Early in the morning of July 4, 1989, two F-15s from U.S. air bases in the Netherlands were ordered to take off urgently to intercept a MiG-23 that had intruded into the airspace of NATO member states!
During the Cold War, this was a very rare event.
Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact were heavily armed on either side of the Iron Curtain (the border between East and West Germany at the time). (See diagram below)
The U.S. military was heavily armed not only in Britain, the Netherlands, and especially in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). In addition, many tactical nuclear missiles such as land-based Tomahawks were deployed in West Germany.
On the other side of the Iron Curtain, the Soviet Union also had heavy troops in Poland, the GDR (East Germany) and other places.
NATO countries, especially the United States, often sent reconnaissance planes to spy on important Soviet military bases. The Soviets took a different path, intercontinental missiles.
Therefore, during the Cold War, a lot of air friction was that NATO reconnaissance aircraft were intercepted by various types of Soviet fighters or shot down by surface-to-air missiles. It is very rare for Soviet military aircraft to invade NATO in such a sensitive place as the Iron Curtain.
So that morning, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's alert radar station in Hamburg, West Germany, suddenly spotted a strange bright spot on the radar screen, everyone's hearts were lifted at once.
The point is that this bright spot, suddenly high and low, suddenly left and right, a military aircraft flew out of the radar screen with the feeling of an electrocardiogram. It is estimated that NATO's radar soldiers can't help but complain in their hearts: Brother, don't forget that you are a fighter! Is it okay to be serious?
The dutiful radar soldier nervously reported that the target was found, with a direction of 60, an altitude of 600 meters, and a speed of 300 knots (1 knot = 1.852 km).
The commander asked what kind of plane was this?
Radar Soldiers report from experience that it is a MiG-23!
The fighter took off from a Soviet air base in Poland, flew over Poland, over East Germany, and at 7:40 a.m. flew over the Iron Curtain and into West German airspace.
Because it was an ultra-low altitude flight, the radar station in Hamburg did not find him until the Soviet plane flew over Hamburg!
NATO's military commanders were even more nervous that if the plane carried a nuclear bomb, then within 20 seconds, Hamburg, Germany's largest port city, or Bremen, the second largest port city, could be erased from the map.
The two F-15s of the US 32nd Fighter Tactical Squadron in the Netherlands were ordered to take off urgently to intercept the "evil guest" who did not tell the truth.
The NATO commanders were in a real hurry and ordered the two planes to rush to Bremen at Mach 2, that is, twice the speed of sound, and they must not let him succeed!
Look at the Soviet MiG-23, that's called a leisurely one.
Over West Germany, he did not stay, and slipped over the Netherlands!
The two F-15s were no longer a hassle, taking up position for the attack, waiting for the MiG to sneak over.
Here it comes! The two F-15s of the US military immediately rushed towards the MiG and saw where you were going!
The pilots of the two U.S. military planes felt their blood burning, and in our words today, they were on top!
When they saw the red star on the tail wing of the MiG fighter, they thought that today's matter was almost over!
The location is too good! The pilot's finger was placed on the missile launch button!
Alas?
What's going on here?
Why doesn't this MiG even have a cockpit cover? Convertible?
The two American pilots immediately admired the Soviet pilot who flew the open-top MiG and were very curious.
If you look closely, where are the Soviet pilots? The cabin was empty!
The center is the MiG-23
When did the MiG also become a drone?
Fortunately, it was close and clear, not only was there no one, but the MiG machine did not hang up the bomb.
That's easy to say, 2 American pilots put their hearts in half.
Hurry up and report it. The US military pilot told the leaders about the situation, and the commanders of the US military were confused.
Hurry up and let the pilot look more carefully.
At this moment, the MiG seemed to have heard the conversation between the Us pilots and commanders, and actually turned around and flew towards them!
Come, I'll show you clearly!
That's a shame! 2 U.S. pilots hurried to make a evasive action, I flash! Can't afford it, can't we hide it!
The MiG-23 is not the first "solo" operation; he has also made meritorious contributions on American soil.
MiG-23, pretty. In 1976, the designer of the MiG-25 aircraft, Mikoyan, who said in my last article, "In 1976, Soviet pilots fled to Japan with fighters who could not catch up with missiles, and the Soviet Union made a profit."
This kind of aircraft, a significant feature, is that the angle of the wings will change, but it is manually transmitted. If the pilot wants to get out of automatic driving and determine the wing angle by himself, there are four gears to choose from, but he has to manually hang the gear.
Swept wing state
Simply put, when flying flat, the wings are almost at right angles to the fuselage, and when they take off or climb high, the wings become swept back.
Another major feature is that the intake tract is not in the belly like the previous MiG, but is placed on both sides of the cabin, under the wing roots.
The fire control radar with the large diameter antenna gave way to over-the-horizon combat.
This MiG can reach 2.35 times the speed of sound at high altitude and 1350 kilometers per hour at low altitude. Horizontal acceleration performance is very good, low altitude penetration, high-speed interception, hit and run.
The ground attack is quite prominent, and the bomb load can reach 3 tons. The range reached 2,900 kilometers. It was the Soviet Union's best ground attack heavy fighter at that time.
After learning of the miG-23's performance, the United States and the West directly gave him a nickname: whipper.
The Americans got the MiG-23 through various channels and did a lot of testing.
They believe that the MiG-23's vertical mobility and over-the-horizon combat capabilities should be better than the earlier F-16A. But the horizontal mobility seems to be slightly inferior.
However, the control of the MiG-23's variable swept wing must also be achieved by manual transmission, whether it is Soviet pilots or TEST NATO pilots, it is too brain-burning.
Air combat itself is a three-dimensional, complex activity, and the angle of the wing must be manually changed according to the situation. It's a challenge for anyone.
In particular, a mysterious air force on the U.S. soil: the Invaders.
64th Invader Squadron
The pilots of this unit, speaking Russian, wore the uniforms of Soviet pilots and flew various Soviet-made fighter jets, and the formation of the unit was exactly the same as that of the Soviet Air Force, and it also complied with the Soviet war regulations. Even the meals were in line with the recipes of the Soviet Air Force.
And this team never had any communication with anyone else in the U.S. Air Force.
They appeared as imaginary enemies of the U.S. Air Force against operations, the "Invaders" squadron stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, and they were the elite of the elite of the U.S. pilots.
In 1984, one of the outstanding pilots, deputy commander rank, Lieutenant General Robert Bond. Personally testing a MiG-23, the Soviet MiG aircraft single-handedly, so that the lieutenant general pilot fell to the ground.
Lieutenant General Robert Bond
According to the consistent style of the US military, the reason for such a mess will not be made public. It is said that the MiG was in the air and out of control.
This is a contribution of the MiG-23 to the United States.
Where did this driverless manual open-top MiG-23 come from?
In the north of Poland, there is a city called Lvivbrzek, where there is a Soviet air base.
At 7:18 a.m. on July 4, 1989, Colonel Skurikin, 42, a Soviet first-class pilot, boarded his beloved MiG-23 fighter jet and slid down the runway.
There was no enemy situation that day, and Colonel Skurikin's plane had no missiles attached except for more than 100 shells in the 23 mm cannon.
The weather is clear and everything is working fine. The wings of the aircraft swept backwards and took off smoothly.
However, at an altitude of 150 meters, Colonel Skurikin heard a "boom" sound from the engine. Exploded?
Although there was no fire, Colonel Skurikin found that the thrust of the engine was indeed decreasing, and the aircraft had a downward trend!
He quickly reported to the ground command tower: engine failure! The plane loses power!
The ground tower immediately ordered him to skydive immediately!
Schematic diagram of pilot ejection escape
The safety height of the skydiving, the minimum is 300 meters, and the MiG machine at this time is only more than 150 meters, and it is still falling! Every second delay has the potential to have immeasurable consequences.
Skurikin was a Soviet first-class pilot who, after receiving the order from the ground tower, launched the catapult parachute device as soon as possible. As soon as the hatch cap popped open, he was successfully catapulted with the seat, and the parachute opened, which was only 100 meters above the ground!
Luckily, he landed!
Warriors treasure their own weapons, and pilots cherish their own planes. Skurikin watched his plane fly alone in the direction of the Baltic Sea, and was distraught.
He decided that the ultimate fate of the MiG was to be buried in the Baltic Sea.
Looking at this MiG-23 again, at first there was still a bit of a sense of confusion: what about people? No one cares about me anymore?
Seeing that this MiG machine was about to be planted in the sea, he began to "save himself".
Dangling, the plane climbed to 600 meters on its own, flattened itself, adjusted its wings to a flat"cross" wing, and then flew over Poland, then the GDR, then the Federal Republic of Germany, and then met the two F-15 pilots over the Netherlands.
Later, the Soviet side analyzed, probably the flight system of the aircraft, there is a "virtual welding" place, the aircraft fly together, the solder joint is loose, and the engine has no thrust.
As a result, Skurikin's ejection, the thrust of the seat ejection rocket is equivalent to a fierce slap on the plane, so that the welding points of the flight system are in contact again.
This contact, the plane self-tested, found that no one cared about him, and automatically turned into a state of automatic driving.
This is the same as the old TV set we used to use, no image, just shoot.
The old radar soldiers on the mainland also recalled that the previous radar was a tube, and it was easy to break over time, but it was also easy to repair, and it was enough to change a new tube by yourself.
Now it's not okay, it's all integrated circuits. Must be repaired by professionals.
Therefore, this MiG is not as the United States and the West joke, mistaking vodka as aviation fuel, it is likely that it was "patted" and turned into a manual unmanned open-top MiG-23.
Is it to shoot down right away, or to see what he can fly into? The U.S. military faces a dilemma.
In the minds of NATO member states, especially the US military, the fighting style of the Soviet army is still relatively tough.
In the sea, the Soviet K-108 nuclear submarine collided with and injured the "Crazy Ivan" of the Nuclear-powered Attack Submarine of the Usser (Qīng) in 1970. At that time, the K-108 submarine had a broken propeller and was about to sink to the bottom of the sea, so the Soviet captain decisively ordered the reverse of the car, and finally miraculously floated on the surface of the sea.
In the air there was the Soviet Su-27, which in 1987 over the Barents Sea used its tail to cut open one of the engine compartments of a Norwegian P-3B reconnaissance aircraft with a slogan of "Barents Sea Scalpel".
The shadow of the famous tree of man. Today the Soviet Air Force did not come, but the planes came.
Although no one was driving, it was just watching and shying.
What to do?
After asking for instructions, NATO commanders probably felt that this was a rare opportunity to observe the performance of the MiG, and ordered the two F-15s to follow up and see what the MiG could fly. If the plane has a tendency to crash in a densely populated area, shoot it down immediately.
Such an order from a commander could have caused the Dutch and Belgian air forces to be disturbed.
Uniform combat readiness, because according to the course, the plane crossed the Netherlands and it was time to reach the skies over Belgium.
What is First Class Combat Equipment? The bomb was full of oil, and the pilot sat in the cabin on standby.
Then, first the Dutch Air Force breathed a sigh of relief, and the MiG steadily crossed over the Netherlands and entered Belgium.
At this point, the French Air Force also began to tense up, according to the direction, after Belgium it was time to go over France.
It is estimated that the French people will also complain in their hearts: I am not a MEMBER of NATO now, Ha, you NATO let the fighters of the Warsaw Pact come over, in the end is NATO bullying us, or the Warsaw Pact bullying us?
When the Belgians and French were nervous, the MiG-23 finally couldn't hold up. The fighter, which took off from Poland, crossed five European countries, had a range of 900 kilometers, and flew for more than seventy minutes, finally "walked" enough, the nose of the plane suddenly fell low, and finally crashed on a house in a small village 80 kilometers west of Brussels, the capital of Belgium.
MiG-23 crashed in Belgium
In the house, an innocent Belgian youth tragically died, only 18 years old.
Eventually, at the strong demands of the Soviet side. Belgian engineers dismantled the MiG-23 into large pieces and returned it to the Soviets.
However, Belgian engineers gave the MiG-23 a high opinion during the dismantling process. They believed that the plane could be disassembled by just two people, a few wrenches and a screwdriver.
It shows that the Soviet Mikoyan Design Bureau is indeed commendable in the simplicity of aircraft design.
War is always full of accidents.
Novelist White once said that people didn't believe there was a bomb until it actually fell.
"Sun Tzu's Art of War" says: Soldiers, the great affairs of the country, the place of death and life, the way of survival, must not be unaware.
The seemingly ridiculous "unmanned" fighter crossing five European countries ended in the most tragic end of an ordinary person who lost his precious life.
We are not afraid of war, but we must take it seriously.