate from. Here it has been provisionally shown on the deck of CVAN-65 USS Enterprise. It can be seen that it would a have been a very large aircraft for the deck of that ship, though it appears that with some effort it could have been made to fit on the ship’s elevators. Whether it could have been shoved through the hangar doorway is unclear; it may have had to be partly disassembled to fit.

Complex and difficult operations

Additionally, the deck of the carrier would likely need reinforcement, or at the very least protective coatings, to shield it from the booster rocket exhaust.

Operations would have been complex and difficult and their purpose is unclear. Presumably the A-12 would have remained a reconnaissance platform, but it is possible that the A-12 was to be a strike variant. One diagram of the A-12CB shows a crudely sketched something penciled in above the fuselage, but it’s impossible to determine what was intended.

In any event, nothing came of the design. Dimensions, weights and performance are not available, but would presumably have been much the same as for the standard A-12.

Origins and Evolution Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird is published by Mortons Books and is available to order here.

Photo credit: Gunnar Klack own work via Wikipedia and Scott Lowther via Mortons Books

EB-66 protecting AQM-34 Firebee drones over North Vietnam

The B-66 was developed from the US Navy A3D Skywarrior as a tactical light bomber and photo reconnaissance aircraft. The RB-66B photo reconnaissance version became the first production series and totaled 145 of the 294 B-66s built. The USAF also developed a weather reconnaissance version, and various electronic countermeasures (ECM) versions.

ECM B-66s (EB-66s) became very important elements in strikes against North Vietnam. They could detect enemy radar emissions and jam their signals, thereby confusing enemy defenses. In addition, some B-66s flew pathfinder missions, guiding F-105 and F-4 bombing strikes through bad weather.

As told by Peter E. Davies in his book B/EB-66 Destroyer Units in Combat, pairs of EB-66C/Es protected AQM-34 Firebee reconnaissance drones over North Vietnam, jamming any radars that attempted to direct interceptions against them. They often flew parallel to the drone’s flightpath at a safe distance offshore.

Many drones were programmed to fly near Haiphong and Hanoi at around 500 ft, requiring up to four EB-66s to project jamming directly at ‘Fan Songs’ or other acquisition radars. On one occasion in July 1969, a drone launched from above Laos, and supported by EB-66C/Es, succeeded in flying across Hanoi at low altitude unchallenged.

‘Training targets’ for MiG-21 pilots

The majority, normally launched offshore, met opposition. An EB-66C with steerable antennas was the most effective platform for this kind of targeted jamming, and it always gave ‘Ravens’ opportunities to study the many radars that would be trying to catch a Firebee.

Improved secure communications equipment installed in EB-66s and the DC-130A Hercules drone launchers facilitated tracking of the drones. Some drones with deception jammers known as Rivet Bounder and Hat Rack flew at high altitude over lower-threat areas, but the majority, at low altitude over Hanoi and Haiphong, needed greater protection, particularly towards the end of their flights when they climbed across the coast to their recovery altitude. Vietnamese People’s Air Force (VPAF) pilots sometimes intercepted them at that point, and they became ‘training targets’ for many MiG-21 pilots.

MiG pilots were allowed periods of several weeks in which they took over the interception task from the SA-2 batteries. From Mar. 3, 1968 to Jul. 27, 1970, VPAF pilots claimed 34 drones out of the 50 monthly launches. Many Firebees contained their own deception jammers, or devices to initiate automatic anti-SAM or anti-MiG manoeuvres when triggered by a radar emission from a ‘Fan Song’ or a VPAF fighter. ECM assistance for drones was provided by EA-6As from May 1969, and these aircraft, with steerable antennas, coped with modifications to ‘Fan Songs’ that enabled them to use the higher frequency I-Band bandwidth. EB-66Es were also subsequently given that capability. Jamming by EA-6As ended on Jun. 27, 1970, leaving drone protection to the EB-66s.

B/EB-66 Destroyer Units in Combat is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

Delta Dagger

For an aircraft that was only to be an “interim” interceptor, the Deuce served a long and successful life and helped to deter the Soviets or any other enemy from sending bombers against the United States.

The biggest drawback to the F-102 was its lack of speed. It was a supersonic aircraft, but only by a small margin. With external tanks attached, it was limited to Mach .95. Once the faster F-101Bs and F-106s became available, its days were numbered. Since it was a great advantage to get to the bombers as fast as possible, or catch them, if necessary, speed was essential, and the relatively slow Deuce had to make way for the faster interceptors.

It was built in larger numbers than the F-101B or F-106 because of delays in getting the “ultimate” F-106 into service, the minimal conventional armament carried by the F-101B and the lack of funds to replace the F-102 on a one-for-one basis with the F-106. In the years the F-102s served in Vietnam, they most often stood alert for the air defense mission but also flew some escort missions for B-52s.

F-102 pilot alone in a KC-135 cockpit

Former F-102 pilot Roger Daisley recalls on Quora;

‘During the Vietnam era, I was stationed in Okinawa, as a pilot, flying the F-102. I had just finished an R&R to the states and was returning to Okinawa. To get back, I caught a “hop” in a KC-135 (Jet tanker) from Travis Air Force Base, California, to Okinawa. Normally, the passengers sit in the back of the aircraft, where many times it is also packed with cargo, such as spare engines, etc. In this flight, there were about five to ten passengers, as I recall.

‘About half way through the flight, I decided to walk up to the cockpit and chat with the pilots. I was wearing my fighter pilot flight suit. (In the KC-135, the entrance to the cockpit is not blocked or locked. It is not unusual for a passenger to walk up front and talk to the crew members).’

Daisley continues;

‘We chatted about “pilot things,” such as: Where are we now, what are you using for navigation aid, (before GPS) how is the fuel going and what is our ETA … those kind of things. After about fifteen minutes, the Copilot, sitting in the right seat, asked if I would like to sit in his seat for awhile, while he took a break. The AC (Aircraft Commander), who sits in the left seat, agreed, so I slid into the right seat, as the copilot departed.

10 minutes of KC-135 flying time

‘After about ten minutes, and more “pilot talk,” the AC said he was going to go back and get a cup of coffee. He got up and left the cockpit. So … there I was, the only pilot in the cockpit and I have never piloted a KC-135 before! I sat there and contemplated and marveled at the situation (the aircraft was on autopilot).

‘After about ten minutes, the AC returned and we started chatting again. He asked, “How long have you been flying the KC-135?” I replied, “About ten minutes … I’m an F-102 pilot.” No comment! End of chatting.’

Daisley concludes; ‘I logged 10 minutes of KC-135 flying time in my Air Force flight log!’

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

The USS Oriskany fire

The danger of fire aboard an aircraft carrier loaded with aircraft, aviation fuel, and explosive ordnance is the greatest threat to naval aviation. As told by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver in his book The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club, on Oct. 26, 1966, at 0728 hours, the first of three aircraft carrier fires that would occur during the Vietnam War happened aboard USS Oriskany when a flare in a locker that held 250 Mark 24 magnesium flares and 2.75- inch rocket warheads, located just off the forward hangar deck next to the Starboard sponson, inadvertently ignited. The sailor handling the flare threw it in the locker and dogged the door shut, failing to notice he had inadvertently lit the fuze. Oriskany was heading into the wind, preparing to launch aircraft, and the fire was not noticed until it emitted smoke through the open air vent.

General Quarters was sounded. Firefighting teams attempted to cool the area near the burning locker, but the high pressure inside made it impossible to open the door so directly fighting the fire was impossible. Ten minutes later, the pressure inside became so great the doors blew out. A helicopter on the forward port side of the hangar deck caught fire. Sailors in the area worked to move the bombed up and fully fueled aircraft to the flight deck to prevent them catching fire.

44 casualties

The heat and smoke were drawn forward into the “officer’s country” berthing quarters forward of the hangar which were occupied by pilots of the air wing. Soon the forward half of the ship was afire. Staterooms and passageways were filled with smoke as the flames burned through four levels, trapping many pilots in their bunks or in smoke-darkened passageways, killing some in their beds and others as they desperately tried to escape.

One pilot trapped in his stateroom found a wrench and opened the porthole. Continually soaking sheets and blankets in his wash basin and wrapping himself in them, he kept his head out the porthole, unable to escape with the fire in the passageway. Finally, a sailor discovered him and managed to get him a firehose, a battle lantern, and an Oxygen Breathing Apparatus, which he used to fight the fire and cool the stateroom. Nearby, Commander Richard M. “Dick” Bellinger, XO of VF-162 “Hunters,” was in a similar situation. He stripped naked and forced his way through his porthole, despite weighing 207 pounds. Once on the flight deck, he managed to obtain protective clothing and organized firefighting parties.

At approximately 1030 hours, the ship’s fire marshal informed Damage Control Central that the fire on the hangar deck and in officer’s country was under control. Twenty-four pilots were dead, including newly installed CAG Commander Rodney B. Carter, who had led CVW-16 for only two weeks. In addition to the naval aviators, 19 other officers and men of the ship’s company had been killed. One of the wounded died a day later, for a total 44 casualties.

Out of action

Knocked out of action, Oriskany sailed to Subic Bay, replaced on station by Coral Sea. Once at Subic Bay, the damage was found to be extensive enough to force the ship to return to the United States, where she entered the Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco for repairs that would take until June 1967 to complete.

In the aftermath, several sailors, including the chief ordnance officer, were charged with 44 counts of manslaughter for actions immediately before the fire and court-martialed, though all were acquitted. The investigation determined that magnesium flares could ignite when jarred in certain cases, which was declared the reason that the first flare ignited.

The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: U.S. Navy

Flying high and fast

The X-15 is a famous and significant part of aviation history. Its purpose was to fly high and fast, testing the machine and subjecting pilots to conditions that future astronauts would face. It made the first manned flights to the edges of space and was the world’s first piloted aircraft to reach hypersonic speeds, or more than five times the speed of sound. The X-15 was an important tool for developing spaceflight in the 1960s, and pilots flying above 50 miles altitude in the X-15 earned astronaut wings.

Three X-15s were built, and they made 199 flights between 1959-1968. The program was a joint US Air Force/Navy/NASA project, and four of its 12 pilots were US Air Force officers. One pilot, USAF Maj. Michael J. Adams, died in an X-15 crash in 1967. Another X-15 pilot, Neil Armstrong, later became the first man to walk on the moon.

Like other rocket planes, the X-15 was launched in midair from a B-52 “mothership” at about 45,000 feet. Once its powerful rocket ignited, the X-15 streaked upward to the limits of the atmosphere, then glided unpowered to land on a dry lake bed. Typical flights lasted about 10 minutes.

X-15’s ejection seat

Because of its hypersonic speed and extreme altitude performance, the X-15 required one of the most complex ejection seats ever put into service. Earlier NASA research rocket aircraft like the Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket and the Bell X-2 were equipped with an escape capsule for the pilot. In an emergency, the entire nose assembly would jettison and deploy a stabilizing parachute. Once at a safe altitude, the pilot would then manually open the canopy and bail out. However, the weight and volume restrictions on the X-15 made such a system impractical and North American in conjunction with engineer/test pilot A. Scott Crossfield, North American Aviation designer Jerry Madden and the David Clark Co. (that had long made pressure suits for the military and NASA) designed an integrated system that combined the pressure suit design along with an advanced ejection seat.

As told by Jim Tuttle in his book Eject!: The Complete History of U.S. Aircraft Escape Systems, David Clark’s MC-2 pressure suit was the key to making an open-faced ejection at high Mach and high altitudes possible. It not only protected the pilot from the extreme windblast of hitting the airstream at Mach 3+, it also functioned as a pressure suit to protect the X-15 pilot at altitudes in excess of 250,000 feet. Despite the advanced nature of the pressure suit, it was understood that kinetic heating during a high-Mach ejection would probably result in mild burns to the head, knees, and toes which in effect projected into the airstream.

Very comfortable

Since the rocket motor of the X-15 ejection seat had to be powerful to propel the pilot clear of the X-15’s hypersonic shockwave, a novel means was used to transfer loads from the pilot’s rear end to the seat pan. Each X-15 program pilot sat on a weather balloon filled with plastic beads and wiggled into it like a bean bag. A vacuum was applied which held the shape of the balloon. Once the pilot stood up, plaster of Paris was poured into the depression, creating an exact copy of the pilot’s rear end. A block of Balsa wood was then carved to precisely fit the mound and this became the seat cushion of the X-15’s ejection seat- not only it was custom fit which allowed the optimum transfer of shock loads from the pilot’s body to the seat pan, it also made for a very comfortable seat!

To prevent the flailing of the arms and legs during a high-Mach ejection, special articulated restraints would protect the pilot’s legs and feet (also acting as a windblast deflector to minimize heat burns on the feet) as well as to the arms and hands. The articulated arms deployed gauntlets to protect the pilot’s hands from aerodynamic heating as well.

Little-known fact

Once the articulated arms deployed into place, the emergency oxygen supply took over pressurization of the suit and a heating unit activated to keep the pilot’s helmet visor clear of ice. Once the canopy was blown off and the seat traveled up the rails, special wings on the sides of the seat deployed to stabilize the seat in the high-Mach airstream. In a conventional ejection seat, a drogue chute would be deployed to slow the seat down but at the X-15’s speeds, such a chute would have melted instantly, so the X-15’s seat deployed a pair of telescopic booms that projected aft and outward from the bottom of the seat to provide aerodynamic braking and helped the wings stabilize the seat.

If ejection took place over 15,000 feet, a built-in barostat kept the pilot attached to the seat which allowed use of the seat’s emergency oxygen supply. Once 15,000 feet was reached, the seat automatically released the pilot and activated his parachute. If ejection took place below 15,000 feet, a three second timer allowed the wings and drogue booms to deploy and stabilized the seat before separating from the pilot.

One little-known fact was that the X-15 cockpit was pressurized with nitrogen instead of oxygen as was used in the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft. The pilot breathed oxygen from his suit which was only pressurized upon ejection. This meant the cockpit was fireproof, something that NASA tragically learned with the launch pad fire on Apollo 1.

X-15 absolute speed

The X-15s set an absolute speed record of Mach 6.7 and an absolute altitude record of 354,000 feet which qualified several of its program pilots for astronaut wings. Fortunately the ejection system was never needed and the one fatality, Michael Adams, occurred when his X-15 lost control and broke up on re-entry into the thicker levels of the atmosphere and the X-15’s complex ejection system might not have saved him.

Noteworthy, the David Clark MC-2 pressure suit served as the basis for the space suits for the Mercury and Gemini programs. The aluminized fabric exterior of the MC-2 suit carried over to the space programs and heavily influenced Hollywood cinematic depictions of space suits well into the 1970s.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force and Boeing

The Lancer

The origin of the B-1 began as a USAF funded 1965 study to examine the replacement of the ill-fated North American B-70 Valkyrie and relatively slow B-52. The B-1A’s first prototype rolled out of Palmdale, California on October 26, 1974, and made its first flight on December 23, 1974. The B-1 flight test program continued until June 30, 1977, when President Jimmy Carter halted the production of the B-1A.

The B-1B is an improved variant initiated by the Reagan administration in 1981. Major changes included and additional structure to increase payload by 74,000 pounds, an improved radar and reduction of the radar cross section by an order of magnitude. The inlet was extensively modified as part of this RCS reduction, necessitating a reduction in maximum speed to Mach 1.2.

Carrying the largest conventional payload of both guided and unguided weapons in the Air Force inventory, the multi-mission B-1 is the backbone of America’s long-range bomber force. It can rapidly deliver massive quantities of precision and non-precision weapons against any adversary, anywhere in the world, at any time.

Maintaining the fleet of Lancers

Reggie Harrell, former B-1B Lancer strategic bomber Instrument Flight Controls Specialist (IFC), tells the story of the most unbelievable thing he has witnessed while in the US Air Force (USAF).

‘First I have to confess that I did not witness the event occur, but I did see the aftermath.’ He explains on Quora, Harrell was an IFC. He worked on the flight line, maintaining the fleet of B-1B Lancers. ‘Well, mostly I rode around the flight line in the back of our truck, Tiger 10, while we waited for a plane to break, or to do scheduled maintenance, troubleshooting, etc. There are many different shops (maintenance groups) that work on the flight line, and we have our own trucks with designated call signs, to facilitate radio communications, and also for the excuse of having cool hats to wear instead of the camo tops that were standard issue.

The B-1B’s Bomb Bay

‘For anyone who is not remotely familiar with bombers, and the B-1B in particular, the payload delivery method (how bombs are dropped) is via sets of elongated doors on the underside of the jet. These doors are very large, thick, and extremely heavy. I do not know the closing force of the doors, as I was not a weapons guy, but it must have been tremendous. The sound of the doors closing at full force was reminiscent of the sound of Mercedes G Wagon doors being slammed, if those vehicles weighed about 100,000 pounds.

‘The doors are roughly the dimensions of large dining room tables meant to seat 12 or more. The doors are mounted in pairs, with a very thick and hard rubber gasket on each door, which provides an extremely tight seal when the doors are closed. These seals are far, far harder and stiffer than the weather stripping inside refrigerators, car doors, etc. When closed, the doors have a roughly 2-inch space between them, and that space is filed with the gaskets along the edge of each door, that are tightly pressed together to prevent air from leaking in and out of the bomb bay when the plane is flying.’

B-1B Weapons Crew standing inside the bomb bay doors

Harrell continues;

‘Now that you are slightly more familiar with the B-1B, the story involves a weapons crew—an airman and his supervisor, a sergeant. They were performing some checks and readiness tests on the weapons systems, wherein the young airman was atop a ladder underneath the plane, standing inside the bomb bay doors, which were open, so both doors were hanging down vertically. While he was doing whatever a weapons guy does, his supervisor was inside the plane, flipping switches, turning dials and hitting icons on the screen at the OSO seat. OSO is Offensive Systems Operator. There are two pilots and two navigators on board the B-1B. The DSO would be for Defensive Systems, though we called them “OH-so and DOH-so”.

‘The way the ladder was situated, it was not extended such that it reached into the bomb bay, because during the tests, the airman needed to climb down periodically while the supervisor cycled the doors. Only the top half of the airman’s body was ever inside the bomb bay during the test. They communicated by shouting to each other, so the airman always knew when he needed to clear the area so the doors could be closed. The supervisor was coming up and down the ladder that leads to the crew area, each time yelling to the airman to step down if the doors needed to be closed.

Crushed between Lancer’s Bomb Bay Doors

‘Whenever any maintenance or testing is done on the aircraft, the technicians absolutely must have technical orders with them and opened to the pages that describe how to perform the job. You could have done the same job 100 times, but you still better have the technical orders (TO) in hand, turned to the page pertaining to the job you’re handling. If QA (who rode around the flight line daily) were to catch you, the penalty would be pretty severe. From what we were told, the supervisor was busy working, and since he had done the job countless times over the years, the TO was present on the jet, opened to the pages for the task he was carrying out, but naturally he wasn’t using it.

‘In the midst of running up and down the crew ladder to talk to the airman and working the controls inside, at some point he must have gotten ahead of himself. He was inside the jet and failed to alert the airman who was on the ladder that he needed to close the doors. Then he closed them, and they slammed shut with the force of a miniature wrecking ball. He must have heard the noise of the ladder falling over to the concrete over the loud sound of the generators that were no doubt running.

Critical condition

‘Immediately fearing the worst, he dashed down the crew ladder and to his horror, the ladder was lying on the ground, and he saw, about 8 feet in the air, two camoflauged pant legs hanging, with the bomb bay doors tightly shut around the upper body half that was hidden from view. In a panic, he jumped back up the crew ladder and opened the doors, and the airman’s limp and broken body fell back to Earth, hitting concrete as well as the aluminum ladder.

‘We were told the next morning about this incident, given a safety briefing/warning about the utter importance of following technical orders, communication, and situational awareness, and then our supervisor drove the truck to the scene of the accident. The concrete was bloodstained. The plane was still there, and the bomb bay doors were closed, but they had cracked slightly, under the strain of trying to close around what had once been an intact spinal column.

‘The airman was in critical condition—somehow he live, but his back had been broken, along with several ribs, head injuries from the fall, and his organs had been beat up pretty badly. It was said that when the doors had closed, his body had been compressed to little more than 2 inches in width, about the thickness of the bomb bay door gaskets, plus maybe an extra inch due to the doors cracking and flexing a bit. Those gaskets were the only thing preventing him from being severed in two, and killing him.’

B-1B Weapons Crew survives

Harrell concludes;

‘From what we were told, the airman spent several months in recovery before he would eventually be medically discharged. The supervisor had obviously been severely punished, including an LOR (Letter of Reprimand) which would go into his file permanently, and he may have lost some rank, but I’m not totally clear on that. Not many exciting or noteworthy things happen on the flight line aside from maybe a tool being lost—a huge deal when you have several hundred million dollar aircraft that like to inhale things through their engines, or worse, the occasional plane crash.

‘A few of us had suffered minor injuries here and there, while working on the B-1, but nothing ever came close to being crushed between the bomb bay doors. I can’t imagine the agony that airman must have experienced after he gained consciousness, but I’m sure he was grateful that his injuries were not fatal.’

Photo credit: Airman 1st Class Austin Mayfield / U.S. Air Force

American long-range, single-seat fighter

The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts.

The Mustang was designed to use the Allison V-1710 engine, which had limited high-altitude performance in its earlier variants. The aircraft was first flown operationally by the RAF as a tactical-reconnaissance aircraft and fighter-bomber (Mustang Mk I). Replacing the Allison with a Rolls-Royce Merlin resulted in the P-51B/C (Mustang Mk III) model, and transformed the aircraft’s performance at altitudes above 15,000 ft (4,600 m) (without sacrificing range), allowing it to compete with the Luftwaffe’s fighters. The definitive version, the P-51D, was powered by the Packard V-1650-7, a license-built version of the two-speed, two-stage-supercharged Merlin 66.

Merlin Engine

In fact, in December 1943 the first Merlin-engined P-51B/C Mustangs entered combat in Europe. These P-51s provided sorely needed long-range, high-altitude escort for the US bombing campaign against Germany.

The P-51D arrived in quantity in Europe in the spring of 1944, becoming the USAAF’s primary long range escort fighter.

Thanks to its ability to excel in long-range escort duty, the Mustang was the first single-engine plane based in Britain to penetrate Germany, first to reach Berlin and first to go with the heavy bombers over the Ploiesti oil fields in Romania.

How was the iconic Mustang able to perform such long-range escort missions? Not because of its drop tanks.

‘Lots of planes could carry drop tanks: P-47, P-40, P-38, etc.,’ says James Gibson, former MP&P Engineer at Boeing, says on Quora.

The secret behind P-51B/C/D Mustang range

‘The real secret to the Mustang’s range was not the laminar flow control wing, or the Merlin engine. It was the addition of a fuselage tank behind the cockpit halfway through production of the P-51B. This additional internal tank increased fuel capacity by 85 gallons: original P-51Bs only had 184 gallons in the wings. The addition increased total fuel to 269 gallons or some 30%. Further adding two 75 gal drop tanks you reached 419 gallons. The later D&H models carried 110 gal drop tanks for 489 gallons.

‘But when you carried so much fuel you had to be aware of which tanks you were using at which point in the flight. On take-off you used the rear fuselage tank. This tank effected the center of gravity of the plane. You didn’t want to tangle with a 109 or a Focke Wulf when carrying fuel in the rear tank. So you burned it first and then switched to the drop tanks about halfway to Berlin.’

Gibson concludes;

‘You would then burn off the drop tanks, hopefully before engaging enemy fighters. But if they struck early you could drop those tanks and thus be clean and maneuverable. This was the fight profile that allowed the Mustangs maximum range and best performance when over target.’

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

Stratofortress

For more than 70 years, B-52s have been the backbone of the strategic bomber force for the United States. The B-52 is capable of dropping or launching the widest array of weapons in the US inventory. This includes gravity bombs, cluster bombs, precision guided missiles and joint direct attack munitions. Updated with modern technology, the B-52 is capable of delivering the full complement of joint developed weapons and will continue into the 21st century as an important element of our nation’s defenses. The Air Force currently expects to operate B-52s through 2050.

The B-52 has set numerous records in its many years of service. On Jan. 18, 1957, three B-52Bs completed the first non-stop round-the-world flight by jet aircraft, lasting 45 hours and 19 minutes and requiring only three aerial refuelings. It was also a B-52 that made the first airborne hydrogen bomb drop over Bikini Atoll on May 21, 1956.

B-52G/H built without ailerons

A fun trivia fact about the mighty BUFF later models is that were built without ailerons, as Jason Edwards, a reader of The Aviation Geek Club and an aviation expert, explained us. According to Edwards, early model B-52s had ailerons. They were deleted from the design when the G and H models were designed. Ailerons aren’t bolted down; the aircraft were built without them. They rely entirely on the spoilers for roll control.

Damien Leimbach, former USAF avionics technician, explains on Quora;

‘Yes, you read that right.

‘The ailerons cannot be used.

‘What? Why? Well, they did build the early jets with ailerons of course, that aid in turning the craft. And they worked just like you would expect them to.

‘However, it was noticed that the ailerons were imparting far more force on the frame and wing spars than was really necessary. Use of the ailerons was imparting so much roll force and the wings were so long that the torque generated was literally ripping the wings off. So, the decision was made to build the later B-52G/H models without them in order to prolong the life of the plane.

‘Well, then how do you fly a plane the size of an airliner without ailerons?

Spoilerons

‘Stall panels. (many people have pointed out they are technically called spoilerons.)

‘Look closely at the right wing of this plane.

‘Those flat panels pop up into the airstream and disrupt the airflow over the wing, making it produce less lift. The right wing then falls, gently banking the plane.

‘To get out of the bank and fly level again, the left wing is then stalled, which dips, gently leveling the aircraft.’

Leimbach concludes;

‘Of course, it was not intended to be flown this way, so while the ailerons were deleted from the design when the G and H models designed, the wing spoilers were enlarged slightly.’

Photo credit: screenshot from Skyes9 YouTube channel video

Undisclosed talks of CIA Director in Moscow

On Aug. 25, 2026 an unmarked C-17 Globemaster III belonging to the US Air Force (USAF) unusually flew into Russian airspace via Latvia. Soon after, the news that CIA Director John Ratcliffe was in Moscow for unannounced talks was announced by US media outlets.

What’s behind the mystery of USAF C-17 flying CIA Director to Moscow?

Eric Wicklund, former US Navy Operation Specialist, explains on Quora;

‘So far, nobody knows. At least, nobody is telling. All we have for now is speculation. However, certain salient facts can lead us to plausible explanations. The last one I suggest being the most likely.

‘Firstly, [CIA Director] John Ratcliffe is well known to be pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian. This suggests any messages Ratcliffe had for Russia were not the sort of thing Russia would like. By contrast, if words of friendship and money-making were being offered, Witkoff would have been the bearer of that message. Since, it’s Ratcliffe, the message was more likely a threat or a warning.

‘Secondly, there’s all sorts of ways Ratcliffe could have traveled to Russia, and nobody would know about it. So, while this visit was unannounced, and nobody is saying anything about it, there’s still a message in there. Traveling by a trackable (transponder enabled), obviously military transport C-17 Globemaster III [US registered tail number 07-7181], where anybody can track its course…makes the message pretty clear, “The message was urgent, and we can’t talk about it, but you should know that it happened.”

Speculation

‘So far, it is confirmed that Ratcliffe spoke with his counterparts in the Russian FSB. What is unsure is, if he spoke with Putin directly. No one is willing to confirm that one.

‘Here’s the speculation part. What did they talk about?

• The US knows Russia has been assisting Iran and even supplying Russian-built Shahed-136s as well as intelligence data to Iran. Given Trump’s inability to find a way to cleanly open the Strait of Hormuz (closed by Iran), Ratcliffe may have passed the message to “knock it off.”
• It is possible that Putin is considering the use of a nuclear weapon. Perhaps just a small tactical nuke, but that hardly matters. A nuke is a tremendous escalation. If Ratcliffe has intel that Russia was seriously considering dropping a weapon in the Donbas to help secure the Donbas for instance, Ratcliffe would be saying, “Don’t!”

Possible answers to what we are seeing

• My personal favorite would be that the US has deep intel on the Russian economy and knows it is about to fold. It might even be that Putin’s life is in danger as a result. Ratcliffe could have been there to work out plans for how to move forward. These plans may not be happy for Russia, but are necessary to ensure a smooth transfer of power in Russia. A nuclear-armed Russia in complete chaos could be bad everybody.
• And here’s the most likely scenario. Russia has been conducting “Hybrid warfare” like cutting internet cables with dragged anchors, or drones going off course “accidentally”, or missiles “getting confused” and landing in Poland. The response from NATO nations has been tepid at best. And this may have led Putin to believe that NATO isn’t as rock solid as we think. He may be considering a much larger provocation to test NATO’s solidarity. And this visit may have occurred because the CIA got wind of it and is warning Russia not to try it. The current American administration may be loath to respond, but Europe’s response may prove it has seen the last straw. Ratcliffe may be there to tell Putin, who won’t like the reaction this time.

Wicklund concludes;

‘All these scenarios are purely speculation. I don’t stand by any of them, and I only offer them now as possible answers to what we are seeing.’

Photo credit: Office of the Director of Intelligence

US Navy aircraft carriers

Aircraft carriers are the centerpiece of America’s Naval forces – the most adaptable and survivable airfields in the world.

US Navy flat tops support and operate aircraft that engage in attacks on airborne, afloat and ashore targets that threaten free use of the sea and engage in sustained power projection operations in support of US and coalition forces. Aircraft carriers must be able to launch these aircraft in such a small space. With so much chaos in such a small area, engineers have had to design catapults, simple yet effective devices to help manage the process.

Cat shot

Getting air moving over the deck is important, but the primary takeoff assistance comes from the carrier’s four catapults, which get the planes up to high speeds in a very short distance. Each catapult consists of two pistons that sit inside two parallel cylinders, each about as long as a football field, positioned under the deck. According to How Stuff Works, the pistons each have a metal lug on their tip, which protrudes through a narrow gap along the top of each cylinder. The two lugs extend through rubber flanges, which seal the cylinders, and through a gap in the flight deck, where they attach to a small shuttle.

A catapult shot (or cat shot) usually generates up to 4 Gs and the airspeed will go from zero to 160mph in just two seconds.

Green shirts showing pilots gross weight of their aircraft

What is the green shirt (actually green shirts are responsible for Catapult and Arresting Gear aboard an aircraft carrier) in the photo of this post showing to the F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot before catapult launch?

‘He is showing to the pilot what he believes is the gross weight of the aircraft on the catapult. This weight is extremely important. It needs to be known for proper setting of the catapult,’ says John Chesire, former Naval Aviator, on Quora.

‘Usually, the planned or estimated gross weight before taxiing will be written in chalk on the aircraft’s nose-gear door. The guy in green will show this weight to the pilot for confirmation. If the pilot agrees with that weight displayed, he will give a “thumbs up”. If the pilot knows that weight shown to him is incorrect, he will signal with his hands to raise or lower the displayed weight until it matches the correct gross weight. He then will give a thumbs up; the catapult crew will set in the proper adjustments for that weight, and the aircraft will soon be shot off the deck.’

Chesire concludes;

‘This occurs on every flight and launch.’

Photo credit: U.S. Navy

Nighthawk

By the 1970s, new materials and techniques allowed engineers to design an aircraft with radar-evading or “stealth” qualities. The result was the F-117A Nighthawk, the world’s first operational stealth aircraft.

The first F-117A flew on June 18, 1981, and the first F-117A unit, the 4450th Tactical Group (renamed the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing in October 1989), achieved initial operating capability in October 1983.

A total of 64 F-117As were built (5 were YF-117A models) between 1981 and 1990.

The F-117 was officially retired in 2008, yet as already reported, selected jets will fly through 2034 as low-observable adversaries (conducting dissimilar air combat training (DACT) missions with other USAF air assets), sensor testbeds and missile surrogates.

Not a dogfighting machine

However, even though the reduced radar cross-section (RCS) and the black radar attenuating paint make the F-117 more than suitable for DACT operations, the Nighthawk is not a dogfighting machine.

‘The Nighthawk is a fighter (F-117) in name only,’ Adam Daymude, former US Navy Ea-18G Growler pilot, explains on Quora.

‘Look at this “thing:”

‘Let’s break it down by control axes:

‘Roll: the ailerons are way too small, but it’s good for stealth.

‘Yaw: Are you kidding me? The rudders are just barely enough to keep it pointed the right way, but it’s good for stealth.

‘Pitch: probably the most important control a fighter needs. No horizontal stab?! But it’s good for stealth.’

P-51 Vs F-117

Daymude continues;

‘Long story short, if this “fighter” went up against even a P-51 Mustang, it would be toast (The P-51 was an example of hyperbole. I purposefully picked one of the oldest fighters most people know about to illustrate how bad the F-117 would be in air to air combat.) Gen 4 or higher aircraft would probably save their missiles for a harder target and just get a guns kill.

‘I want to clarify my position: the F-117 is NOT a fighter, despite its F designation. That in absolutely no way detracts from what a marvel this aircraft was for its time. As a first gen stealth aircraft built using slide rules and pocket calculators, it proved stealth a viable concept that performed even better than we had dreamt.’

Daymude concludes;

‘Because of the lessons learned with the Have Blue program, we are now a full generation of aircraft ahead of potential adversaries. And I stick to my earlier prediction that a P-51 Mustang would mop the floor with a Nighthawk. Of course, it would! A-A combat is what is was designed for.’

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

A game changer in the Ukraine air war

Having become an essential defense against Russian drones, repeated interceptions carried out by Ukrainian Air Force F-16 jets are wearing out the country’s small fleet.

According to an analysis of the Ukraine air war written by airpower expert Justin Bronk for the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, Ukrainian F-16s have destroyed more than 2,500 Geran and Gerbera one-way attack drones.

As reported by Military Times, an estimated fleet of 39 F-16s (out of about 79 promised by various Western European nations) is currently operated by Ukraine. An estimated four Mirage 2000-5 fighters, out of up to 20 promised by France, plus a few Soviet-era Su-27 and MiG-29 fighters are also flown by the country.

The F-16s have been a game changer in the Ukraine air war. Because of its Viper fleet the Ukrainian Air force can launch stand-off attacks against ground targets using American-made JDAM and French-made AASM Hammer glide bombs. Last month a service F-16 reportedly even downed an Su-35 over eastern Ukraine leaving no doubts about the threat they pose to Russia’s air force.

How Ukraine F-16s can be protected against Russian attacks

But how did Ukraine manage to protect its fleet of F-16 and other fighters from Russian attacks for so long? Aren‘t they an extremely vulnerable and difficult to conceal target when on the ground?

Eric Wicklund, former US Navy Operation Specialist, explains on Quora;

‘Any aircraft is vulnerable when it’s on the ground. It’s the easiest time to destroy them. However, Ukraine is using clever trickery to keep their aircraft safe.

‘Firstly, Ukraine doesn’t keep their planes in one location for very long. They are constantly shuttling from location to location. Never staying in one spot long enough for prying eyes to collect targeting information.

‘Secondly, Ukraine is very good at operating F-16s from highways. Yes, F-16s need pristine roadways, and they are susceptible to FOD (Foreign Object Damage), but if you have industrious crews that can keep those roadways clean, then you can, in fact, use F-16s there. Below, a Polish F-16 is doing that very thing.

Inflatable decoys

‘Thirdly, you can use covered buildings. The enemy may know that such and such building could house a fighter inside, but since its covered, the enemy doesn’t know if one is in there or not. Sure, they could fire a multi-million-dollar missile at it, but they’ll never know if they got a plane. You can only fire at nothing so many times before the cost-effectiveness of it becomes untenable.’

Wicklund concludes;

‘Lastly, Ukraine could be using inflatable decoys. Some of these are really impressive. In the photo below, you’re very close and can easily see which F-16 is the real one. But from 10,000ft or from a satellite, they will look identical.’

Photo credit: Polish Armed Forces and i2K Defense

Felon

The Sukhoi Su-57 (NATO reporting name: Felon) is a twin-engine stealth multirole fighter aircraft developed by Sukhoi. It is the product of the PAK FA (”prospective aeronautical complex of front-line air forces”) programme, which was initiated in 1999 as a more modern and affordable alternative to the Mikoyan Project 1.44/1.42. Sukhoi’s internal designation for the aircraft is T-50. The Su-57 is the first aircraft in Russian military service designed with stealth technology and is intended to be the basis for a family of stealth combat aircraft.

According to Sukhoi, the Su-57’s radar cross section (RCS) is reduced to an average figure of 0.3-0.4m2 compared to 15m2 for the Su-27. As explained by Piotr Butowski in his book Russia’s Warplanes, Volume 1, the main solution to reduce radar visibility is internal carriage of weapons. Radar blockers reduce reflections from the engine inlet guide vanes and are installed in the engine air intake ducts. The shape of the airframe has been selected to reduce the number of directions in which electro-magnetic waves are reflected, and to ensure these directions are the safest.

Directed Infrared Counter Measures

Other interesting features of the Su-57 that no other fighter jet has are the longitudinally arranged internal weapons bays and the 101KS-O DIRCM (Directed Infrared Counter Measures).

‘Technically this feature is seen on other turbine powered aircraft,’ Connor Dalton, aircraft and incidents researcher, said on Quora. ‘It’s just never appeared on anything outside of heavy lift transports, and helicopters prior to the Su-57.

‘DIRCM consists of two laser emitting turrets, with one placed behind the cockpit on the dorsal side, and the other beneath the cockpit on the ventral side. The function of the system is relatively straight forwards. When an IR missile is spotted, the lasers quickly aim for the missiles seeker system, blinding it and preventing it from being able to guide to the targeted aircraft.

Su-57, the only Fighter with DIRCM

‘The thing is, the system has never previously been seen outside of transports and helicopters, and has only ever been placed on the ventral side in the past, as a defense against MANPADS.’

Dalton concludes:

‘So, the presence of the dorsal mounting, and on a fighter no less means that not only is this the first DIRCM system ever put into a fighter, it’s one of the first DIRCM systems ever made with the goal of combating air to air missiles.’

Photo credit: Chinese Internet and Sukhoi

B-36 Peacemaker

Responding to the US Army Air Forces (USAAF)’ requirement for a strategic bomber with intercontinental range, Consolidated Vultee (later Convair) designed the B-36 Peacemaker during World War II. The airplane made its maiden flight in August 1946, and in June 1948 the Strategic Air Command received its first operational B-36.

Powered by six Pratt & Whitney R-4360 engines, the B-36J cruised at 230 mph, but for additional bursts of speed its four General Electric J47s increased the maximum speed to 435 mph. It carried 86,000 pounds of nuclear or conventional bombs. When production ended in August 1954, more than 380 B-36s had been built for the US Air Force (USAF).

But, as explained in the bookazine Convair B-36 Peacemaker, back in the early development stages of the B-36 programme, the AAF wanted a heavy-lift cargo freighter to support wartime operations and on December 31. 1942, it ordered a prototype (43-52436) designated XC-99. It was not the only interested customer. News of the B-36 programme reached Pan American and it saw in the giant aircraft a potential flying boat through a derivative akin to that it had negotiated with Boeing to transform the unsuccessful XB-15 into the 314 Clipper utilised on its profitable routes from the West Coast to the Philippines.

Pan American double-deck airliner

The Pan American Convair Model-37 flying boat adapted from Convair’s B-36 would, said the airline, be marketed as its Super Clipper and carry 204 passengers and up to 15,000lb (6,804kg) of freight.

Lavish interior décor and a staircase at each end of the spacious fuselage would serve gourmet meals to both upper and lower decks occupied by premium fee-paying passengers and facilities to equal the best hotels in the world. In February 1945 Pan American ordered 15, six-turboprop engined Super Clipper flying boats and Convair, seeing a marketing opportunity, proposed a landplane alternative.

Although a fitting prescient for the wide-body, double-deck airliners of the future, it was too big for the passenger market of the early post-war years and an unprecedented expansion of both airfields and a surplus aircraft market bridged the gap from piston-power to the age of the commercial jet transport.

Flying boats were out, the Atlantic market would control the expansion of the early peacetime years until turboprop landplanes served the regional needs of local airlines and the early Boeing and Douglas jet airliners opened up intercontinental travel.

XC-99

As for the US Air Force, the XC-99 cargo carrier made its first flight on November 24, 1947, and would conduct many record-breaking runs between the United States and continental Europe carrying up to 60,000lb (27,216kg) of freight, some flights of up to 12,000 miles (19,308km).

While demonstrating to the air force the outstanding lift capacity and performance of this cargo carrier, it spent most of its time ferrying engines and supplies around from the United States to destinations in Japan and Southeast Asia.

While the air force liked it, corrosion and stress fatigue foretold its demise and it was retired out of the service in 1957 to oblivion, now resting at the AMARC facility, Tucson, Arizona awaiting funds and willingness to restore it to a permanent display at the National Museum of the US Air Force (NMUSAF), Wright-Patterson AFB.

Convair B-36 Peacemaker is published by Key Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: Unknown and U.S. Air Force

The Warthog

The A-10 Thunderbolt II (affectionally dubbed as the Warthog) was designed specifically for the close air support (CAS) mission and had the ability to combine large military loads, long loiter and wide combat radius.

A-10 aircraft have been utilized to great effect in both the Desert Storm conflict of the 1990’s and in Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, Global War on Terror engagements and in the more recent Operation Epic Fury.

The Warthog design features a titanium “bathtub” that protects the pilot from injury, and dually redundant flight control systems that allow the pilot to fly the aircraft out of enemy range, despite severe damage such as complete loss of hydraulic capability.

The Warthog can be serviced and operated from bases with limited facilities near battle areas. Many of the aircraft’s parts are interchangeable left and right, including the engines, main landing gear and vertical stabilizers.

A-10 Warthog doesn’t have a parking brake

Something that almost nobody knows is that until 2019 the A-10 didn’t have a parking brake.

‘It doesn’t have a parking brake,’ says Lynn Taylor, former A-10 Pilot, on Quora.

‘You’d think that wouldn’t be a big deal, right? I mean, why would you need one? When it’s parked on the ground you simply put chocks under the wheels. Problem solved.

‘Except when your takeoff gets delayed and you’re waiting in line for five, ten, or fifteen minutes. Or longer. The whole time you have to keep constant pressure on the brake pedals.

‘And it’s not like the brakes in your car where resting a foot on the pedal will do the trick. No, sir. The Hawg does two things quickly: shoot bullets, and taxi. That pup wants to roll. So, after your minutes on the pedals stretch into double digits, it starts to feel like leg day at the gym.’

Semi-useful autopilot

Taylor concludes;

‘So, yeah, a parking brake would have been nice. It’s on my list of given carte blanche, how would you improve upon the A-10 Thunderbolt II “Warthog”? (Wherein we also discuss how the “autopilot” in the A-10 is almost semi-useful.)

‘BRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTT!’

Actually the Guard and Reserve A-10s received a parking brake in 2019. Researched and developed, uses the backup braking reservoir to provide pressure. Active units did not get it, since it was not funded.

Photo credit: Arpingstone via Wikipedia

Soviet Tsar Bomba

Between 1949 and 1962, the Soviets set off 214 nuclear bombs in the open air. Dozens of these were released from aircraft operated by specialised test units. Equipped with the full range of bombers – from the Tupolev Tu-4, Tupolev Tu-16, to the gigantic Tu-95 – the units in question were staffed by men colloquially known as the ‘deaf-and-dumb’: people sworn to utmost secrecy, living and serving in isolation from the rest of the world. Frequently operating at the edge of the envelope of their specially modified machines while test-releasing weapons with unimaginable destructive potential, several of them only narrowly avoided catastrophe.

On Oct. 30, 1961, the Soviet Union conducted a live test of the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created. Codenamed ‘Ivan’, and known in the West as the ‘Tsar Bomba’, the RDS-202 hydrogen bomb was detonated on the Sukhoy Nos cape of Severny Island, Novaya Zemla archipelago, in the Barents Sea.

As explained by Krzysztof Dabrowski in his book Tsar Bomba: Live testing of Soviet Nuclear Bombs, 1949-1962, the operation was conducted from Oleny airfield on the Kola Peninsula where the Tsar Bomba was delivered by train. It had a weight of 24 tons to which 800kg more had to be added accounting for a retarding parachute system. This was considerably more than the earlier optimistic calculations showed but the Tu-95V (a modified Tupolev Tu-95 bomber featuring an enlarged bomb bay with special fittings to accommodate the RDS-202 and reduced fuel capacity. The Tu-95V was specifically developed to carry and drop the Tsar Bomba) was still able to take off with this load.

Aircraft laboratory

Another problem arose due to the bomb’s size as it measured 8 metres in length and 2.1 metres in diameter, which was too much to fit into even the enlarged bomb bay of the aircraft meant to carry it. This problem was solved by removing the bomb bay’s doors so that the bomb would be carried semi-recessed into the fuselage rather than fully internally. As a final touch, the aircraft was given a white anti-flash paint finish. For the mission, the Tu-95V was crewed by the pilot Lieutenant-Colonel Andrey Yegorovich Durnovtsev, navigator Major Ivan Nikiforovitch Kleshch and Flight Engineer Valenty Yakovlevitch Bruy.

During the nuclear test the Tu-95V was to be accompanied by a plane which was a standard production Tu-16 was fitted with film-recording equipment as well as measuring instruments and hence designated as a flying laboratory (literally aircraft laboratory – samolet laboratoriya), in addition it also received flash white finish. The aircraft was captained by Lieutenant-Colonel Vladimir Fodorovich Martynenko.

Literally felt worldwide

As planned the Tu-95V, accompanied by the Tu-16, took off from Oleny airfield in the morning hours of Oct. 30, 1961, setting course for Sukhoy Nos. At 11.33 Moscow the aircraft arrived over the test area at an altitude of 10,500m (the Tu-16 at a somewhat different one to facilitate better filming of the bomb drop), and the Tu-95V released its load. After 188 seconds – the descent being slowed down by the breaking parachute – the bomb went off at an altitude of 4,200 m (4,000 metres above ground) the coordinates of the detonation point being most frequently given as 73°51’N and 54°30’E.

Lead tampers dialled down the yield of the bomb’s calculated 100 megatons to circa 50 megatons (some sources put the actual yield at 58 megatons), but that was still enough to bring about a gargantuan explosion with a humongous fireball mushroom cloud – 64km in height and with a diameter of almost 40km – as well as a very destructive shockwave. The latter destroyed all buildings in Severny village located 55 kilometres from the point of detonation, inflicted lesser damage for hundreds of kilometres away and was literally felt worldwide: the shockwave was registered by sensors to have travelled around the globe three times over!

Soviet Tsar Bomba shockwave

The Tu-95V was 39km away from the point of detonation when it occurred, and 115km when the shock wave caught up with it, the figures for the Tu-16 being 53.5km and 205km respectively. Both aircraft were roughly shaken by the blast with the Tu-95 dropping some 800 metres before the pilot regained control and their white anti-flash finish was scorched too. Yet despite this, and a temporary communications failure caused by the electromagnetic shock of the nuclear explosion, they flew back without further incident and landed safely.

Naturally the Americans desired to learn much as possible about the new weapon. Since its test took place at Novaya Zemlya and not deep inside the Soviet Union’s interior there was a realistic possibility to observe it from a relatively close position. For this purpose, an appropriately modified aircraft had to be readied at short notice. This was managed under the USAF’s Project Big Safari which provided management direction and control of the acquisition, modification and logistics support for special purpose weapons systems derived from existing ones. A major advantage of Big Safari was that it facilitated operating outside normal acquisition procedures and therefore offered the ability to handle complex tasks at short notice.

Air Force JKC-135A irradiated

In this particular case a Boeing JKC-135A Stratotanker (serial 55-3127) which had previously been used for special systems testing was fitted with extra sensors and other modifications in just five days between Oct. 22-27, 1961. Dubbed Speed Light Bravo, the aircraft was able to observe the Tsar Bomba test (code named Joe-111 in the West), gathering important data in the process.

This data was of considerable value to American nuclear scientists as well as the military and political leadership, with the US the President John Kennedy showing his personal appreciation for the effort. As for Speed Light Bravo, it did not escape some scorching of its surfaces. More alarmingly it was also supposedly highly irradiated ‘lighting up like a Christmas tree’ as was commented at that time, though it was also claimed that no long-term adverse health effects were experienced by its crew.

Tsar Bomba: Live testing of Soviet Nuclear Bombs, 1949-1962, is published by Helion & Company and is available to order here.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force, Nuclear Vault YouTube Channel, User:Croquant with modifications by User:Hex Own work and Soviet government of Russia via Wikipedia

The Valkyrie

The B-70 Valkyrie, with a planned cruise speed of Mach 3 and operating altitude of 70,000 feet, was to be the ultimate high-altitude, high-speed manned strategic bomber. Events, however, would cause it to play a far different role in the history of aviation.

By the early 1960s, however, new Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs) threatened the survivability of high-speed, high-altitude bombers. Less costly, nuclear-armed ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) were also entering service. As a result, in 1961, the expensive B-70 bomber program was canceled before any Valkyries had been completed or flown.

Even so, the USAF bought two XB-70As to test aerodynamics, propulsion and other characteristics of large supersonic aircraft. The first XB-70A (Air Vehicle 1 or AV 1) flew in September 1964, and it achieved Mach 3 flight in October 1965. The second Valkyrie (AV 2) first flew in July 1965, but in June 1966, it was destroyed following an accidental mid-air collision. The third Valkyrie (AV 3) was not completed.

The first XB-70A airplane continued to fly and generate valuable test data in the research program until it was brought to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in 1969.

XB-70A both sets of main gear not fully lowered

As told by Graham M. Simons in his book Valkyrie: The North American XB-70- The USA’s Ill-Fated Supersonic Heavy Bomber, on Mar. 7, 1966 the 37th flight of AV 1 showed the type of adversity that could be overcome by a pair of experienced test pilots. Van Shepard was the pilot and Joe Cotton was copilot. Halfway through the planned flight, both hydraulic systems began to fail. Shepard quickly brought the Valkyrie home as Cotton extended the landing gear. No green indicators came on, and that was soon followed by a call from the chase aircraft that there was trouble with both sets of main gear. On the left side, the gear had not fully lowered before rotating to meet the direction of travel, leaving the rear wheels higher, rather than lower, than the front set of wheels.

The right side gear was in worse shape as it hadn’t lowered at all before rotating. Even more alarming, it hadn’t rotated completely in line with the direction of travel, although it was close. Neither the backup or emergency system corrected the problem. After what must have seemed like hours in the cockpit, engineers on the ground called up to the pilots with their plan. Shepard would land the Valkyrie on the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB), so there would be plenty of room.

AV 1 returning to flight

The engineers believed that, on touchdown, the left gear would level itself out, the weight of the XB-70A forcing the gear into its normal position. As for the right gear — being behind the centreline of the main strut, it was unlikely to level out, but hopefully the landing would at least cause the gear to finish swinging into the direction of travel, and the wingtip would still clear the ground, although the right side would he much lower than the left.

Van Shepard set AV 1 down on the lake bed, and each main gear did what the engineers expected. The aircraft was down and rolling, but it wanted to turn sharply to the right threatening to ground loop, which, although probably not fatal to the pilots, would probably destroy the aircraft. So Shepard kept applying power to the No. 6 engine to help keep the XB-70A something like straight.

After rolling almost three miles across the lake bed, the XB-70A came to a stop, having swung over half a mile to the right and turned 110 degrees. Only the size of the lake bed made this landing possible.

The damage, such as it was, was quickly repaired and AV 1 returned to flight on Mar. 22.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

AIM-424 Malice

As the photos in this post show, the Department of Navy is developing the Air Intercept Missile (AIM)-424 Long Range Air to Air Missile (LRAAM), a next-generation missile intended to strengthen fleet defense and maintain a decisive air domain overmatch against advanced threats. Also known as Malice, LRAAM directly supports the Department’s contribution to integrated deterrence by increasing range, lethality, and combat effectiveness for Marine and Naval aviation forces that are defending our fleets, our interests, and our homeland.

The weapon was publicly disclosed at the Tailhook symposium in Reno, Nevada, on Aug. 22, 2026, at which point it was already in flight testing.

Development of the missile has been linked to Navy requirements for greater engagement range from carrier-based aircraft in response to the threat of Chinese air-launched anti-ship ballistic missiles and cruise missiles with ranges in excess of 1,000 nautical miles.

The photos were released by Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. The first image shows an AIM-424 Long Range Air-to-Air Missile (LRAAM) is mounted in the internal weapons bay of an F-35C with an AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) mounted on the weapon bay door.

The second picture instead features four AIM-424 Long Range Air-to-Air Missiles (LRAAM) are loaded on an F/A-18E Super Hornet from Navy Air Test And Evaluation Squadron 23 (VX-23) for a test event.

LRAAM sustains the Department’s first look, first shot, first kill advantage by providing our aviators greater reach, greater survivability, and greater tactical flexibility in the air-to-air fight. Built for 4th, 5th, and 6th generation platforms, the AIM-424 is designed for the air wing of today and the future.

AIM-260 JATM

The Malice is being developed by Raytheon and has a range in excess of 250 nm (463 km) featuring a blast fragmentation warhead and a weight of 1500 pounds (680.4 kg).

As reported by Aviation Week, the AIM-424 concept may have been under lengthy development under the Long-Range Engagement Weapon (LREW) special access program. First disclosed in 2017, LREW was a USAF-driven requirement for a two-stage air-to-air missile that could be carried in the internal weapons bay of a stealth fighter (F-35 or F-22), a similar use case to AIM-424. AIM-424 is a separate program from the Lockheed Martin AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM), which the Navy and the Air Force are preparing to field at the time of the AIM-424’s disclosure.

The AIM-260 is a new air-dominance missile for the USAF and Navy with significantly greater range than the Raytheon AIM-120 AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile) as a counter to China’s new PL-15 weapon.

The AIM-260 JATM was scheduled to begin flight testing in 2021 and achieving initial operational capability in 2022, said Brig. Gen. Anthony Genatempo in 2019, who at the time was the Air Force’s program executive officer for weapons.

AIM-174B

As already explained, besides the AIM-260 the US Navy announced in July 2024 that it had operationally deployed an air-launched variant of the RIM-174, designated AIM-174B Standard Missile 6 Air Launched Configuration.

A Super Hornet carrying what appeared to be an SM-6 while in flight was photographed for the first time in April 2021.

Then, in June 2024, the AIM-174B appeared on USN F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter aircraft at the biennial RIMPAC exercise.

The AIM-174 is an air-to-air variant of the SM-6 and is the first dedicated long-range air-to-air missile employed by the USN since the 2004 retirement of the AIM-54 Phoenix carried by the iconic F-14 Tomcat.

Photo credit: U.S. Navy

Sleek, futuristic and deadly

The F-16 Fighting Falcon is a compact, multi-role fighter aircraft. It is highly maneuverable and has proven itself in air-to-air combat and air-to-surface attack. It provides a relatively low-cost, high-performance weapon system for the United States and allied nations.

Sleek, futuristic and deadly – the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon was born from the crucible of the air war over Vietnam and the need for cheaper, simpler and more manoeuvrable fighter aircraft with which to combat the many thousands of Soviet-bloc supplied aircraft sold around the world.

Back in the early 1970s the F-16 was the pinnacle of modern design, integrating a powerful turbofan engine and offering unrivalled manoeuvrability – thanks to its relaxed static stability and fly-by-wire system with computer control.

World’s high-time F-16 pilot

As told by Bertie Simmonds in his book F-16 Fighting Falcon, with the F-16 having been in service since the 1970s it’s understandable that some pilots have hit some serious milestones. Lt. Col. Mike “Brillo” Brill is a legend in the F-16 community; rather than move up the ranking ladder, he just wanted to fly.

He became the first pilot to fly 3000 hours in the F-16 in 1993, breaking the 4000 hour barrier in August 1998. In November 2002 he broke the 5000 hour barrier and pushed through the 6000 hour barrier while serving with the 421st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron in 2008.

After this new record, Brill said: “I was 30 miles north of Baghdad when I hit the 6000 hours but to me it was just another day in the office. I’ve been lucky, really. You need to have a passion for flying to continue to push yourself over the years especially with long hours, days, weeks and months of deployments. I’ve flown the F-15 and the F/A-18 but the F-16 is to me a thoroughbred of them all as it has lots of thrust. The F-15 was always air-to air, but the F-16 is a multi-role and jack-of-all-trades so it’s been a challenge to do that.”

Brill first encounter the F-16 back in 1980 after graduating from the Air Force Academy in 1979. He went to Hill Air Force Base in Utah and began his training on the Electric Jet’ eventually becoming a full-time reservist.

Today’s Viper

Today’s F-16 Viper is light years away from the simple, lightweight point defence fighter first envisaged, but it has evolved and matured into the finest and most exported fourth-generation combat aircraft around the world.

He says the advances in weaponry have been the biggest changes: “The advances in the weapons we carry have had the biggest impact on how we employ. Things like Night Vision Goggles and Data Link have enhanced our ability to fly in poor weather and at night, but the precision munitions have completely changed how we do business. With dumb bombs, we flew at low altitude or in packages of 20-30 aircraft. Now we fly as two-ships at medium altitude.”

Brill explains in the article Q+A with the world’s high-time F-16 pilot by Bryan Magaña, 419th Fighter Wing Public Affairs that the F-16 pilot training changed as a result: “There is 10 times the amount of pre-mission study and planning. The missions and attack profiles are so complicated that guys will have to do hours of study, where before we only looked at an attack for a couple minutes. We used to fly with one or two pieces of paper that had all our mission data. Now we literally have books of data that we fly with.”

Breaking the 6300 hour barrier

He knows just what the F-16 is and how it will be remembered. Brill says: “”The F-16 still flies the same as it did back in 1980 and will be remembered as one of the best fighters ever produced. It will be in the same class as the P-51 Mustang.”

Brill would go on to break the 6300 hour barrier – that’s the equivalent of spending 263 days in the air. That may be nothing for tanker or cargo pilots, but for a fighter pilot with much shorter missions, it’s something very special.

F-16 Fighting Falcon is published by Mortons books and is available to order here.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

SR-71 Blackbird J58 Engine at Max Afterburner Power

Taken at Beale Air Force Base (AFB) in 1986, the impressive video in this post features the test of SR-71 J58 engine at max afterburner power. This engine run was performed by MSgt John Wiltison.

According to the U.S. Air Force, the Pratt & Whitney J58 engine was a nine-stage, axial-flow, bypass turbojet originally developed in the late 1950s to meet U.S. Navy requirements. It was the first jet engine designed to operate for extended periods using its afterburner. The J58 generated a maximum thrust of 32,500 pounds — more than 160,000 shaft horsepower — and was the most powerful air-breathing aircraft engine yet devised.

The J58 was specifically tailored for operation at extreme speeds, altitudes, and temperatures, and was the first aircraft engine to be flight qualified for the Air Force at Mach 3. At maximum output the fuel flow rate in the J58 is about 8,000 gallons per hour and the exhaust-gas temperature is around 3,400 degrees. The J58 was only used on the Lockheed YF-12 interceptor and its descendents, the A-12 and SR-71.

The J58 required the use of a special AG330 engine starter cart to spool the engines up to the proper rotational speed for starting. The cart was powered by two unmuffled Buick Wildcat V-8 racing car engines which delivered a combined 600 horsepower through a common gear box to the starter drive shaft of the aircraft engines. The J58s had to be spun up to about 3,200 RPM for starting. 

JP-7 fuel

The variable-geometry inlets for the engines were quite complex and intricate. The most prominent feature was a hydraulically-actuated conical spike which was automatically moved forward or aft by the Air Inlet Computer as required to keep the supersonic shockwave properly positioned in relation to the inlet throat. Working in conjunction with a series of bypass ducts and doors, the spike prevented supersonic air from entering the inlet and maintained a steady flow of subsonic air for the engine. At Mach 3.2 cruise the inlet system itself actually provided 80 percent of the thrust and the engine only 20 percent, making the J58 in reality a turbo-ramjet engine. 

At the speeds the SR-71 operated, surface temperatures were extremely high due to aerodynamic heating: 800 degrees at the nose, 1,200 degrees on the engine cowlings, 620 degrees on the cockpit windshield. Because of the operating altitudes, speeds, and temperatures, Lockheed designers were forced to work at the cutting edge of existing aerospace technology, and well beyond in many cases. Many features and systems simply had to be invented as they were needed, since conventional technology was inadequate to the task. New oils, hydraulic fluids, sealants, and insulations were created to cope with the ultra-high temperatures the craft would encounter.

A new type of aviation fuel, JP-7, was invented that would not “cook off” at high operating temperatures, having such a low volatility and high flash point that it required the use of triethylborane as a chemical ignitor in order for combustion to take place. The fuel itself was rendered inert by the infusion of nitrogen and then circulated around various components within the airframe as a coolant before being routed into the J58 engines for burning. 

The world’s fastest and highest-flying operational aircraft

The SR-71, unofficially known as the “Blackbird,” is a long-range, advanced, strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed from the Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft. The first flight of an SR-71 took place on Dec. 22, 1964, and the first SR-71 to enter service was delivered to the 4200th (later 9th) Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., in January 1966. The U.S. Air Force retired its fleet of SR-71s on Jan. 26, 1990, because of a decreasing defense budget and high costs of operation.

Throughout its nearly 24-year career, the SR-71 remained the world’s fastest and highest-flying operational aircraft. From 80,000 feet, it could survey 100,000 square miles of Earth’s surface per hour.

MiG-29

The Mikoyan MiG-29 (Russian: Микоян МиГ-29; NATO reporting name: Fulcrum) is a twin-engine jet fighter aircraft designed in the Soviet Union. Developed by the Mikoyan design bureau as an air superiority fighter during the 1970s, the MiG-29, along with the larger Sukhoi Su-27, was developed to counter new US fighters such as the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle and the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. The MiG-29 entered service with the Soviet Air Forces in 1982.

In 1989 the first MiG-29s were delivered to the 1521st Aviation Base (AvB) located at Maryy-1 Air Base (AB). This was a very special outfit within the structure of the Soviet Air Force. In the early 1970s the top command of the Soviet Air Force decided that the valuable experience of aerial combat gained in the Arab-Israeli wars should be put to good use and implemented in all units. Also, the top command was aware that the US Air Force and the US Navy had set up special ‘aggressor’ squadrons emulating the performance of Soviet fighters and Soviet tactics in order to train their own pilots in aerial combat techniques.

Soviet Air Force aggressor unit

Therefore it was decided to establish the Soviet Air Force own ‘aggressor’ unit. As reported by Yefim Gordon and Dmitriy Komissarov in their book Mikoyan MiG-29 & MiG-35, while this name is not to be found in any official Soviet document (after all, the Soviet Union was officially a peace-loving nation!), informally the 1521st AvB was known as the ‘aggressor’ unit among fighter jocks. Maryy was chosen as the home base for this special unit because it offered favorable weather conditions throughout the year, enabling intensive flying training. The 1521st AvB became the proving ground where all Soviet Air Force fighter units honed their skills and passed the test for their ability to defend the nation’s airspace.

The pilots of the ‘aggressor’ unit could pride themselves on their excellent airmanship, and they were tough adversaries in mock combat. The two squadrons of the 1521st AvB were mostly staffed with Pilots 1st Class and Sniper Pilots (official Soviet skill grades); the ‘snipers’ always made up 35-40% of the lot. Flying two sorties per day, the pilots had to shoulder a high workload, and before long they no longer cared who they were up against – they were prepared to take on even the devil, or a squadron of devils!

Red ‘kill’ stars

Each fighter regiment arriving at Maryy-1 AB for a check-up had to complete the following disciplines:

• check-up of the individual pilots’ flying skills, including complex manoeuvres and aerobatics;
• ultra-low-level flying over terrain devoid of natural landmarks (desert areas); –
• dogfighting and check-up of the unit’s QRA performance; –
• tactical exercises performed by the entire regiment and individual squadrons;
• live missile launch and gunnery practice against remote-controlled target drones manoeuvring in such a way as to emulate a given type of adversary aircraft and in accordance with the current tactical situation.

(Here it should be noted that if 100% accuracy was achieved in the latter discipline the aircraft was awarded red ‘kill’ stars. Some machines carried as many as nine ‘kills’ below the canopy!)

Typical ‘pair versus pair’ mock combat

A typical ‘pair versus pair’ mock combat session looked like this. Each pair (the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’) had its own combat control radio channel; before the mission the leader of each pair would arrange with his command, control and communications officer to report the position of the other pair to him at certain intervals. The dogfight lasted up to ten minutes. If a pilot managed to latch onto his opponent’s tail he would report to his C³ officer: ‘Target in sight!’, then activate the radar lock-on mode and switch his radio to the opponent’s frequency, informing him: ‘I see you! You’re under attack!’ Unless the other pilot could shake off the pursuer immediately, the dogfight was discontinued because it was an obvious ‘gotcha’.

The date of the checkout session at 1521st AvB was set individually for each regiment at the beginning of the practice year. As the day drew near, the entire unit’s resources were committed to the preparation for ‘the Maryy experience’. The unit could ill afford to fail the test because the results reflected the unit’s training and combat readiness level, and getting an A in the course was not easy at all.

Re-equipping with the MiG-29 Fulcrum-C

The 1521st AvB’s Squadron 1 began re-equipping with the MiG-29 (izdeliye 9.13) Fulcrum-C which took over from the MiG-21bis fighters flown previously. The fighters were delivered in the standard factory finish of dark greenish grey over neutral grey. Now, whereas the MiG-29 (izdeliye 9.12) Fulcrum-A had no set camouflage pattern and the finish of individual aircraft varied considerably, the camouflage of the later version was pretty much standardised.

On the Fuclrum-C the extremities of the airframe – the forward fuselage, the outer wings, the upper halves of the fins and the stabilator tips – were painted a darker colour, making the aircraft appear more compact when seen from a distance; the colour division line on the wings ran strictly chordwise from the inner/outer LE flap section joint to the TE flap/aileron joint. Also, on the Fuclrum-A the black anti-glare panel terminated in line with the front of the windshield, whereas on the Fuclrum-C it continued all the way to the rear of the windshield.

Of course, the aircraft earmarked for the e ‘aggressor’ unit received no special treatment, being delivered in the standard camouflage scheme. This created a problem: in a group dogfight the pilots had difficulties telling friend from foe, especially if they were flying the same type of aircraft. As was usually the case, the idea of applying quick identification markings to the ‘aggressor’ aircraft arose at the ‘grass roots’ level; the commanders thought over the initiative and eventually approved it.

Soviet Fulcrums Tasked to Simulate USAF F-15 Fighters

Soon the drab colours were gone and the resident MiGs received special markings and nose art. However, this was by no means a ‘flight of fancy’ matter – indeed, a scientific approach was used! Some MiG-29s were painted up to make them resemble the McDonnell Douglas F-15 – the wingtips and stabilator tips were painted yellow with a black outline, this visually altered their shape, making them appear to be raked as on the F-15 when seen from a distance. Angled black stripes converging in a black and yellow chevron were applied aft of the cockpit, making the canopy appear longer and more similar to that of the Eagle.

As for the nose art (this was allowed, since the aircraft were supposed to represent NATO fighters), this was left up to the technicians, and each aircraft was slightly different. ’31 Red’ was probably the most colourful MiG-29 at Maryy. In addition to the ‘F-15 disguise’ it sported a sharkmouth, a so-called ‘brandy stripe’ (kon’yachnaya polosa, lit. ‘Cognac stripe’) – a yellow quick-identification stripe with stars similar to those found on brandy bottles – on the centre fuselage and the legend Aviabaza Maryy aft of the cockpit, while the fins were adorned with the badge of Squadron 1 (a winged ‘1’ superimposed on a red arrow) and a sabre-toothed tiger. The result was quite impressive!

The airmen at Maryy-1 AB recall that ’31 Red’ was meant to be a sort of pattern aircraft; however, for various reasons not all of the unit’s MiGs were painted up this fashion. For instance, ’21 Red’ lacked the ‘brandy stripe’. The fighters coded ’23 Red’, ’25 Red’, ’26 Red’, ‘ 28 Red’ through ’30 Red’ and ’32 Red’ had no tiger motif; instead, ’30 Red’ sported a leaping leopard painted below the canopy to starboard.

Large sharkmouth and white triangle

The unit’s Squadron 2 flying MiG-23MLD ‘swing-wing’ fighters was originally due to re-equip with Su-27s, but, as it often happens, there was a last-minute change of plans and the unit soon began receiving heaps of high-time early-production Fulcrum-As from all across the nation. These, too, received special markings to assist friend-and-foe differentiation; a few weeks after being taken on charge the newcomers were recoded in an orderly fashion (the codes were again red)and adorned with artwork.

The most colourful ones wore a large sharkmouth and a white triangle on the upper fuselage extending aft from the cockpit; this incorporated the base’s crest (a shield with an eagle breaking an aircraft in two) on both sides. The outer face of the fins carried the squadron badge – a hornet superimposed on a red lightning bolt – and the letters ‘AM’ (that is, Aviabaza Maryy) above it. When the unit came under Turkmenian jurisdiction after the demise of the Soviet Union, the letters were removed because in the Turkmen language am is an obscene word.

Of the 24 MiG-29s based at Maryy-1 AB, several single-seaters of both varieties and one MiG-29UB were

flown to Zherdyovka AB (Tambov Region, Russia) in August 1992. In keeping with a Russian government directive most of the MiGs stationed at the latter base were transferred to the Kazakhstan Air Force in late 1995/early 1996.

Mikoyan MiG-29 & MiG-35 is published by Crecy and is available to order here.

Photo credit: Digital Combat Simulator and TSGT Michael Ammons / U.S. Air Force

F-15 Vs “VIFFing Harriers”

The F-15 Eagle is an all-weather, extremely maneuverable, tactical fighter designed to permit the US Air Force (USAF) to gain and maintain air supremacy over the battlefield.

Since during the Cold War the mission of the F-15 and the men (and now women) who flew it was (and actually still is) air superiority — the efficient, remorseless killing of any aircraft that dared stand in their way — Eagle Drivers took great pains to know their potential foes very well, to learn their weaknesses, know how to combat them, and how to survive and live to fight another one.

In doing so, the variety of Western fighters provided some basis for emphasizing certain maneuvers and engagement techniques that could be used against Soviet (or other foreign) equipment that had similar capabilities.

‘The RAF (Royal Air Force) Harrier pilots prided themselves on their VIFFing defensive maneuver,’ former F-15 pilot Doug Dildy explains in his and Steve Davies’ book F-15 Eagle Engaged. ‘VIFF stood for “vectoring thrust in launch forward flight” and entailed rotating the variable angle jet nozzles mounted to the sides of the fuselage downward. This would substantially increase the nose (turning) rate of the little “jump jet” for an instant, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

GR.Mk 3

‘The RAF Harrier GR.Mk 3s were tremendous ground attack jets and the FAA (Fleet Air Arm) Sea Harriers did an admirable and highly respected job against the Argentines in the Falklands conflict. The GR.Mk 3 lacked radar so it was a visual-only fighter employing the AIM-9L with a fixed (called an “iron” sight). Nevertheless, for DACT we would begin BVR so they could practice defeating radar missiles (we wouldn’t call them “dead” on AIM-7 shots), and when we arrived at the merge we were more or less equal since both of us were “slinging Limas” (I’m being kind now, actually they were never equal to us).

‘The Harriers invariably took the “low block” of altitudes since their engine performance was better where the air was thicker (they had no afterburners). This preference resulted in the Harrier’s high-mounted wing masking its hot exhausts and while the Harrier pilot rarely spotted us arriving at the merge in time to shoot an AIM-9L, we were usually denied a pre-merge AIM-9L kill because of the wing/exhaust arrangement. Immediately a turning fight would ensue with the Eagle using its power and turn capabilities to twist in the vertical, pirouette and descend into the guns envelope.’

VIFFing maneuver

 Dildy continues:

‘As the Harrier Driver saw the Eagle swooping down, he would carefully time his VIFFing maneuver to rotate the GR.Mk 3 broadside in front of the F-15. The sudden loss of thrust from rotating the nozzles downward also acted as a powerful speedbrake and the Harrier seemed to stop in space. If – and this is a big if – the Eagle Driver was not paying attention, hadn’t done his homework, or “had his fangs out” going for the kill, an embarrassing overshoot could result. As the Eagle zoomed by, the Harrier would tuck the nozzles in, put the “iron sight” on the glowing F100 afterburners and shoot a Lima up his tailpipes.

‘Far more often the sudden rotation of the Harrier in front of us and the appearing to come to a complete stop in the air was warning enough that there was some VIFFing going on. In this case, the Eagle Driver simply went to idle and pulled on the pole to exchange knots for altitude and zoom up and out of the Harrier’s WEZ. Rolling over on our backs, we’d chuckle to ourselves as we began to compute the trajectory needed to return to guns parameters. He was now out of knots and “dead in the water.”

More than just “fun over the Mediterranean

‘This is because airflow over the wings is what generates lift at 10,000 feet, and after VIFFing the Harrier had none. The vectored thrust at that altitude (since thrust coming out the exhaust is proportional to the air being gulped in the front; no knots: no air) was only a fraction of the weight of the aircraft and consequently the Harrier would have to roll off to one side, put its nose down and begin accelerating again as it descended to the floor of the DACT airspace. Tipping its tail up to dive, it frequently offered an attractive heat source to the AIM-9L’s seeker head since now the wings no longer provided a cover over the exhausts – “Fox Two kill the Harrier diving through 7,000 feet.”’

Dildy concludes:

‘Because of supposed similarities with the Soviet Navy’s Yak-36 “Forger” carrier-borne fighter, fighting the Harrier was more than just “fun over the Mediterranean.”’

F-15 Eagle engaged is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force and Crown Copyright

Flanker

The Sukhoi Su-27 (NATO reporting name: Flanker) is a Soviet-origin twin-engine supermaneuverable fighter aircraft designed by Sukhoi. It was intended as a direct competitor for the large United States fourth-generation fighters such as the Grumman F-14 Tomcat and F-15 Eagle, with 3,530-kilometre (1,910 nmi) range, heavy aircraft ordnance, sophisticated avionics, and high maneuverability. The Su-27 was designed for air superiority missions, and subsequent variants are able to perform almost all aerial warfare operations. It was designed with the Mikoyan MiG-29 as its complement.

The Su-27’s production began in 1982.

As told by Yefim Gordon and Dmitriy Komissarov in their book Sukhoi Su-27 & 30/33/34/35, the first ‘official acknowledgement’ of the Flanker’s existence came in the summer of 1985. A documentary about Pavel O. Sukhoi shown on Soviet TV on occasion of the designer’s 90th anniversary included a brief reference to the new fighter and a ten-second sequence showing what was known as the T-10 on take-off. To paraphrase Robert Frost, these were ‘ten seconds that shook the world.’ Yet, it was another two years before the first photos of the production Su-27 appeared in the Soviet press.

The Soviet Su-27 that Collided with a Norwegian P-3

In the autumn of 1987 the Flanker became famous when Western aerospace magazines published dramatic close-ups of a 941st IAP Su-27 carrying a full complement of R-27T and R-27ER missiles. These were taken during the widely publicized incident of Sep. 13 1987 involving a Royal Norwegian Air Force Lockheed P-3B Orion maritime patrol aircraft from the 333 Sqn at Bodo Air Base (AB).

The P-3B serialled 602 and named ‘Gunnar lsachsen’ (ex-US Navy BuNo 156602, c/n 185C-5304) was shadowing a group of Soviet Navy ships in the Barents Sea; another account of the story says it was chasing an A-50 AWACS over international waters and trying to prevent it from fulfilling its mission. Lt. (SG) Vasiliy Tsymbal flying Su-27 ’36 Red’ (c/n 36911016816) was ordered to make a practice intercept. Trying to ‘squeeze’ the Flanker out as the fighter moved in close, the Orion’s captain 1st Lt. Jan Salvesen reduced speed by extending the undercarriage and moved to position his aircraft directly above the Su-27. However, he was unaware of the Flanker’s low-speed handling capabilities, and as the Su-27 slowed down as well to keep formation the Norwegian crew briefly lost sight of it.

Tsymbal manoeuvred the fighter dangerously close to the Orion and the port fin struck the No. 4 propeller. The dielectric fin cap shattered immediately, but so did the propeller and the debris punctured the fuselage skin, causing decompression; the damaged propeller caused violent vibration, forcing the crew to shut down the engine. Some accounts say that Tsymbal was not content and positioned his Su-27 ahead of the P-3, dumping fuel on its fuselage! Anyway, both aircraft made for home, landing safely at their respective bases.

38 Red

A huge investigation was mounted, and reprisal was swift. Three days after the incident Vasiliy Tsymbal was expelled from the Communist Party – a very severe punishment by Soviet standards. One day later, however, he was reinstated. Shortly afterwards he was awarded the Order of the Red Star and transferred to another unit based in Rostov – in other words, kicked upstairs.

The Soviet Union officially apologized for the incident; however, the report of the Soviet accident investigation board stated explicitly that both pilots were at fault – a point debated by the Norwegian MoD. Anyway, Jan Salvesen emerged from the incident with an unblemished service record.

After the incident the Su-27 in question was recoded ’38 Red’ (and later ’31 Blue’), possibly to lead Western investigators astray and generally avoid unwanted interest in this aircraft. Thus, should any party make claims, stating the tactical code ’36 Red’, the Soviet authorities would reply that no such fighter was operated by Soviet Air Force units stationed up north – which would be perfectly true. However, no one ever stated any political claims. The reader may be interested to know that the famous Su-27 did gain special markings – one of the five ‘kill’ stars painted on the port side of the nose was superimposed on the silhouette of a P-3!

Sukhoi Su-27 & 30/33/34/35 is published by Crecy and is available to order here.

Photo credit: U.S. Gov and @Missilito Twitter

Flight simulator

A flight simulator is a system designed to mimic the experience of flying an aircraft. These systems range from basic software applications on a desktop computer to highly sophisticated setups used by airlines and military organizations. The goal of a simulator is to replicate various aspects of real-world flying, including:

• Aircraft Controls: Simulators mimic the controls and instrumentation found in an actual cockpit, allowing users to interact with yokes, rudder pedals, throttles, and avionics.
• Environmental Conditions: Advanced simulators recreate weather patterns, wind turbulence, and even runway conditions.
• Flight Physics: Accurate simulation software ensures that the aircraft behaves as it would in real-world scenarios, factoring in variables like weight, speed, and altitude.

According to Wiki, today flight simulation is used for a variety of reasons, including flight training (mainly of pilots), the design and development of the aircraft itself, and research into aircraft characteristics and control handling qualities.

Crashing in the simulator

What could go wrong to cause you to crash your place in a flight simulator?

John Chesire, former US Naval Aviator, recalls on Quora;

‘I discussed this with my pilot daughter after she passed her B-757/767 check ride. She has never crashed a simulator, but I did.

‘I had been flying F-14s. Upon an engine loss they had a tendency to enter a flat spin if one was not careful. Therefore, with the loss of and engine after V1 in the F-14, radical response was required.

Airline pilot and former F-14 pilot crashing B-737 in the simulator

‘When I was later hired by my airline, I was subjected to a number of V1 cuts – losing an engine right after takeoff in the simulator. Unfortunately, I reverted to my F-14 recovery controls, rather than the B-737 simulator that I was flying. Not good; I crashed.

‘With some practice, I learned the more correct response. Nevertheless, I still had some problems and crashed. What I learned was that I had the seat not positioned close enough to the rudders. Thus, with an engine failure and needing almost a full rudder input, I was unconsciously pulling back on the yoke and increasing angle of attack…at a terrible time.’

Chesire concludes;

‘Once I became aware of this bad tendency, I always adjusted the seat closer and never had a problem since. Simulators are worth their money!’

Photo credit: Photographer’s Mates Airman Chris Howell / U.S. Navy, B737-800 by Andrés Nieto Porras from Palma de Mallorca, España via Wikipedia and Boeing

Flying Fortress

One of the most well-known bombers of all time, the B-17 Flying Fortress became famous for the long daylight bombing raids over Europe in WWII. While it lacked the range and bomb load of its contemporary B-24 Liberator, the B-17 became the more famous of the two due to the many tales of B-17s bringing their crews back home despite heavy damage. With up to thirteen machine guns, the B-17 seemed to be genuine flying “fortress in the sky.”

The aircraft served in every WWII combat zone, but is best known for daylight strategic bombing of German industrial targets. Production ended in May 1945 and totaled 12,731. The name Flying Fortress has entered the world of myth and legend. Perhaps more than any other plane, the B-17 represented the power of American aviation in the years that Europe was overrun by Axis troops.

What did the Germans think of the B-17?

‘I’ll discuss the Luftwaffe’s leadership’s first encounter with a downed B-17, and their exact reactions to it,’ Carl Brutananadilewski, Former Electrican’s Mate Nuclear (EMN2), USN 2015-2021, says on Quora.

Luftwaffe and B-17

‘In early as October 1942 the Luftwaffe was able to examine it’s first B-17 up close. A crashed B-17, which the Germans managed to down only after it had drifted out of formation, was reassembled at Rechlin, the Luftwaffe’s experimental aircraft testing facility. There, it was examined by senior Luftwaffe leadership.

‘This is significant, because the first intact B-17 was only captured in December, more than two months later.

‘So, what did Luftwaffe leadership have to say about their first up-close examination with a B-17? I’ll let them speak for themselves!

‘Then Colonel Adolf Galland, Chief of the Day Fighter Squadrons, and later General of Fighter Aircraft, had this to say about it, “It unites every possible advantage in one bomber: firstly, heavy armor, secondly enormous altitude, thirdly colossal defensive armament, and fourthly, great speed.”

‘It’s no wonder he had that to say! The Germans discovered the aircraft was clearly designed for daylight operations: it had an enormous eleven heavy machine gun positions, loaded with incendiary ammunition then unknown to the Germans. Then, from another B-17 crash, the Germans had recovered almost intact the famous Norden bombsight (which funnily enough a German agent had already delivered the blueprints to the Luftwaffe before the war). That left no doubt about the Americans’ potential bombing accuracy.

‘Then combine the above knowledge with these two facts: American production figures, and that German reconnaissance flights over Eastern England showed extensive airfield construction. From this crash and that knowledge it was clear 1943 would see the onset of a crushing bombing offensive against Germany.’

Göring rosy analysis

Brutananadilewski continues;

‘Field Marshal Erhard Milch, State Secretary for the Luftwaffe, saw the writing on the wall after examining the crash when he said, “The Reichsmarschall (Hermann Göring) told me that there is no cause for anxiety about the American aircraft and that, four-engined though they may be, we can contemplate future equanimity. I told him that I do not agree.”

‘Milch, in fact, had much more to say than that later that month, “These are worries I just can’t get over. We have got to accept that one day the enemy bombers attacking Germany will be flying at altitudes of 28,000 or 30,000 feet.”

‘The strange thing is, this crash didn’t have the entirety of German air staff very worried! Or perhaps not so strange, when one takes into account that military officers are expected to be optimistic. Göring was not alone in his rosy analysis seen in Milch’s above quote. Hans Jeschonnek, Chief of General Staff in the Luftwaffe, had this to say about the incident, “We will fetch these four engined bombers down just as quickly as the twin-engined ones, and the loss of a four-engined bomber means a much higher loss to the enemy.”

Luftwaffe seeing the danger of the B-17

‘Despite some telling German victories against the allied bomber offensive, overall, history does not bear out Göring and Jeschonnek’s view in this matter.

‘As one can see, some realistic German leadership really saw the danger of these new aircraft, while others were confident they could fight them effectively and easily. But one this is for certain, Erhard Milch’s grim predication from this event about 1943, calling it, “The Year of Clenched Teeth” certainly bore out to be the truth.’

Brutananadilewski concludes;

‘I’ll end with another quote from Milch, from March 1943:

‘“Things don’t look rosy for our big cities.”’

Photo credit: Unknown and U.S. Air Force via IWM

Boeing 747

The 747 was the result of the work of some 50,000 Boeing people. Called “the Incredibles,” these were the construction workers, mechanics, engineers, secretaries and administrators who made aviation history by building the Boeing 747 — the largest civilian airplane in the world — in roughly 16 months during the late 1960s.

The 747 was truly monumental in size. The massive airplane required construction of the 200 million-cubic-foot (5.6 million-cubic-meter) 747 assembly plant in Everett, Wash., the world’s largest building (by volume). The fuselage of the original 747 was 225 feet (68.5 meters) long; the tail as tall as a six-story building. Pressurized, it carried a ton of air. The cargo hold had room for 3,400 pieces of baggage and could be unloaded in seven minutes. The total wing area was larger than a basketball court. Yet, the entire global navigation system weighed less than a modern laptop computer.

First flight occurred on Feb. 9, 1969, followed by an extensive test program and it became a mainstay of the world’s international airlines.

The 747 was the first airplane called a “Jumbo Jet” as the first wide-body airliner.

The 747 triggered a revolution in air travel and represents a significant milestone in the evolution of aviation design.

How to barrel roll the Jumbo Jet

Can a Boeing 747 do a barrel roll?

Mark Hilsen, former Boeing 747 pilot, explains on Quora;

‘Never knew a pilot training on the 747–400 to not roll the airplane while in the simulator. None of us were completely sure of the simulation’s fidelity but the control inputs and roll/pitch responses looked about right. Of course, there was no simulation of felt-Gs*, either lighter or heavier in the seat, nor was there any vestibular feedback of the actual rolling motion; the visuals were awe inspiring, however, and persuasively realistic.

‘Technique? Pretty straight forward. Start at 280–300 kias, pitch to about 20° nose up and put in full aileron, control wheel to the locks. As the bank angle goes through about 60° let the nose fall and it will keep falling until about 20° nose low at the lowest point, perfectly inverted. Use slight forward pressure when upside down to keep the second half descent rate reasonable. Use about half rudder, no more: the sim didn’t like more than that.

‘As the wings came level, return to straight and level cruise flight (on heading, back on altitude, call “maneuver complete” like you do that for a living). Or! Pitch right back up to 20° and “unwind” your previous roll by going in the opposite direction. In the sim, kids. In the sim.’

Not a 1-G Maneuver

Hilsen concludes;

‘I’ve flown the real jet at Max Gross Takeoff Weight of 875,000 lbs (at the point we pushed the power up to start the takeoff), and while I loved the jet heavy, I think that trying to roll it even given 340 kias would be “sporty” at best. Pretty sure you’d exceed every load limit Boeing had calculated before you got even 25% into your roll. Jesus! just, don’t.’

*The barrel roll is not a 1-G Maneuver. Unless you mean that your frame of reference is hanging in space in a photo airplane or hot air balloon, watching another airplane go that maneuver: then the world around you is then 1-G. But a barrel roll always incurs a “G-debt” when you’re upside down and trying to hold a positive, approximate 1-G feeling in your pilot seat. That acceleration towards earth (2G being 64 ft per second per second) has to be pulled against as you return to upright (to straight and level, accelerated flight).

Photo credit: Cory W. Watts from Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America via Wikipedia and Unknown

The Fulcrum

The Mikoyan MiG-29 (Russian: Микоян МиГ-29; NATO reporting name: Fulcrum) is a twin-engine jet fighter aircraft designed in the Soviet Union. Developed by the Mikoyan design bureau as an air superiority fighter during the 1970s, the MiG-29, along with the larger Sukhoi Su-27, was developed to counter new US fighters such as the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle and the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. The MiG-29 entered service with the Soviet Air Forces in 1982.

The MiG-29 presented a formidable threat to Western pilots.

Among the countries that purchased the Fulcrum there was also East Germany. Luftwaffe (German Air Force) MiG-29s were kept in service also after German reunification and were used not only for national Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) service but also as adversary aircraft during NATO air exercises, where the MiG-29 showed its tremendous air to air capabilities.

F-16 Vs MiG-29

The first western fighter unit that had the chance to face the Fulcrum in mock air combats has been the 510th Fighter Squadron (FS) “Buzzards” belonging to the 31st Fighter Wing (FW) from Aviano Air Base in northern Italy, which flew against Luftwaffe Jagdgeschwader 73 (JG 73) MiG-29s in May 1995 during a German Fulcrum deployment to Decimomannu Air Base, on the southern tip of Sardinia, as explained by David Sarvai in his extensive article “Schlemming with the Fulcrum” for Code One Magazine and also published on www.510fs.org.

As told by Capt. Mike McCoy one of the 510th FS F-16 pilots that flew against JG 73 MiG-29s, the most impressive aspect of the Fulcrum’s performance for the American pilots was its low-speed maneuverability combined with its helmet mounted sight system. “In a low-speed fight, fighting the Fulcrum is similar to fighting an F-18 Hornet, but the Fulcrum has a thrust advantage over the Hornet. An F-18 can really crank its nose around if you get into a slow-speed fight, but it has to lose altitude to regain the energy, which allows us to get on top of them. The MiG has about the same nose authority at slow speeds, but it can regain energy much faster. Plus the MiG pilots have that forty five-degree cone in front of them into which they can fire an Archer and eat you up.”

Incredible nose-pointing capability

But as McCoy explained even if the helmet mounted sight system proved to be a formidable threat, it was not an insurmountable one. “Some of their capabilities were more wicked than we originally thought, we had to respect the helmet-mounted sight, which made our decisions to anchor more difficult. In other words, when I got close in, I had to consider that helmet mounted sight. Every time I got near a Fulcrum’s nose, I was releasing flares to defeat an Archer coming off his rail.”

An impression confirmed also by Lt. Col. Gary West, another Viper pilot and back then Commander of the 510th.

“Before coming here, some of our pilots may have thought of the MiG’s helmet-mounted sight as an end-all to a BFM fight, We have found that it is not as lethal as we had expected. We encountered some positions-particularly in an across-the-circle shot or a high-low shot and in a slow-speed fight-where a Fulcrum pilot can look up forty-five degrees and take a shot while his nose is still off. That capability has changed some of the pilots’ ideas on how they should approach a MiG-29 in a neutral fight. Below 200 knots, the MiG-29 has incredible nose-pointing capability down to below 100 knots.

Flying in German Fulcrums

“The F-16, however, enjoys an advantage in the 200 knot-plus regime. At higher speeds, we can power above them to go to the vertical. And our turn rate is significantly better. By being patient and by keeping airspeed up around 325 knots, an F-16 can bring the MiG-29 to its nose. But the pilot must still be careful of the across-the-circle shot with that helmet-mounted display.”

McCoy and other two USAF pilots had the chance to fly in German Fulcrums and they explained some of the several limitations of the MiG-29. “Their visibility is not that good, their disadvantage is a real advantage for us. F-16 pilots sit high in the cockpit. All the MiG-29 pilots who sat in our cockpit wanted to look around with the canopy closed. They were impressed that they could turn around and look at the tail and even see the engine can. Besides visibility, I expected better turning performance, the MiG-29 is not a continuous nine-g machine like the F-16.”

A claim confirmed also by Capt. Michael Raubbach, then Fulcrum pilot of the JG 73. “Our visibility is not as good as an F-16 or even an F-15. We can’t see directly behind us. We have to look out the side slightly to see behind us, which doesn’t allow us to maintain a visual contact and an optimum lift vector at the same time. This shortcoming can be a real problem, especially when flying against an aircraft as small as the F-16.”

Lack of continuous nine-g capability

The lack of the continuous nine-g capability of the Fulcrum instead, was due to the nature of the specification that brought to life the MiG-29, as explained by Capt. Oliver Prunk, then JG 73 operations officer. “The aircraft was not built for close-in dog fighting, though it is aerodynamically capable of it, the East Germans flew it as a point defense interceptor, like a MiG-21. They were not allowed to max perform the airplane, to explore its capabilities or their own capabilities. Sorties lasted about thirty minutes. The airplane was designed to scramble, jettison the tank, go supersonic, shoot its missiles, and go home.”

Other limitations were experienced when the centerline fuel tank was carried by the aircraft, such as the inability of the fighter to fly supersonic with the tank attached, an operational scenario that also limited the MiG-29 to four g’s when the tank had fuel remaining.

Nevertheless despite these shortcomings the Fulcrum remained a formidable adversary to fight as told by McCoy. “The experience confirmed what I knew about the MiG-29’s ability to turn and to fight in the phone booth. It is an awesome airplane in this regime. The awe, though, fades away after that first turn in. The biggest adrenaline rush was getting to that point. After that, I started evaluating it as a weapon.”

Just like any other aircraft

McCoy was echoed by by West who said that the glamour of the Fulcrum could distract the pilots when they saw the MiG-29 for the first time.

“When Western pilots merge with a MiG for the first time, they tend to stare at it in awe, instead of flying their jets and fighting, they are enamored by this Soviet-built aircraft that they have spent their lives learning about. Pilots lose this sense of wonder after a first encounter. It is no longer a potential distraction. They are going to know what type of fight to fight and exactly where they may be in trouble. No one can learn these things by reading reports. Air-to-air fighting is a perishable skill. But the lessons we learned here won’t be forgotten. These pilots will know at the merge exactly what they are up against. They will have more confidence. And they know they are flying an aircraft that is superior in maneuverability, power, and avionics.”

West concludes: “When our pilots first arrived here, they almost tripped over themselves because their eyes were glued to the ramp and those MiG-29s. After a few days, though, those MiGs became just like any other aircraft. And that’s the way it should be.”

Photo credit: SrA Tana R. Hamilton / U.S. Air Force

Battle-damaged Israeli A-4

Israel relied on France as its principal supplier of arms for more than a decade, but by the mid-1960s its desire to purchase more advanced and capable US weapons saw it buy the combat-proven Douglas A-4 Skyhawk to perform light strike missions. Some 48 A-4Hs were initially ordered in 1966, and these soon formed the backbone of the Israeli Air Force‘s attack arm.

Entering service two years later, the Skyhawk (dubbed the Ahit, or Eagle, in Israel) flew thousands of sorties during the 1967-70 War of Attrition with Egypt.

As explained by Shlomo Aloni in his book Israeli A-4 Skyhawk Units in Combat, the following picture taken by an IDF soldier on Aug. 19, 1969 shows No 115 Sqn pilot Moshe Melnik carrying out a low-level Snakeye bombing run over Port Inbrahim, in the south sector of the Suez Canal.

Seconds later, Melnik’s A-4H Skyhawk tail number 62 suffered extensive battle damage. The pilot sensed a minor hit, but he then noticed that the fire-warning light was flickering and the control column was inoperable. Melnik jettisoned the MERs, activated the emergency generator and, using trimming to control his aircraft, pulled up.

Cutting the engine 10 metres above runway

He headed for Refidim and ‘practiced’ landing en route, using trim as the only effective control. Melnik convinced himself that he could land safely, but on his final approach the Skyhawk started to shudder violently. Believing that it was too late to eject, Melnik throttled back when the Skyhawk was just ten metres above the runway. Thanks to its rugged structure, the jet remained in one piece despite literally falling onto the tarmac.

The left tyre burst, however, causing the Skyhawk to veer off the runway in the direction of fire-fighting vehicles that had been sent out to save the jet. Ignoring the risk of overturning, Melnik managed to steer the Skyhawk away from the rescue vehicles before finally coming to a stop.

Transported on a flat-bed trailer back to Tel Nof, Skyhawk 62 was repaired and sent back into action with No 115 Sqn over the Suez Canal in June 1970.

Melnik subsequently became the first F-15 pilot to score a kill in 1979, followed by two more in June 1982. He had previously claimed 5.5 victories flying F-4s.

Israeli A-4 Skyhawk Units in Combat is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.

Photo credit: IDF and IAF