On September 27, 1967, a plane full of 43 Soviet military experts landed at a military airport in Beijing and then quickly changed to Nanning, Guangxi, not to aid China's army construction, but to have other plans.
Their target was only an American fighter, the F-111, at a time when the Vietnam War was in full swing, and the Soviets received information that the Pentagon would send six F-111 fighters to Vietnam to support South Vietnamese forces. But the U.S. military sent a lot of armed forces, why did the Soviet Union have a special love for this fighter?
This has to start from the F-111 its advanced and mysterious nature, as the main fighter type of the US Air Force, with its world's unique variable swept wing design in the world's airspace, in addition to the fast flight speed, it is also equipped with the most advanced electronic radar shielding system at that time, can carry out ultra-low altitude flight, and its range miles can be almost comparable to any long-term reconnaissance aircraft.
In fact, the F-111's battlefield performance is simply worse than the US media's boasting, especially in the Arab War, which has caused many Middle Eastern countries to suffer. It's no wonder why the Soviet Union coveted it.
In order to obtain the confidential technology of the F-111, soviet experts can also be said to be painstaking, they first sent fighter jet research experts at the French air show to secretly photograph and record the appearance of the F-111.
The Soviet engineer Samoilovich, who had taken more than a hundred photographs of the first three days and calculated and depicted the tail, air intake, and flow lines of the fighter, were not the real core, and when he wanted to further observe the cabin, he immediately attracted the attention of American officials. The persistent Soviets did not give up, and they had to continue to wait for the right time. Soon, the opportunity arose.
In January 1967, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a secret mission at the Pentagon to send six fighter jets to the Vietnam battlefield, and these six fighters were F-111s. Soviet intelligence intercepted this important information. So there is the opening scene, after arriving in Nanning, the Soviet experts, in order to narrow their own goals, went to Vietnam twice and directly participated in the North Vietnamese military operation, just to get a complete F-111. However, what happened next almost put the Soviet Union's elaborate planning to naught.
As soon as the F-111 arrived in Vietnam, it began to make a big splash, and the huge range of firepower and unpredictable whereabouts made the North Vietnamese army miserable. Later, on the advice of Soviet experts, the North Vietnamese constructed a set of anti-aircraft gun positions with no dead ends to counter the F-111 sneak attack.
Sure enough, because of the light enemy of the American pilots, 3 fighters were shot down, and the North Vietnamese headquarters was very happy to learn the news, but the Soviet experts on the side laughed. They came to Vietnam not to destroy the F-111, but to find out its core technology, and now that a single shot has destroyed the planes, if they shoot down a few more planes, it will really be fruitless.
Faced with this situation, General Abramov, head of the expert delegation on the Soviet side, had to adjust his tactics. He first ordered the air defense forces to radio jamming a single F-111 to cut off its contact with the ground, and then discharged two Soviet fighters to travel near the F-111 airspace by the best ace pilots. After repeated threats of forced stops and forced landings, the U.S. pilots piloting the F-111 had no choice but to make an emergency landing at the Noi Bai airport in North Vietnam.
At this point, the Soviet Union got a complete F-111, but after all, this was on someone else's turf, and it was really not a place to stay for a long time. How to transport this big guy back is a big problem, the F-111 was the most advanced fighter at that time, except for the US pilots, no one can fly it, and if you really let the US pilots fly, you can't just take off and escape.
As a result, the Soviets had to change when they were poor, and by splitting up the F-111 and using ships to transport them back to the mainland. After many twists and turns, the Soviet Union finally got the plane back.
After repeated research, Soviet experts finally cracked all the technology on the F-111 and immediately applied it to the development of their own fighters. Since then, many Soviet-made fighters, especially MiG aircraft, have been inspired by the F-111.
It is worth mentioning that the Soviet pilot who was responsible for forcing the suspension of the F-111 at that time was also named a Hero of the Soviet Union afterwards, and was promoted all the way to the Major General of the Air Force. Many years later, people will still applaud the Soviet Union's watertight operation. After all, there are not many opportunities for the United States to be frustrated. #US ##北京头条 #
