Flying High This Past Week (Spring Break Edition): 1 March-15 March

I was on the road last week on Spring Break (at least here in Texas last week is our Spring Break), so there wasn't an installment of Flying High This Past Week last week. I'll thrown in a bit extra this week! So here's what's been getting a lot of page views this past week here at TAILS THROUGH TIME:

• The 24th Combat Mapping Squadron: Unsung Heroes of the Pacific War: The crews of the 24th CMS fought their battles not with bombs but with rolls of film. They were instrumental in getting good quality maps made of the China-Burma-India theater but also participated in postwar mapping efforts for several nations.
• The US Navy's First Nuclear Bomber: From 1948-1951 the strategic deterrent of the US Navy rested with three-plane detachments of Lockheed P2V Neptunes aboard the three aircraft carriers of the Midway-class. Their crews were tasked with essentially one way missions should the balloon have gone up and they had to strike Soviet targets. There was no recovery back aboard the carrier- the P2Vs lacked the provisions. The crews were to make for a shore base or bail out. After 1951, the North American AJ Savage took over the role and it wasn't until 1958 that the Navy had a submarine based deterrent when the first Regulus patrol went to sea.
• The Birth of Indian Commercial Aviation and Its Father: Unsually amongst Britain's colonial possessions in the 1920s and 1930s, commercial aviation development was neglected in India. Imperial Airways was only concerned with connecting India with London and it would take a growing merchant class in India to nuture airline development with J.R.D. Tata, head of the Tata Sons industrial conglomerate, to lead the way. Tata Air Lines became Air India International in 1946 with the technical assistance of TWA.
• Fox Two! The Birth of the AIM-9 Sidewinder Missile: Probably one of the most significant air combat weapons since the gun, the Sidewinder's simplicity stemmed from its humble beginnings as a free-time project by small group of engineers at China Lake. The push for simplicity made the Sidewinder successful and its operating principles influenced a generation of heat-seeking air to air missiles as a result. 
• The Story of "5 Grand", the 5000th B-17 Flying Fortress Built: A flying tribute to the employees of Boeing that made their contribution to the war effort building the B-17, sadly the aircraft was lost to history out of penny-pinching by government officials. 

Now for the special Spring Break edition, here are five articles from the archives you may have missed or might be of interest to new readers to my blog: 

• The Cadillac of the Constellation Line: In my opinion, one of the most graceful airliners built along with the Vickers VC-10 is the Lockheed L-1649 Starliner. The Starliner's new wing gave it the highest aspect ratio (12:1) of any propliner along with 2,000 lbs more fuel than the Super Constellation. In a lot of ways, the Starliner was the propliner counterpart of the Boeing 747SP as few airlines in the world of the day had routes long enough with demand for nonstop service that dovetailed with the Starliner's performance. 
• Foxbats Over the Sinai: From 1971 to 1972, Russian-operated Mikoyan MiG-25 Foxbats reconnoitered Israeli defenses in the Sinai that assisted with Egyptian planning for the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The Sinai deployment proved the Foxbat's capabilities in an operational environment, convincing the Soviet Air Force to accept the aircraft for service. 
• The Australian Canberra in Vietnam: From 1967 to 1971, No. 2 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force flew combat missions all over South Vietnam from Phan Rang AB. The Aussie Canberras got very good at visual bombing from altitude and as a result, the RAAF Canberra force was the only combat unit to routinely use level bombing with visual bombsights from altitude.
• The L-1000: Lockheed's Own Jet Engine: Probably one of the more interesting turns in aviation history would have to be when Lockheed was developing its own jet engine that compared to contemporary engines of the day, was quite a bit more advanced.
• Martin, the Titan I and the Titan II Ballistic Missiles: The Titan program started out as a back up to the Convair Atlas ICBM but soon become an advanced successor to the Atlas. The modular design of the Titan and its rock-solid reliability led it to become a stalwart of the space program starting with Project Gemini and its use as a heavy-life satellite launcher until the last Titan IV launch in 2005.

 

Soviet Wild Weasels: Part Two (Aircraft)

Yakovlev Yak-28PP "Brewer-E"

Last night we took a look at the nuts and bolts of Soviet suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) doctrine and tactics. Tonight we'll continue along that them with a look at the aircraft that filled the role of  "Wild Weasels" in the Soviet air forces. Like the United States, the Russians had put into service several specialized aircraft that were used to knock out and/or jam enemy radars and surface-to-air missile sites. These aircraft were based upon established production types much in the same way the USAF Wild Weasels were adaptations of production fighter aircraft. The first aircraft to fill this role was the Yakovlev Yak-28N, an experimental adaptation of the Yak-28 "Brewer" attack aircraft. This version of the Brewer was the first Russian development for a Wild Weasel-class aircraft; work began by OKB Yakovlev in 1964-1965 with a production Yak-28I being set aside in 1965 for conversion to the -28N configuration. The attack Yak-28I had the "I" suffix as it was equipped with the Initsiativa-2 ground-mapping/bombing radar in a ventral radome aft of the nose gear. On the Yak-28N, the Initsiativa-2 radar was replaced by radar pulse detection unit that would seek out and locate enemy radar emissions and provide targeting data to Raduga Kh-28 (NATO code name AS-9 "Kyle") missiles, one each under the outer wings. The Kh-28, which I'll discuss in a subsequent post, was the first Russian anti-radiation missile to be fielded with the first operational examples coming out in 1964. 

By the time operational testing of the Yak-28N was completed around 1972, it had been far outclassed by contemporary Russian and American designs and the project was canceled. However, the work that had been put into the Yak-28N wasn't wasted as the Soviet air forces still needed a battlefield electronic warfare aircraft that better performance and was more flexible than the existing design in use, the Tupolev Tu-16PP Badger which clearly by 1972 was too big and too slow to survive in hostile airspace. The Yak-28 was again used as the basis for the Yak-28PP electronic warfare aircraft that crammed the jamming equipment of the Tu-16PP into a much smaller airframe. All of the armament provisions of the Yak-28 were deleted and four different jamming systems were installed in the Yak-28PP, which was marked by a number of dielectric bulges and blisters on the fuselage. The jamming systems generated so much heat that two heat exchangers were installed in the lower aft fuselage ahead of the aft bicycle gear to help cool the avionics. The outer wing pylons were fitted with rocket pods that fired chaff ahead of the aircraft to help sow chaff corridors to protect inbound strike packages. Below each engine nacelle of the Yak-28PP was a system for deploying bundles of fiberglass-based chaff strips in mass quantities. The role of the Yak-28PP was to accompany inbound strike packages with three of the ECM -28PPs sowing a chaff corridor on each side of the strike aircraft formation as well as using its powerful jamming equipment to blind NATO air defense radars. The first Yak-28PPs completed their State acceptance testing just as the Yak-28N was canceled. Most of the Yak-28PPs that were built (NATO code name "Brewer-E") were based with the Soviet forces in East Germany. 

MiG-25BM armed with Kh-58 missiles

The cancellation of the Yak-28N in 1972 came about due to the arrival of an aircraft with significantly higher performance that would become the first Russian production Wild Weasel-class aircraft, the Mikoyan MiG-25BM "Foxbat-F" based on the production interceptor version. It was recognized early on in the Foxbat's flight test program that a high-flying, high-speed aircraft would make an ideal SEAD aircraft- as it was proved itself immune to interception during operations over the Sinai prior to the Yom Kippur War, a SEAD Foxbat could out-fly defending fighters, fire its anti-radiation missiles, and streak back with impunity. While early anti-radiation missiles like the Kh-28 mentioned already were heavy, the newer generation of anti-radar missiles like the Raduga Kh-58 (NATO code name AS-11 "Kilter") were much lighter and imposed little performance penalty on the Foxbat. 

Mikoyan MiG-25BM Foxbat-F in East Germany

At first the MiG-25BM was to be a dual-role reconnaissance/SEAD aircraft, the concept being that it would use its SEAD capability to allow it to penetrate deep into NATO airspace to complete its reconnaissance mission. By 1977 both the Soviet air forces and Mikoyan realized that the aircraft would be compromised in both roles and different Foxbat variants were developed for each role, with the MiG-25BM being the definitive SEAD variant. The MiG-25BM featured an integrated avionics package called Yaguar (Jaguar) that not only detected and located enemy radars, but it also networked with the Yaguar systems of other MiG-25BMs to allow a "wolf pack" of SEAD Foxbats to operate deep into NATO territory and share data and targeting information with other members of the wolf pack. The Yaguar system included target designation functions that cued the seeker heads of the four Kh-58 missiles that the MiG-25BM carried. In addition to the missiles, nuclear warheads could also be delivered to either knock out SAM missile sites or generate an EMP to short out communications and electronic systems. Several internal active ECM jammers were also carried which not only protected the MiG-25BM from air defense radars but could also counter fighter radars as well. The Foxbat-F was in production from 1982 to 1985, but the complex systems of the aircraft meant that only 40 examples were built. Nearly most were assigned to units stationed in East Germany and were unusual in being the only Foxbats to wear camouflage as the reconnaissance and interceptor variants were gray in color. Despite production ending in 1985, continued technical problems that had to be resolved meant that the first MiG-25BMs weren't operational in East Germany until 1988 with the Group of Soviet Forces Germany (GSFG), which ultimately withdrew from German soil in 1994. 

Kh-58 missile on an Su-24M, Fantasmagoria pod below it

The last SEAD aircraft developed for the Soviet air forces was the Sukhoi Su-24M "Fencer-D", but by this time the Fencer-D was less an dedicated SEAD asset and more an attack aircraft that had SEAD capabilities. Unlike the Yak-28N and the MiG-25BM that housed a large amount of equipment internally, technological advances meant that the Fencer-D could carry most of the radar detection and location equipment in a pod mounted on the centerline underfuselage which was called Fantasmagoria, with -A, -B, and possible -C version depending on the internal configuration of the pod. This was similar to the USAF where the Lockheed Martin F-16CJ replaced the specialized F-4G Phantom Wild Weasel. The F-16CJ had a small pod called the HARM Targeting System (HTS) that performed the same role as the Russian Fantasmagoria pod. The Su-24M could carry two kinds of anti-radiation missile, either the Kh-58 as was used by the MiG-25BM or the newer Kh-31 (NATO code name AS-17 "Krypton") missile. 

Sukhoi Su-24M Fencer-D, note the Fantasmagoria pod

The closest that Russian SEAD aircraft came to being committed to action came during the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan fron 1979 to 1988. During the war, Tupolev Tu-16 Badgers were used to bomb Mujaheddin positions, but were often tracked by Pakistani air defense and early warning radars. It was proposed to use the Su-24Ms to knock out the Pakistani radars which were providing warning information to Mujaheddin forces, but it was realized that it represented a significant escalation of the conflict and only limited cross-border raids were conducted with SEAD protection. During the Russian-Georgian War of 2008, it is believed that Su-24Ms were used against Georgian air defense positions, but poor tactical coordination resulted in the Georgians shooting down two Fencers. 

The last installment of this series will take a closer look at the anti-radar missiles that the Russians fielded for their SEAD assets. Stay tuned!

Source: Wild Weasel Fighter Attack: The Story of the Suppression of Enemy Air Defences by Thomas Withington. Pen and Sword Aviation, 2008, p100-102. 

Foxbats Over the Sinai

By 1971 the Soviet Union had built up the Egyptian Air Force to unprecedented levels in the Middle East in the years since the 1967 Six-Day War when the Israelis caught the majority of the Egyptian air arm on the ground. Despite the rearmament effort and 20,000 military advisers, the Egyptians were still in no position to confront the Israeli Air Force over the Sinai. The three-year War of Attrition between Egypt and Israel ended in 1970 when President Nasser of Egypt died of a heart attack. With no gains being made by either side, Nasser's successor, Anwar Sadat, ended the campaign and set about the planning of what would be the 1973 Yom Kippur War. While direct Soviet military involvement was out of the question given the atmosphere of detente that was building between the Soviet Union and the United States, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev authorized the deployment of a reconnaissance task force of MiG-25 "Foxbat" aircraft to Egypt to scout the Israeli defenses on the east bank of the Sinai. It was a bold decision given that most new Soviet aircraft are kept secret for several years, let alone deployed overseas. Operational testing of the Foxbat began in 1970 and there were a multitude of technical problems uncovered that left both the Soviet Air Force (VVS) and the Air Defense Forces (PVO) reconsidering accepting the aircraft for operational service. 

The Deputy Minister of Aircraft Industry, Aleksey Minayev, was a former engineer with OKB Mikoyan who had participated in the development of the MiG-25 before assuming his ministry position at the Kremlin. Being well aware of the VVS and PVO hesitations with the new aircraft, it was Minayev that suggested the deployment of the Foxbat the Middle East in the reconnaissance role. He had no trouble in getting the military to agree to the idea as they were anxious to really see the aircraft operate in a realistic environment to see what it could do and decide then whether or not to proceed with the deployment of the aircraft. It was agreed that the interceptor version of the Foxbat would be unsuitable for the deployment as that would have been considered an overt act and a small handful of interceptors would have been unable to hold off the Israelis. Discussion within the Kremlin came to a consensus that sending the reconnaissance version would do more good as they could provide information on the Israeli defenses in the Sinai. 

Four MiG-25s that were undergoing operational testing were selected for deployment. Two aircraft were MiG-25Rs, which was a pure reconnaissance variant and the other two were MiG-25RBs that were dual-role reconnaissance/strike aircraft. Ironically, the RB variant of the Foxbat came about due to a perceived need for a high-speed strike aircraft to counter the Israeli's deep penetration flights with McDonnell F-4E Phantom IIs during the War of Attrition to knock out Egyptian targets. The formal deployment orders were issued in March 1971 and a team of test program technicians that were ironing out the Foxbat's bugs would accompany the task force to Egypt. To save time, the personnel were flown to Cairo-West AB in Egypt aboard Antonov An-12 "Cub" transports and the Foxbats had their wings, tails and engines removed for transport about Antonov An-22 "Cock" transports. However, it was found that even stripped down, the MiGs were just barely too wide and too high to fit into the An-22 cargo hold as the main landing gears were getting stuck in the aft cargo door. A technician suggested reversing the main landing gear legs so they pointed inward and replacing the mainwheels with those from a MiG-21. This provided enough clearance to get the MiGs aboard for transport to Egypt. At Cairo-West, the Egyptians had already built hardened aircraft shelters for the Foxbats and the Soviet team reassembled the Foxbats inside the shelters. 

The first test flights began in April over Egyptian territory. The design bureau for the Foxbat's massive R15B-300 engines, OKB Tumansky, also had a team in place that managed to tweak the engines to allow the Foxbat to "sprint" at full afterburner for a full 40 minutes, well over the previous three minute limit used in operational testing in the Soviet Union. The first operational reconnaissance mission took place on 10 October 1971. Operating in pairs, two MiG-25s streaked up the Mediterranean coast from the Nile Delta to the Israeli-Lebanese border at 70,000 feet at high speed only 17 miles off the Israeli coast. Interceptions were attempted by F-4 Phantoms but failed to engage the Foxbats. A month later, a single MiG-25 overflew the northern Sinai to image the Israeli defenses there. This time the Israelis had two stripped down F-4 Phantoms ready which attempted to shoot down the MiG with AIM-7 Sparrow missiles. The missile's proximity fuses failed to cope with the Mach 3 speeds and detonated harmlessly past the speeding Foxbat. After an increasing number of overflights of the Sinai that resulted in failed intercepts, the Israelis were incensed. As the Soviet pilots maintained strict radio silence, the Israelis had no choice but to station F-4 patrols near Cairo-West AB, hoping to shoot down a MiG on takeoff. To counter this tactic, Egyptian MiG-21s from other airbases would converge on Cairo-West when the Foxbats were ready to takeoff. At least two MiG-21s would streak down the runway at low level, followed by the pair of Foxbats and then followed by another two MiG-21s to cover the rear until the Soviet pilots were at speed and altitude out of reach of the prowling Phantom patrols. 

Missions were typically flown in pairs and operated at over 70,000 feet at full afterburner. At Mach 3, a Foxbat pair could cover in just two minutes the entire length of the Suez Canal that separated Egyptian and Israeli forces. Fuel was burned off at 1,000 lbs per minute as the aircraft maintained full afterburner. The inlet ducts would heat up to 608 degrees Farenheint (320 degrees Celsius) and the aircraft skin would measure 577 degrees Farenheint (303 degrees Celsius). Pilots reported the glass canopy was so hot that it would burn their fingers if it was touched during a mission. The cameras operated automatically as the MiGs covered 1 kilometer a second. In addition, the onboard ELINT sensors would pinpoint the locations of Israeli radars, communications nodes, and ECM units. On descent and approach back to Cairo-West, the Foxbats were again met by Egyptian MiG-21s all the way to runway touchdown. Two missions a month were flown and by the end of 1971 the Soviets were making routine deep penetration flights over the Sinai with impunity. Even the Raytheon Hawk SAM units in the Sinai were useless as they were only medium altitude surface-to-air missiles with an engagement envelope that topped off at 40,000 feet. 

By the spring of 1972 the Israelis were protesting the Soviet flights to the United Nations, but it was Anwar Sadat that ended the reconnaissance flights. Frustrated that the Soviets were not training his pilots in the aircraft and that it was not being offered to him for sale, the last straw came after a superpower summit when both Brezhnev and Nixon agreed on maintaining the status quo in the Middle East. Realizing that the Soviets were not going to help him retake the Sinai, Sadat ordered nearly all of the Soviet advisers out of the country and preceded to plan for war without their assistance. Sadat issued an ultimatum to the Soviets as well that they had one week to decide to sell Egypt the Foxbat or have them out of the country. By the middle of July 1972, the reconnaissance task force had returned to Russia and the performance of the Foxbat resulted in the VVS and PVO accepting the aircraft for formal operational deployment. 

Sadat launched the October 1973 Yom Kippur War and made startling gains against a complacent Israeli military while the Syrians attempted to retake the Golan Heights in the north. As the course of the war gradually came to favor the Israelis, Sadat was at a point where he was considering accepting a cease-fire. To prompt him to end the war quickly, Brezhnev ordered two MiG-25s back to Egypt to conduct a series of reconnaissance missions over the Suez Canal to prove to Sadat the Ariel Sharon's units had crossed the west bank of the Suez into Egypt and the Egyptian Third Army was completely surrounded by the Israelis. The imagery shown to Sadat forced him into accepting the cease-fire ending the October war. The Foxbats stayed until 1974, but most of their missions by this point had been focused on monitoring US naval activity in the eastern Mediterranean. Once again frustrated that Egypt was still not being offered the Foxbat and that he had no authority over their use, he ordered the Soviets back out of the country again in 1975, ending the last active Soviet involvement in the Middle East. 

Source: OKB Mikoyan: A History of the Design Bureau and its Aircraft by Yefim Gordon and Dmitriy Komissarov. Midland Publishing, 2009, p324-345.