MiG 15 in comouflage

Hi! I saw a picture with a Romanian Air Force MiG 15 in camouflage, at Viziru Airfield during 70s, I think. Do you know any details?

Viziru airfield? Where is that, never heard about it.
Could you post the picture here?

Anybody who has some knowledge about Romanian Jet aviation will tell you that all the MiG-15, -17, -21 were bare metal (aluminium)
until the mid-80's when the vast majority were painted light gray and the current roundels replaced the stars.

However, I found a picture of IAR-93 prototype, in the background there is what looks like a camouflaged MiG-15 - see photo attached below. It makes sense, as they were assigned ground attack role since the 70's, but in my opinion very few received camouflage. A former RoAF mechanic told me he saw the MiG-15 still flying at Ianca in 1990-91, and none was camouflaged.

The MiG-15 serial 766 in the center of Ianca town also wears camouflage, but it was painted only a few years ago, before being
mounted on that metallic structure - while displayed on the ground it was light gray.



Another one from a youtube slideshow - can't find the link to the video any more, so I made a screenshot


This post has been edited by Zapacitu on October 25, 2008 02:30 pm

Was a reserve airfield of the Ianca airfield, where was assigned the 49th Fighter/Bomber Regiment.

I checked it in Google Earth, there is a stretch of land 200 x 3000 meters just north-west from Viziru. It's the only place with grass and bush instead of agriculture works, that might be the former reserve field.

About the camo, I have a theory. Obviously some MiG-15s were camouflaged in the 70's, but they must have been repainted gray in the mid 80's when they got the present day roundels, that's why we don't see more recent pictures with them.

Do you know what they were supposed to use for ground attack? Only their guns or there was the possibility to attach some bombs?

The Mig-15 had underwing hardpoints for 2x 100 kg (220 lb) bombs, drop tanks, or unguided rockets.

Sursa: Aurel Niculescu, Sorin Turturica ,,Pe aviatori lasa-i sa zboare''

[img=http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/70/50fw1.th.jpg][img=http://img100.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif]

Nice photo. Is this some sort of auxiliary/emergency airfield (covered with grass)?

Gen. Dénes

Is the auxiliary airfield Viziru

Yes Denes, it's the Viziru grass airfield - see the first posts.
I've attached below a Google Earth screen capture of what I think were the reserve airstrips N-W of Viziru. The one below is 200 x 3000 meters, as I said above, while the other is roughly 300 x 1500 meters. On the left (south) side, you can see the poplars on the side of the road, which also appear on the photo posted by our "sniper dog"
These airstrips are at a distance of 25 km from the main paved runway at Ianca.

Did gen. Niculescu remember anything about the camouflaged MiG(s)?



This post has been edited by Zapacitu on October 30, 2008 06:57 am

No, I asked him and he did not remember anything. Anyway, I intend to make some research and maybe an article...

Were there any other reserve grass airfields like Viziru, near the other air bases?
If yes, where?

Dear Zapacitu

There was Ciorani near Alexini, Sihlea near Boboc and Dor Marunt near Borcea.

sincerely
Jeroen

Do you have any concrete info that those airstrips were used as reserves for the main bases, and they practiced dispersal there?
Just because there was/is a grass airstrip relatively near a concrete runway does not necessarily mean they used it for MiGs.

This post has been edited by Vici on April 24, 2009 10:48 am

Vici

It was in general a Warsawa pact doctrine to disperse early type MiG and Su aircraft to reserve airfields with concrete runways, gras runway or special strips of road on normal road or autostrada.
These dispersal exercises were regularly practised.
In GDR soviet and German units did even so on grass airfields in 60-ies and at least at two (gras) locations also in 70-ies.
Most grass runways were laid out in polygons and became sanded when not used anymore in 80-ies.
I no doubt that such practices in romania were likewise, but that Romian had then no autostrada, except for the Pitesti-Bucuresti traject, when was that build?

So you might check with some locals if they can recall when the last MiG flew there? Or check unit histories about deployements and exercises in 60-ies/70-ies?

I have spoken to local farmers in former USSR, who confirmed such stories.
I even heard about Tu-16 flying from grass airfields, but only in winter time when frozen solid ground made that possible!

Jeroen