Other forces testing US aircraft

[Jim]

Over the years there have been several articles online and in print
regarding aircraft from the former Warsaw Pact brought to the USA for
testing. Some even seeing use in dissimilar exercises.

What I've never heard of though is the Russians or Chinese, (others?)
doing the same with our equipment. Any insight on this?


ACC USN ret.
NKX, BIKF, NAB, CV-63, NIR
67-69 69-71 71-74 77-80 80-85
&
74-77

Founder: RAMN (rec.aviation.military.naval)

[Ed Rasimus]

On Wed, 10 May 2006 16:17:47 -0400, Jim > wrote:

>Over the years there have been several articles online and in print
>regarding aircraft from the former Warsaw Pact brought to the USA for
>testing. Some even seeing use in dissimilar exercises.
>
>What I've never heard of though is the Russians or Chinese, (others?)
>doing the same with our equipment. Any insight on this?
>
>
> ACC USN ret.
>NKX, BIKF, NAB, CV-63, NIR
>67-69 69-71 71-74 77-80 80-85
> &
>74-77
>
>Founder: RAMN (rec.aviation.military.naval)

Somehow the motivation to defect and take a sample of the airplane
along was much lower for our side.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com

[Jim]

Ed Rasimus wrote:
> On Wed, 10 May 2006 16:17:47 -0400, Jim > wrote:
>
>
>>Over the years there have been several articles online and in print
>>regarding aircraft from the former Warsaw Pact brought to the USA for
>>testing. Some even seeing use in dissimilar exercises.
>>
>>What I've never heard of though is the Russians or Chinese, (others?)
>>doing the same with our equipment. Any insight on this?
>>
>>
>> ACC USN ret.
>>NKX, BIKF, NAB, CV-63, NIR
>>67-69 69-71 71-74 77-80 80-85
>> &
>>74-77
>>
>>Founder: RAMN (rec.aviation.military.naval)
>
>
> Somehow the motivation to defect and take a sample of the airplane
> along was much lower for our side.
>
>
> Ed Rasimus
> Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
> "When Thunder Rolled"
> www.thunderchief.org
> www.thundertales.blogspot.com

Agreed. But purchasing from the Iranians......................

[DDAY]

----------
In article >, Jim > wrote:

> Agreed. But purchasing from the Iranians......................

This incident is actually discussed in the Cooper article in the current
issue of Combat Aircraft that I discussed in another thread.

In short, Cooper says that the Iranian pilots told him it didn't happen.
Instead, he says that at least one F-14 and one or more F-4s was flown out
of Iran to Egypt or another pro-US country, where they were destroyed. This
was the result of a CIA operation.

Such an operation actually seems plausible, because many of the F-14 pilots
during the 1980s had actually been trained in the US and would have been
easier to approach. They also could have been bribed. What is easier to
believe--that the Iranians willingly sold a valuable aircraft to the
Russians and delivered it, or that an Iranian pilot was encouraged to defect
with his aircraft and rewarded by the CIA?

One of many things I found interesting about that article is that it
explained that the Iranians and the Russians do not get along well when it
comes to military sales. The reason is that the Russians will sell the
Iranians aircraft, but they will not allow them to manufacture spare parts.
The Iranians do not like having to pay the Russians every time they need to
replace a part. If true, this answers a question that I have long had,
which is why the Iranians choose to keep flying 30+ year old American
aircraft instead of simply buying the latest MiG-29s and Su-27 variants.




D

[Guy Alcala]

Ed Rasimus wrote:

> On Wed, 10 May 2006 16:17:47 -0400, Jim > wrote:
>
> >Over the years there have been several articles online and in print
> >regarding aircraft from the former Warsaw Pact brought to the USA for
> >testing. Some even seeing use in dissimilar exercises.
> >
> >What I've never heard of though is the Russians or Chinese, (others?)
> >doing the same with our equipment. Any insight on this?
> >
> >
> > ACC USN ret.
> >NKX, BIKF, NAB, CV-63, NIR
> >67-69 69-71 71-74 77-80 80-85
> > &
> >74-77
> >
> >Founder: RAMN (rec.aviation.military.naval)
>
> Somehow the motivation to defect and take a sample of the airplane
> along was much lower for our side.

That's not the only way to get an aircraft. See:

http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws002/the_hunt_for_the_sabre_ii.htm


I don't know if the Russians ever built themselves a flying F-4 or F-105
from the numerous damaged samples available to them in Vietnam. After SVN
fell in 1975, Toperczer writes that they were given "one F-5 with full
technical documentation, spare parts, two additional factory fresh
engines, and ground support equipment. The available A-37s were also
checked and the one in best condition was given to the Russians along with
manuals, parts and support equipment. One AC-119 was offered, but because
of transportation difficulties by sea, only the internal equipment of the
gunship was considered worthy of technical exploitation. One CH-47 and
one UH-1 were also loaded aboard a Russian ship. Other countries friendly
to North Vietnam also received a few American aircraft for further
research."

Guy

[[email protected]]

A single F-5E with proud Vietnamese markings is in the Aviation Museum
in Cracow, here in Poland.

I guess some tests of U.S. aircraft were certainly made by the USRR -
well, this is how they made AA-2 Atoll of the early AIM-9 Sidewinder!
But in most cases the technological differences between the Soviets and
the West (different attitudes to manufacturing and maintenance issues),
and differences in measure systems (meters vs. inches) could make it
really difficult to make such aircraft flyable.

I remember some comment when the first Massey Fergusons were sold in
ex-socialistic countries - this comment was like: "it is a good
tractor, but all the screws and nuts diameters are measured in these
damn inches, how to repair that?!". This can give an idea how it could
be with the planes...

Best regards,
Jacek Zemlo


> That's not the only way to get an aircraft. See:
>
> http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws002/the_hunt_for_the_sabre_ii.htm
>
>
> I don't know if the Russians ever built themselves a flying F-4 or F-105
> from the numerous damaged samples available to them in Vietnam. After SVN
> fell in 1975, Toperczer writes that they were given "one F-5 with full
> technical documentation, spare parts, two additional factory fresh
> engines, and ground support equipment. The available A-37s were also
> checked and the one in best condition was given to the Russians along with
> manuals, parts and support equipment. One AC-119 was offered, but because
> of transportation difficulties by sea, only the internal equipment of the
> gunship was considered worthy of technical exploitation. One CH-47 and
> one UH-1 were also loaded aboard a Russian ship. Other countries friendly
> to North Vietnam also received a few American aircraft for further
> research."
>
> Guy

[Nele VII]

> wrote in message
oups.com...
>A single F-5E with proud Vietnamese markings is in the Aviation Museum
> in Cracow, here in Poland.
>
<snip>
>> That's not the only way to get an aircraft. See:
>>
>> http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws002/the_hunt_for_the_sabre_ii.htm
>>
>>
>> I don't know if the Russians ever built themselves a flying F-4 or F-105
>> from the numerous damaged samples available to them in Vietnam. After SVN
>> fell in 1975, Toperczer writes that they were given "one F-5 with full
>> technical documentation, spare parts, two additional factory fresh
>> engines, and ground support equipment. The available A-37s were also
>> checked and the one in best condition was given to the Russians along with
>> manuals, parts and support equipment. One AC-119 was offered, but because
>> of transportation difficulties by sea, only the internal equipment of the
>> gunship was considered worthy of technical exploitation. One CH-47 and
>> one UH-1 were also loaded aboard a Russian ship. Other countries friendly
>> to North Vietnam also received a few American aircraft for further
>> research."
>>
>> Guy
>

A-37 played an important part as an inspiration for Su-25 (in the term of light,
powerful attack aircraft). Some tech details are "leased" from it (foam-filled
tanks and some wing mech details).

F-5 was indeed flight-tested in mock-dogfights against MiG-21 and MiG-23 (per
test-pilot's memoirs).

Nele

[John Dallman]

In article . com>,
() wrote:

> But in most cases the technological differences between the Soviets
> and the West (different attitudes to manufacturing and maintenance
> issues), and differences in measure systems (meters vs. inches) could
> make it really difficult to make such aircraft flyable.

The difficulty isn't so much with "flyable", so much as manufactuable in
quantity and "maintainable". These issues could be overcome; they take
significant work, but sometimes it was easier than developing a
different aircraft. The prime example of that was the Tu-4 "Bull", which
was a copy of the B-29, based on three B-29s that landed in the far east
of the USSR in late WWII. The engines, guns and electronics were Soviet
designs, but the rest was copied. It was quicker than developing an
equivalent aircraft from scratch, and moved Soviet aircraft technology
forward quite significantly.

In the same way, they bought and copied British jet engines; they had
their own development programmes too, but the experience of
manufacturing some which had been debugged was well worthwhile.

---
John Dallman, , HTML mail is treated as probable spam.

[FatKat]

> In short, Cooper says that the Iranian pilots told him it didn't happen.
> Instead, he says that at least one F-14 and one or more F-4s was flown out
> of Iran to Egypt or another pro-US country, where they were destroyed. This
> was the result of a CIA operation.

Cooper already discussed this years ago in "Iran Iraq, War in the Air"
- one of the Iranian RIO's wasn't in on the defection plan and opted to
spend the rest of the war as a prisoner. Cooper further described (I
haven't read the book since the summer of '04) a high-level conference
in the US to inspect parts of one of the defecting Iranian fighters to
determine whether Iran had had access to spare parts despite attrition
and the purported arms embargo. It's an interesting account, dampened
by the lack of details, follow-up or attirbution by footnoting. As a
Schiffer book, "Iran Iraq" is unsurprisingly sloppy, so I won't get
into the nitty-gritty as to who bears the fault for the books numerous
structural and stylistic flaws. Suffice it to say that the account of
the defection's aftermath is one of many found in the book which lacks
much in the way of demonstrable corroboration.
>
> Such an operation actually seems plausible, because many of the F-14 pilots
> during the 1980s had actually been trained in the US and would have been
> easier to approach. They also could have been bribed. What is easier to
> believe--that the Iranians willingly sold a valuable aircraft to the
> Russians and delivered it, or that an Iranian pilot was encouraged to defect
> with his aircraft and rewarded by the CIA?

They both seem pretty much equally plausible. While many pilots had
been trained in the US, and likely bore the stigma of this at the rise
of the Islamic regime, the Iraqi invasion raised the issue of
patriotism. Whether for or against the Ayatollah's, I doubt that there
was ever much issue in their mind over their loyalty to Iran itself. I
just find it difficult to make the leap from disloyalty to the Islamic
state to disloyalty to Iran as a whole, which defection would require.
On the other side of the equation, haven't satifactorily discounted the
possible sale of American hardware to the Soviets - the biggest piece
of evidence I've heard discounting such a transaction was the
secretiveness of the Iranians when it came time approach the Soviets.
They would not allow the Russians to get a really good luck at their
hardware - that's actually quite convincing, and it would be
dispositive of the issue were consistent policy the rule and not the
exception in governance.
>
> One of many things I found interesting about that article is that it
> explained that the Iranians and the Russians do not get along well when it
> comes to military sales. The reason is that the Russians will sell the
> Iranians aircraft, but they will not allow them to manufacture spare parts.

Doesn't surprise me - why foster any degree in self-sufficiency in your
clients? According to "Iran Iraq" this was typical of the Soviets'
supply practice with Iraq as well - with aircraft having to be sent
back to Russia for maintenance.

> The Iranians do not like having to pay the Russians every time they need to
> replace a part. If true, this answers a question that I have long had,
> which is why the Iranians choose to keep flying 30+ year old American
> aircraft instead of simply buying the latest MiG-29s and Su-27 variants.

Simple - because there's still life in those old airplanes, not to
mention a vast body of technical information and experience as to their
effective use. There's actually a none-too-small school of opinion
here in the US advocating for the continued use of 30+ year old
hardware against buying anything new from anybody, even from other
Americans.

[DDAY]

----------
In article om>, "FatKat"
> wrote:

> haven't read the book since the summer of '04) a high-level conference
> in the US to inspect parts of one of the defecting Iranian fighters to
> determine whether Iran had had access to spare parts despite attrition
> and the purported arms embargo. It's an interesting account, dampened

That, to me, sounds highly plausible. US intel would have two primary
interests in examining an Iranian fighter--determining if they had made any
modifications, and determining if the Iranians were getting black market
parts out of the US.

The claims that an F-14 went to Russia have never had any more details than
that. Cooper and Bishop seem to have more details that it happened the
other way.


> by the lack of details, follow-up or attirbution by footnoting. As a
> Schiffer book, "Iran Iraq" is unsurprisingly sloppy, so I won't get
> into the nitty-gritty as to who bears the fault for the books numerous
> structural and stylistic flaws. Suffice it to say that the account of

Check their Osprey book to see if the style and structure are better.

As I'm sure you know, Schiffer is notorious for typos and other mistakes. I
remember seeing an absurd example of this, where Schiffer reprinted some US
Navy book (possibly a tour book from an aircraft carrier). In one of the
front pages there was some curious disclaimer like "The publisher is not
responsible for any mistakes in this book." Two pages later, they printed a
photograph upside down! It was bizarre and it led me to wonder about their
production process. My suspicion is that their layout people are really
bad.

A colleague of mine published a couple of very well-regarded books with
them. He told me that the upside is that they are easy to work with, but
the downside is that they provide no copy editing or quality control
checking at all. This requires the editor to very carefully check the page
proofs. Speaking as someone who publishes a lot myself, typically authors
get very little time to review page proofs, so unless the author is
extremely attentive at that phase, the result will be a crappy Schiffer
book.

> the defection's aftermath is one of many found in the book which lacks
> much in the way of demonstrable corroboration.

That's my complaint about Cooper and Bishop. However, I am generally
impressed by their research and sources. I tend to believe them, but I'm
still a little wary. I would be much less wary even if they gave us _some_
insight into their sources, even if that meant listing anonymous sources,
such as "Iranian Air Force Captain #1" and "Iranian Air Force Captain #2."
That would allow us to get an idea for how carefully they had checked their
sources.



> been trained in the US, and likely bore the stigma of this at the rise
> of the Islamic regime, the Iraqi invasion raised the issue of
> patriotism. Whether for or against the Ayatollah's, I doubt that there
> was ever much issue in their mind over their loyalty to Iran itself. I

They make this clear in their Osprey F-14 book. They hated the new regime,
but when the Iraqis attacked they were willing to fight for their country.


> just find it difficult to make the leap from disloyalty to the Islamic
> state to disloyalty to Iran as a whole, which defection would require.

Well, huge wads of cash can also help in changing one's loyalty.


>> explained that the Iranians and the Russians do not get along well when it
>> comes to military sales. The reason is that the Russians will sell the
>> Iranians aircraft, but they will not allow them to manufacture spare parts.
>
> Doesn't surprise me - why foster any degree in self-sufficiency in your
> clients? According to "Iran Iraq" this was typical of the Soviets'
> supply practice with Iraq as well - with aircraft having to be sent
> back to Russia for maintenance.

Their story on Iran is also consistent with anecdotal things I've read about
Russian attempts to sell aircraft to other countries. The problem has been
that the terms of any deal are simply too restrictive. The Russians hold
too many of the cards.

This has apparently been a problem with the Russians providing aircraft to
China. The Chinese have bought fewer Su-27s than one would expect, although
they have also sought to develop their own fighter aircraft production
industry (with very limited success).

Now certainly the US does the same--we don't allow other countries to
license build many parts for F-16s either. But I believe that there are
other aspects of the deals that make them more acceptable.





D

[FatKat]

DDAY wrote:
> ----------
> In article om>, "FatKat"
> > wrote:
>
> > haven't read the book since the summer of '04) a high-level conference
> > in the US to inspect parts of one of the defecting Iranian fighters to
> > determine whether Iran had had access to spare parts despite attrition
> > and the purported arms embargo. It's an interesting account, dampened
>
> That, to me, sounds highly plausible. US intel would have two primary
> interests in examining an Iranian fighter--determining if they had made any
> modifications, and determining if the Iranians were getting black market
> parts out of the US.

No, I had no problem with the possibility that it might have occurred -
a question I reserve for expressly fictionalized stories. Rather, in
what is supposed to be an actual case history, proof that it had
happened as Coop/Bishop describe. "Iran-Iraq" is an unwieldly tome and
one of its chief fault is one that bedevils most historians - just who
is the book written for? The book details many facts presumably
unknown or not quite appreciated, but also many details of the science
of mil/av that aren't quite clear to the casual reader - mostly the
qualitive differences between various versions of military aircraft.
The other biggest failing is that there's a lot of detail that simply
isn't corroborated, and this is highlighted by those details that
Coop/Bishop do give the laser-scalpel treatment to, like the one about
the Phantom allegedly shotdown by an Iraqui helicopter.
>
> The claims that an F-14 went to Russia have never had any more details than
> that. Cooper and Bishop seem to have more details that it happened the
> other way.

Which says more about the source than the facts. The authors have
amassed a lot of fact, so much so that the book becomes less a critical
analysis of the war than simply a super-sized abstract of their
research. As such, access to information is critical, and the authors
never become independent of their sources. There's no way to tell
whether the lack of detail is the result of there being no detail, or
the authors' inability to find the information.
>
> > by the lack of details, follow-up or attirbution by footnoting. As a
> > Schiffer book, "Iran Iraq" is unsurprisingly sloppy, so I won't get
> > into the nitty-gritty as to who bears the fault for the books numerous
> > structural and stylistic flaws. Suffice it to say that the account of
>
> As I'm sure you know, Schiffer is notorious for typos and other mistakes. I
> remember seeing an absurd example of this, where Schiffer reprinted some US
> Navy book (possibly a tour book from an aircraft carrier). In one of the
> front pages there was some curious disclaimer like "The publisher is not
> responsible for any mistakes in this book." Two pages later, they printed a
> photograph upside down! It was bizarre and it led me to wonder about their
> production process. My suspicion is that their layout people are really
> bad.

That's what I mean when I said "as a Schiffer book". Since it was my
first (yet only) book by Cooper, I didn't know that he published other
books with Osprey. I'm surprised that he didn't go to Osprey with this
one - they would probably have been put off by its size, but then he
could have spun it off into several books, much as he's already done
with his books on African Migs and Persian F-14's. As I said above, I
don't care whose fault the end result is, I'm not out to lay blame,
just give the potential reader a heads-up on what they can expect.
BTW, for those who may have read the Amazon.com page for the book, I'm
not the guy who posted as "Sharpest101".
>
> A colleague of mine published a couple of very well-regarded books with
> them. He told me that the upside is that they are easy to work with, but
> the downside is that they provide no copy editing or quality control
> checking at all. This requires the editor to very carefully check the page
> proofs. Speaking as someone who publishes a lot myself, typically authors
> get very little time to review page proofs, so unless the author is
> extremely attentive at that phase, the result will be a crappy Schiffer
> book.

I wonder why anybody goes to them. Anyway, my copy lacked many of the
things I would have thought critical in a book about a protracted
conventional war, like maps, diagrams, an index and more color
pictures. Ironically, a small-area map is used for the book's the
dustjacket. Would the book have featured these had Schiffer done their
job? Or did it otherwise reflect the author's efforts? Again, whose
fault isn't my concern.
>
> > just find it difficult to make the leap from disloyalty to the Islamic
> > state to disloyalty to Iran as a whole, which defection would require.
>
> Well, huge wads of cash can also help in changing one's loyalty.

According to the Squadron/Signal book on the F-5, the PRC supposedly
tried to lure Taiwanese pilots into defecting with their aircraft with
promises of a hefty bounty payable in gold. While Taiwanese pilots may
have suspected the reds, there's every reason to believe that even
American-trained pilots would have suspected an American intel op.

[[email protected]]

FatKat wrote:

[stuff snipped]

>
> I wonder why anybody goes to them. Anyway, my copy lacked many of the
> things I would have thought critical in a book about a protracted
> conventional war, like maps, diagrams, an index and more color
> pictures. Ironically, a small-area map is used for the book's the
> dustjacket. Would the book have featured these had Schiffer done their
> job? Or did it otherwise reflect the author's efforts? Again, whose
> fault isn't my concern.
> >


Schiffer doesn't have any in-house artists and their editors don't edit
much. Authors have to provide all graphics except for the cover art,
which is commissioned if it's not provided by the author. And an
author has to fight to be able to edit the photo captions.

Schiffer books differ widely in quality for obvious reasons. On the
other hand they will publish books on really arcane subjects that
nobody else will handle, i.e. "Maker's Marks of the Beer Steins of the
Hanoverian Household Cavalry of the Napoleonic Wars, Volume 7".


John Hairell )