Romanian airspace intrusions, during the cold war

We all know that during the Cold War - and especially in the 50's and 60's there were a large number of aerial intrusions by both sides over the territory of the "enemy" - some by mistake, some during recon. The response went from radar trackings to intercepts and even shootdowns. I'd like to see in this thread all such events which are related to Romania

I found this piece of information on the net:

18 November 1951 A US Air Force C-47 transport, with a crew of four, flying from Munich to Belgrade, became lost over Yugoslavia and entered Hungarian and then Romanian airspace. It was fired on by Hungarian and Romanian border guards and finally forced down by a MiG-15 Fagot piloted by Kalugin, near the Yugoslav frontier. One crew member, John J. Swift survived and was released shortly thereafter by the Romanians.

Source: http://home.comcast.net/~anneled/ColdWar.html

Does anybody know more about this incident?

The name Kalugin is Soviet, but back than there were VVS fighter regiments stationed at Craiova and Deveselu, so it makes sence.

I'll get back later with some details about U-2 missions over Romania.

This post has been edited by Zapacitu on December 26, 2007 01:43 pm

Mission 2010 Eastern Europe
On 2nd Jul 56 from Wiesbaden flown by Glen Dunaway. Headed north over East Germany, southern Poland, eastern Czechoslovakia, Hungary then Romania before turning around at the Black Sea and returning to Wiesbaden. A 7-hour sortie

Mission 2024
On 10th Jul 56 flown by Glen Dunaway from Wiesbaden. Over East Germany, Poland, Ukraine to Kerch on the eastern tip of the Crimean Peninsula. Back via Sevastopol, Simferopol, Odessa, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Hungary to Wiesbaden. Tracked by radar and fighter aircraft near Odessa.

source: http://www.spyflight.co.uk/u2.htm

In 1956 our best fighter was the MiG-17, which was unable to reach the altitude of the U-2. The Soviet units stationed in our country should have had at least a few MiG-19s by than, but these would have been also ineffective against the U-2.

This post has been edited by Zapacitu on December 26, 2007 03:55 pm

Off-topic posts deleted.

Zapacitu, it would be also of interest to know how the RoAF dealt with Soviet intrusions over Romanian airspace. I may be wrong (I have to check), but I think the first radar interception by a Romanian fighter was of a VVS aircraft.

The first real interception of an air intruder in Rumanian airspace with a jet aircraft was performed by Major Dumitru Balaur on 28 Oct. 1952. Flying a Yak-23 in a nighttime mission, he intercepted a Soviet Il-28 recce jet in unfavourable weather conditions. Needless to say, he didn't receive approval to fire...

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 28, 2007 02:25 pm

Victor, of course it would be interesting to list Soviet intrusions in our airspace, as well. As far as I know, these were intended to verify the reaction times of their allied air forces...

Thanks for bringing that up, Denes. Maj. Balaur flew on that particular mission on Yak-23 number 11 (c/n 111) belonging to the 172nd Jet Fighter Regiment based at Ianca. If I'm not mistaking, he was the commander of that Regiment.

Yes, this is the episode I had in mind. I was at an ARPIA meeting when this incident was presented by the radar operator who guided maj. Balaur to target (and I think Balaur was also present). Unfortunately I did not take any notes, as this period is of less interest to me.

There were no "Soviet intrusions in our airspace". There were only readiness exercises. Even in the post '68 era, while Ro ceased to participate in common ground maneouvers with the other Warsaw Traty countries, the RoAF was still taking part in joint exercises (however, without redeployment).

Such exercises were organized over a week or two, a couple of times per year. During such time, the base was on hightened alert state.

With his genuine writing talent, Doru Davidovici narrated an episode about the interception of a low flying target as part of such joint air force exercises. Once the surveillance radar got the target, Doru and his wingman (a general today) were raised to intercept it. Usually the target was enacted by a Soviet aircraft flying from Bulgaria back to its homebase (or the other way around). Shortly after the RoAF 2 ship intercepting formation (celula) got airborne, the target dropped below the radar and the ground controller could only provide a vector to the spot where they had the last return.

While the target was turning at low level, close to the ground, Doru caught a glimpse of a sun reflection on the target's canopy. Doru dove immediately while his wingman stayed higher to maintain radio contact with the base. It was an atypical attempt to intercept, far beyond what MiG-21 was known to be designed for.

When he eyeballed the target, Doru discovered it was a VG aircraft, most likely a SU-17. To be able to stay behind the target and duplicate its thight turns, Doru engaged the AB and extended the airbrakes to be able to add a vertical component from its thrust to the scarce lift generated by his delta wing flown at slow speed. In front of him, the Soviet was dancing with his wing full open above the top of the poplars that sided the country road below.

After he got back, I asked Doru how low he was. He similed, his fine smile, and answer "dramatically low". He was so low in height and speed that he could not lower the nose to fire his fotogun. All he could do was to stay at target's 6 o'clock and strive to follow its turns. It did not lasted long; no more than a couple of minutes. At one moment the target probably decided it had a long way to home; may be it could not afford to burn any more gas to dance above the Baragan's poplars.

At that point, the target had to pay the price of long seconds to engage AB to accelerate and sweep back the wings. Doru had already the AB on, he only flipped the brakes close and his MiG catapulted forward chasing the now lazy accelerating target. After he "fired", his wingman from above dove on the same target for his feast.

Two other things happend after they landed back at the base. One, it was found that Doru's fotogun had no film, and two, he was admonished from the HQ for descending below the minimum safe altitude.



Sorry if this message may be found too long. Reading the previous posts on this topic I had the impression there was a bit of fog on how those "intrusions" really happened. I hope the short episode above may create a clearer picture for those eager to know how such exercises unfolds. The idea is they were training not hostile activities.

Sorin

Very nice narration, Sorin. Thank you for that.

Gen. Dénes

Thanks for that episode, Sorin. Very interesting. I would have a few more questions, if you don't mind:

Meaning they only operated from their home bases, on Ro soil?

A single base/regiment was earmarked for participating in the exercise or more/all at the same time?

Which altitude was that? Did it apply to all aircraft, or each type had its own corresponding min alt allowance? I know about restrictions for going supersonic (only allowed above 10.000m IIRC), but I had no idea there were restrictions for min alt
P.S. You were a pilot or ground crew?

And to get back on topic, do you know anything about NATO aircraft (say RC-135 from Turkey) coming to the verge of our airspace on the Black Sea for recon/elint?

This post has been edited by Zapacitu on January 15, 2008 02:59 pm

If we trust verbal information from radiolocation Romanian officers, yes, there were real intrusions, when the Soviets did not bother to announce us. To use your words, any incident is eventually a "readiness exercise".

I did my military service in radiolocation. The Russians already had in those days a plane able to travel with 3600 km/hour (one kilometer per second). When the signal of one of these planes was picked up by 2 Romanian radiolocation stations, they got two positions, roughly in the same time, but many tens of kilometers in between. They concluded they "saw" 2 different planes!

Dénes,

You're welcome; however, it was just a humble recollection. Doru's original narration is far richer in details and in conveying that real tension which develops in the cockpit during a live dogfight. I would recommend this and all the other of Doru Davidovici's books to the interested Romanian reader. Unfortunatelly, as far as I know, none of these books were translated.

Zapacitu,

In the period discussed under this forum section, RoAF never deployed equipment outside national border. The first deployment that involved equipment since WW2 was in the mid '90s, while a longer deployment mission happened last year only. There were different levels of "readiness exercises". The extent of involvement was depending of the exercise's extension.

Florin,

For topics such as the ones you refer to, you can confortably put an equal sign between "verbal information from... " and "rumors". At your rank in this forum I would expect to be able to take such rumors as what they really mean.

Those Rd.Loc. officers you mentioned were most likely not involved in any formal communication to be able to qualify a certain flight as an incident.

And please, do not put words in my mouth; what I said was "there were no incidents..." This was in fact the main idea of my previous post.

No offence, you may have done your service there, but I do not think you have been operationally involved. If it really was as you described above, then there really would have been 2 different targets and not the situation you want to hint. Read what you wrote once again This is not even "radiolocation" is just Geometry and a bit of Physics.

Cheers,

Sorin

I think you are describing a MiG-25.

I think you are describing a MiG-25.

Florin

Not only Russians had, also Bulgaria did.
Those 3 recce MIG-25RBT (and one dubla comanda) had such turn radius when at speed and level after climbing that Bulgarian air space was hardly not wide enough, Bulgarian Foxbat had to divert many times over the sea to decent for approach back to Dobritza airbase. One story goes that once a Bulgarian MIG-25 at high level and speed by accident passed some spy or weather balloon. The GCI officer ordered in to turn to inspect in once more. The pilot was astonished by the order. With a turning radius of 80 kilometers at rougly mach 3 how could one intercept that free floating balloon ever again?
So Florin could it have been you observed Bulgarian MIG-25 then, were you in south or northeast?
So story say Bulgarian Mig-25 sometimes entered shortly in Romanian airspace.
By the way they had secundary role to drop atomic bombs from high level.

Jeroen

Zapacitu

Do yo know which units were then at Craiova and Deveselu?

Thanks
Jeroen