MiG Pilot: The Final Escape of Lieutenant Belenko is a 1980 biography by John Barron about the life and 1976 defection of which Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 fighter pilot, who defected to the West while flying his MiG-25 'Foxbat' jet fighter and landed in Hakodate, in which country?
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MiG Pilot: The Final Escape of Lieutenant Belenko MiG Pilot: The Final Escape of Lieutenant Belenko is a 1980 biography by John Barron about the life and 1976 defection of Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 fighter pilot Viktor Belenko to the United States.
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Viktor Belenko Viktor Ivanovich Belenko (Russian: Виктор Иванович Беленко , born 15 February 1947) is a former Soviet pilot who defected to the West while flying his MiG-25 'Foxbat' jet fighter and landed in Hakodate, Japan. The opportunity to examine the plane up close was an intelligence bonanza for the West. Belenko later became an American aerospace engineer.
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Gordon Brettell Edward Gordon Brettell (19 March 1915 – 29 March 1944), known as Gordon Brettell, was a British Spitfire fighter pilot who was taken prisoner during the Second World War. He took part in the 'Great Escape' from Stalag Luft III in March 1944, but was one of the men re-captured and subsequently shot by the "Gestapo".
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Igor Gouzenko Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko (Russian: Игорь Сергеевич Гузенко ] ; Ukrainian: Ігор Сергійович Гузенко ] ; January 13, 1919 – June 28, 1982) was a cipher clerk for the Soviet Embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. He defected on September 5, 1945 – just three days after the end of World War II – with 109 documents on Soviet espionage activities in the West. This forced Prime Minister Mackenzie King to call a Royal Commission to investigate espionage in Canada.
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Munir Redfa Munir Redfa (Arabic: منير ردفا‎ ‎ ), born Munir Habib Jamil Rufa (Arabic: منير حبيب جميل روفا‎ ‎ ‎) (1934 – 1998) was an Iraqi fighter pilot who defected in 1966 by flying a MiG-21 of the Iraqi Air Force to Israel. In what is considered as one of the Mossad's most successful operations, Redfa's entire extended family was smuggled safely out of Iraq to Israel. The MiG-21 fighter was evaluated by the Israeli Air Force and was later loaned to the United States for testing and intelligence analysis. Knowledge obtained from analysis of the aircraft was instrumental to the successes achieved by the Israeli Air Force in its future encounters with Arab MiG-21s. Redfa's defection was the subject of the movie "Steal the Sky" (1988).
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Ilyushin Il-28 The Ilyushin Il-28 (Russian: Илью́шин Ил-28 NATO reporting name: Beagle) is a jet bomber of the immediate postwar period that was originally manufactured for the Soviet Air Forces. It was the Soviet Union's first such aircraft to enter large-scale production. It was also licence-built in China as the Harbin H-5. Total production in the USSR was 6,316 aircraft, and over 319 H-5s were built. Only 187 examples of the HJ-5 training variant were manufactured. In the 1990s hundreds remained in service with various air forces over 50 years after the Il-28 first appeared. The only H-5s in service currently are approximately 80 aircraft which operate with the Korean People's Air Force.
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Abbas Babaei Abbas Babaei (Persian: عباس بابایی‎ ‎ ) (5 December 1950 – 6 August 1987) was an Iranian pilot and Major General in the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, during the Iran-Iraq War. He was killed in 1987.
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Operation Rimon 20 Rimon 20 (Hebrew: רימון 20‎ ‎ , "Pomegranate 20") was the code name of an aerial battle in 1970 which pitted the Israeli Air Force directly against Soviet fighter pilots stationed in Egypt during the War of Attrition. Israel chose its most skilled fighter pilots to participate in the planned dogfight in order to send a message to the Soviet Union. During the three-minute engagement, which took place on July 30, 1970, the Soviets were dominated by their veteran Israeli counterparts, resulting in the downing of five Soviet-flown MiG-21s by Israeli F-4 Phantoms and Mirage IIIs. Egyptian military leaders were satisfied to hear the outcome of the battle because the Soviets had long been criticizing Egypt's aerial losses to Israel and attributing them to the lack of skill of its fighter pilots. It was one of the final engagements of the War of Attrition and is believed to have contributed to its conclusion.
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Vasily Reshetnikov Vasily Vasiliyevich Reshetnikov (Russian: Василий Васильевич Решетников ) (born December 23, 1919) was a Soviet pilot during World War II. Reshetnikov flew 307 missions mainly as a pilot for a long-range bomber and in the summer of 1943, received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. After World War II concluded he was named commander of Air Division, Air Corps. Reshetnikov was subsequently promoted to Colonel General and took command of Long-range Air Forces from 1969 to 1980 and was made Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force of the Soviet Union from 1980 to 1986.
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Ahmad Keshvari Ahmad Keshvari (Persian: احمد کشوری‎ ‎ ; July 1953 – 7 December 1980) was a AH-1J SeaCobra pilot in the Army Aviation ("Havanirooz") of Iran. He had a role in the early months of the Iran-Iraq War to stop Iraqi tanks from further advancing into the western Iranian territories.
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Dieter Dengler Dieter Dengler (May 22, 1938 – February 7, 2001) was a German-born United States Navy aviator during the Vietnam War and later a private aircraft test pilot and commercial airline pilot. He was one of two survivors, the other being Phisit Intharathat, out of seven prisoners of war (POWs) who escaped from a Pathet Lao prison camp in Laos. He was rescued after 23 days on the run following six months of torture and imprisonment and was the first captured U.S. airman to escape enemy captivity during the Vietnam war.
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Kilpyavr (air base) Kilpyavr (Russian: "Килпъявр" or "Килп-Явр", Finnish: "Kilpijärvi". Also appearing in many different forms as "Kilpajärvi", "Kilp-Yavr", "Kil'p-Yar", "Kilp-Yar", "Kilpyarvi") is a military air base in Murmansk Oblast, Russia located 30 km northwest of Murmansk. It is a small interceptor base operated by the 941st Fighter Aviation Regiment) (941 IAP). Kilpyavr operated MiG-19, Su-9, and MiG-23M aircraft, and upgraded to Su-27 aircraft in 1985. Google Earth high-resolution satellite imagery dating to around March 2007 showed 37 interceptor aircraft on the tarmac.
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Nikolai Biryukov Nikolai Ivanovich Biryukov (6 December 1901, Knyazhaya Baygora, Tambov Governorate – 22 June 1980, Russian: Николай Иванович Бирюков) was a Soviet Army soldier and officer. He fought in the Russian Civil War and in World War II, where he attained the rank of lieutenant general, and was decorated Hero of the Soviet Union.
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Saburō Sakai Sub-Lieutenant Saburō Sakai (坂井 三郎 , Sakai Saburō , 25 August 1916 – 22 September 2000) was a Japanese naval aviator and flying ace (""Gekitsui-O"", 撃墜王) of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II.
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Dawson's Field hijackings In September 1970, four jet airliners bound for New York City and one for London were hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Three aircraft were forced to land at Dawson's Field, a remote desert airstrip near Zarka, Jordan, formerly a British Royal Air Force base, one that then become PFLP's "Revolutionary Airport". By the end of the incident, one hijacker had been killed and one injury reported. This was the second instance of mass aircraft hijacking, after an escape from communist Czechoslovakia in 1950.
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Mikoyan MiG-41 The Mikoyan MiG-41 is an interceptor aircraft reported to be in development for the Russian Air Force by Mikoyan intended as a replacement for the aging MiG-31. According to the Russian defense analyst Vasily Kashin, the MiG-41 would be considered as a 5++ or 6th generation project.
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Burevestnik Airport Burevestnik (also Iturup; Japanese: 天寧飛行場 , "Tennei-hikōjyō") (IATA: BVV, ICAO: UHSB) is a military air base on Iturup Island, Russia, establishing the nation's presence on the disputed South Kuril Islands with the largest airfield in the region. It is also the former Soviet Union's most remote interceptor base, home of 387 IAP (387th Interceptor Aviation Regiment). During the 1970s it flew MiG-21bis and upgraded to MiG-23 jets in 1983. Burevestnik's communications and logistics were tied to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and supplies were flown in weekly on An-12 aircraft.
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Mikoyan MiG-29M The Mikoyan MiG-29M (Russian: Микоян МиГ-29M ; NATO reporting name: Fulcrum-E) is a multirole fighter that was developed as an advanced variant of the MiG-29. Formerly named "MiG-33", it was originally designed by Mikoyan in the Soviet Union during the mid-1980s.
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Korean Air Lines Flight 902 On 20 April 1978, Soviet air defense shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 902 (KAL 902) near Murmansk, Soviet Union, after the civilian aircraft violated Soviet airspace and failed to respond to Soviet ground control and interceptors. Soviet Air Defence Forces initially identified it as part of the US air reconnaissance force, which carried out thousands of flights along Soviet borders annually at the time. Captain Alexander Bosov, pilot of the Sukhoi Su-15 that brought down Flight 902, saw Asian logogram characters on the tail of the Korean aircraft, and reported this to the ground control. Despite this, Vladimir Tsarkov, commander of the 21st Soviet Air Defence Corps, ordered Bosov to take down the plane, as the plane failed to respond to repeated orders to land, and was approaching the Soviet border with Finland. The Su-15 opened fire, forcing the plane to descend, and killing two of the 109 passengers and crew members aboard Flight 902. The plane made an emergency landing on the frozen Korpiyarvi lake (not to be confused with the Korpijärvi lake) near the Finnish border.
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Heinz Vinke Heinz Vinke (22 May 1920 – 26 February 1944) was a Luftwaffe night fighter ace and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. He and his crew were shot down and killed in action on 26 February 1944, while on a search and rescue mission over the English Channel. He shot down 54 enemy aircraft, all at night. Vinke was the eighteenth most successful night fighter pilot in the history of aerial warfare.
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Stepan Borozenets Borozovets served as an Ilyushin Il-2 ground attack aircraft pilot during World War II, and was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for flying 94 sorties and destroying German equipment. Postwar, he went on to command a bomber aviation regiment before retiring in 1978. In 1995, he went to Chicago for medical treatment and remained in America until his death in 2016.
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Ken Burnstine Kenneth G. "Ken" Burnstine (died 16 June 1976) was an American drug smuggler and pilot who was described by the Associated Press in 1981 as "one of America's most daring drug smugglers". At the time of his death in an aircraft accident, Burnstine was cooperating with federal prosecutors having been sentenced to seven years in prison for conspiracy to create a $50m drug trafficking ring based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The North American P-51 Mustang in which Burnstine crashed in the Mojave Desert was the aircraft with which he had won the 1974 Reno Air Races.