okopanja

Officially none of them launched. Boro Zoraja was close to it (see his post, unfortunatly no interviews from opponents), as well as Abdul Emeti (translated, but will be published in several weeks). At the moment I am preparing flight of Ljubiša Kulačin, a follow up on Nebojša Nikolić(published). I would say that in several occasions 29s dangerously closed the gap, despite AMRAAM advantage, mostly due to AMRAAM misses at low altitudes. 6 aircraft were lost in air, with multiple friendly(or combined) fire reports. 5 were lost on ground. Aircrafts had issues with capacitors causing power supply failures. The general overhaul should have been scheduled in 1996/1997.

Nice photo, but we do not talk actually about AIM-120A, but the fact that ERs and ETs. The other guy brought them into subject when he tried to put the ER next to AIM-120A almost 1/2 decade later. From my point of view I do not mind ED modeling one.

There are pictures of R-27ER being carried in 80s in operational units, taken by the western side. R-27ER/ET is very much realistic for 80s scenario. Further more the P variant appeared in one of the manual pages for 9.12 and was removed due to being potentially sensitive.

Can not offer exact answer, but perhaps the answer can be inferred based on the pilot descriptions, and by modeling against known stats. Hence the importance of matching and correlating pilot's stories. Bottom line is: lesser diameter meant less drag but also meant smaller warhead. Shower fired after of-the-rail-pitbull amraam, sparrow, which has heavier warhead, and again fired amraam from like 4nm.

Already for some time I am translating the transcripts of interviews of 29 pilots from 1999, along matching them with corresponding the western pilots. It should be noted that motivation is to bring more attention why the Mig-29 9.12b performed so bad, by provided as much as possible of the background information. You can find them in the Mig-29A section of the forum. So far I published 4 of them and the last one is about the shortest flight and probably one that was most uneven Please read the testimonies of both pilots (white timestamps will open exact place in youtube video where they made statements), and you will get it why am I so skeptical about never missing AMRAAMs.

This is all fine and dandy, but please provide more details on your analysis and conclusion.

24.03.1999 - Mig-29 combat flight - Nebojša Nikolić Pilot: Major Nebojša Nikolić Airplane type: L-18 (MIG-29 9.12b) Airplane ID: 18111 Time: March 24th 1999, 20:30 Take off: Airbase Batajnica Landing: Knićanin, near Titel Flight length: 3 min Nobody refused - part 2 - Nebojša Nikolić - Mig-29 pilot interview 1st video segment at 01:48 01:58 Narrator: Approximately around 20:15, at the airport of Batajnica the order arrives: “Mig-29 to scramble to confront the NATO airplanes which have already started the bombing of Yugoslavia.” 02:15 Narrator: Major Nebojša Nikolić has been ordered to take off and fly toward Bečej, where the larger formation of enemy airplanes is expected”. 02:24 Narrator: Nikolić takes off from readiness number 2, and discovers that course navigation on the airplane is not operating. 02:36 Nebojša Nikolić: As soon as I took off, before even retracting the undercarriage, I felt the explosion near the airplane shifted the whole aircraft. I corrected the shift and continued take off. 02:51 Nebojša Nikolić: I switched the radio station to the channel of the GCI squad, which I received, and attempted to establish communication with the GCI officer. 03:04 Nebojša Nikolić: I attempted 3 times, unsuccessfully. 03:09 Nebojša Nikolić: I turned the radar on immediately on take off and I saw it had malfunctioned. 03:16 Nebojša Nikolić: While climbing toward 3000m, I headed to the designated zone, which was the Bečej zone. 03:25 Nebojša Nikolić: Given the fact that they were already above Belgrade, they launched the missiles which I felt when exploding near the airplane. 04:41 Nebojša Nikolić: Each of these explosions was, due to air pressure changes, shifted the airplane left and right. I constantly corrected for the shift. 04:53 Nebojša Nikolić: I arrived at 3000m. I started to maneuver, but avoided doing this too energetically, in order to be able to constantly keep track of the lights of places toward which I have been ordered to fly 04:14 Remark: The story interrupts, and continues the stories of Major Ilić (and Iljo Arizanov). 2nd video segment at 12:12 12:12 Narrator: Nikolić has flown toward Bečej, where the larger formation of enemy aircraft was expected. He was detected (by the NATO forces) and the missiles were fired upon him. He managed to evade and continued the flight toward the zone of expectation. 12:27 Narrator: At this moment he is above Titel… 12:31 Nebojša Nikolić: One of these missiles that I felt (maybe even more which I did not feel), has caused the fire on the right side of the airplane, and the cockpit was on fire and full of smoke. 12:55 Nebojša Nikolić: I moved the flight stick and found out that the airplane was still controllable, but I could not see anything outside. 13:03 Nebojša Nikolić: I reported on the radio channel of my position, altitude, that I have been hit, I was on fire and that I had to eject. 13:18 Nebojša Nikolić: I pulled the ejection seat handle, and I ejected. 13:25 Nebojša Nikolić: The airplane has been hit with another missile after pulling the ejection handle. The canopy has separated and I followed it up. 13:38 Nebojša Nikolić: Stabilizing parachute was activated and then the main parachute followed. 13:47 Nebojša Nikolić: I was descending (falling) near the Danube and Tisa rivers junction. 13:51 Nebojša Nikolić: I was aware that this area was full of swamps and that it had a lot of water channels, so I settled in a seat harness(of parachute) awaiting the touchdown. 14:04 Nebojša Nikolić: My descent lasted about 30 seconds with a parachute, perhaps longer. At moments like this seconds are long, and you do not have time to count… 14:19 Remark: The story interrupts, and continues the stories of Major Ilić. 3rd video segment at 20:28 20:28 Narrator: Major Ilić was hit over Titel, managed to eject and landed in the Knićanin village area. 22:36 Nebojša Nikolić: The crash location of the airplane is over there, and since the crash it was on fire all the time I was in the area (He stands on the left side of the water channel, airplane is on the right). 22:48 Nebojša Nikolić: My landing location was over there, some 300m (opposite, across the channel) from the airplane. 22:57 Nebojša Nikolić: Once I landed and got myself free from the parachute, the first thing that came to mind was to lighten a cigarette (he finally smiles here) and I considered how to exit the field and to which direction. 23:13 Nebojša Nikolić: I decided to go toward Čenta, due to its vicinity to the Zrenjanin highway, where I could see vehicles passing by. 23:23 Nebojša Nikolić: As I headed towards Čenta, I arrived at a large water channel which prevented me from crossing it in order for me to reach the highway. 23:42 Nebojša Nikolić: Once I climbed on the channel embankment, I saw that near the burning plane there was a police patrol. 23:50 Nebojša Nikolić: In order to get noticed by them, I fired 2 red signal rockets, but they did not see me and left quickly. 24:02 Nebojša Nikolić: I was counting on the fact that they would report this to someone (that there was a burning plane), so I decided to return back to my jet. 24:17 Nebojša Nikolić: Arriving at a smaller water channel, I could not find the point I crossed it earlier, so I decided to wait until dawn, to make it easier for me to figure out how to get to the nearest houses. 24:34 Remark: The story is continued by villagers' reactions, not much information here, except that one of them saw the hit at 20:30. Except for their anecdotes, so I will skip the precise translation of this part. They were searching for a pilot, observed missiles under wings and cannon, and got dispersed by police, which took the parachute from one of them. Based on this account, this is already some time later… 4th video segment at 26:53 26:53 Narrator: Nikolić was hit around 20:30. The rescue helicopter arrived for him 5 hours later at around 01:30 in the morning. 27:07 Nebojša Nikolić: Around that time I heard the helicopter sound, I looked up and recognized the silhouette of Gazelle (SA-341). It landed just next to my burning airplane. 27:18 Nebojša Nikolić: I quickly grabbed the grass near the water channel and set it on fire. After taking off again, the helicopter crew noticed the fire I had started and landed near me. 27:30 Nebojša Nikolić: From there we flew directly to Batajnica airbase. 27:38 Remark: The story interrupts here with story of Major Predrag Milutinović 5th video segment at 50:10 50:10 Nebojša Nikolić: I realized that one of those missiles will be for me, being 3 or 7 fired (at me), one will be for me. 50:18 Nebojša Nikolić: I felt a kind of helplessness, despite my strong will to defend my country, to defend everyone. 50:25 Nebojša Nikolić: I knew there were more of them and that they came with the task to shoot down whatever flew toward them. My task was to shoot down the NATO pact. 50:40 Remark: The story interrupts with Boro Zoraja conclusion. 6th video segment at 54:13 54:13 Nebojša Nikolić: It does not matter what weapon you defend with. What matters is what you defend. 54:21 Nebojša Nikolić: We did not have the right means to do it properly, our airplanes were near the end, malfunctioning. 54:27 Nebojša Nikolić: We had insufficient flight hours. 54:36 Nebojša Nikolić: Despite all of that, I would have done exactly the same. 54:43 Remark: The story interrupts and continues with Major Abdul Emeti. Aircrew Interview: Interview with Mike "Dozer" Shower on the F-15C Eagle 7th video segment at 17:25 17:29 Mike Young: And then, while you were having the best in Lakenheath (F-15 NATO base) in 1999 you had a pretty eventful evening, didn't you? 17:36 Mike Young: Could you share this with us? 17:38 Mike Shower: Yeah, they had that whole, you know, we should avoid the politics and all the stuff about the campaign of Operation Allied Force, because there was a lot going on at that part of the world but… 17:47 Mike Shower: ... You know now nobody wants to see a war once it has passed up there was bad things happening anyways. 17:54 Mike Shower: Regardless, our leaders put us there, right… I mean NATO and in the US we got involved, so at the end of the day we just went and did it. 18:03 Mike Shower: You know, we did what we were told to do basically and you know. So we were deployed at in Italy, which was a really cool deployment minus the war part of it, because you know hadn't been to Italy before and the food was good. 18:14 Mike Shower: We lived near beach in a hotel and it was just… It was a really cool set up and the folks were really friendly, so I enjoyed that. 18:21 Mike Shower: So... yeah, March 24, 1999, that was the first day of Operation Allied Force when the aircraft got involved. 18:29 Mike Shower: I'm sure there were ground things happening that we didn't know about. 18:32 Mike Shower: Aircraft got involved and I was fortunate enough, being the weapons officer still. 18:37 Mike Shower: I've would just hand it off to a brand new weapons officer, he just got there, he didn't know the squadron so you know of course I'm planning and everything, kind of from that perspective and... 18:44 Mike Shower: We had two, four f-15s up north going into Serbia. We had 4 down south and we had 2 big strike packages so we had two pushes if you will that very first night you know, in from the north and south side, times 2 so... 19:01 Mike Shower: But they were separated by a number of hours and there was a lot of kind of surreal things because I've been in Iraq a lot and every once in a while they toss surface-to-air missiles on that but not a big deal right... 19:11 Mike Shower: And this is a little different. This is like a real country that was intact, its infrastructure was there. 19:15 Mike Shower: The Serbs are not known... they know how to fight and they're good fighters. 19:19 Mike Shower: Their equipment was just you know not as up to par as ours was or the mass enough that we had to our control. 19:25 Mike Shower: So I don't take anything away from the Serbs because I said they're.... They're tough. (If) they had the same equipment you know or more things to their advantage, it would've been a heck of a lot harder to fight for sure, you know… 19:35 Mike Shower: Plus you know I give them kudos they're defending their country right. I mean we would have done the same thing if we had to. We're attacking their country. 19:41 Mike Shower: Right or wrong, whatever, but you've got it, they are protecting their country. That's what they're supposed to do. I would have done the same thing. 19:47 Mike Shower: So we had specifically for where I was I was down south, or up north I had a 4 F-15s, 4 F-16CJ's was shooting the harm missiles back at the surface to air missiles, playing that little game. 19:59 Mike Shower: And we had 2 B-2s that were coming in all the way from the United States and they were flying from the north south side of the country all the way across it to the north... 20:05 Mike Shower: And we were kind of, you know, the southern portion of that strike package of aluminum jets, was gonna kind of hand off the B-2s halfway across the country to us and then protect them there... 20:15 Mike Shower: And then we had 10 F-117! They were still flying so that was our strike package up north. 20:19 Mike Shower: We were the stealth package. 20:20 Mike Young: Wow! 10! That's a lot! 20:20 Mike Shower: Except for the... Yeah it was! 20:24 Mike Shower: Other than 8 F-15s and F-16s tollbook , since we were the "Chum" where they can see us and shoot at us where they can't see the other guys, that's part of the theory. 20:31 Mike Shower: So we pushed in from Hungary and went south towards Belgrade and that's where most of our targets were at. And... 20:39 Mike Shower: We were out in front of everybody because that is the F-15s job and we kind of got to the very first CAP which is just north of Belgrade and we had four of us, who were split apart. It was all nighttime, so it's dark... 20:49 Mike Shower: And we're in a trail formation so you know 3 to 5 mile trail is kind of what we did back in the day. Don't do that anymore but we used to. 20:56 Mike Shower: We didn't have datalink, we didn't have NVGs, we didn't have any of the fancy tools that you have now for all this stuff to make them much easier to employ that way. 21:03 Mike Shower: And so... We got to the very south edge of our CAP or combat air patrol we came, did our first spin and as I turned around and that. 21:12 Mike Shower: You know F-16s are getting close, F-117s are right behind and we don't know that other than you know they're getting close timing wise. 21:17 Mike Shower: And I saw the first little blip on the radar and it was out Batajnica, which was their Mig-29 base, out of Belgrade. 21:17 Remark: Slight correction of the name of the place: Janica => Batajnica. 21:26 Mike Shower: And so locked it up and it was 150 knots you know 59 feet, you know just taking off. 21:26 Remark: 150 knots is 277.8 km/h. 59 feet is 17.98 meters. 21:30 Mike Shower: I'm sure and I know was their pilots you know their Mig-29 is alert scrambling as soon as they knew we were coming... 21:35 Mike Shower: So those guys are hopping in their jets and fire up for take off and... 21:40 Mike Shower: He turned around about 35 miles and I kind of track him down the scope for a bit. 21:40 Remark: 35 nautical miles is 64.82 km. 21:44 Mike Shower: I lock him, you know at the appropriate range say 25-ish miles or so and... 21:44 Remark: 25 nautical miles is 46.3 km. 21:48 Mike Shower: ... start working the electronic ID because there's a number of things we had to fulfill to say that he was a hostile, somebody that we could shoot at... And... 21:56 Mike Shower: I did all that. And we've got a lot closer. We were probably about 14-15 miles apart. Finally got the ID, called out on the radio. I took the first shot which was AIM-120... 21:56 Remark: 14-15 nautical miles is 25.93 - 27.78 km. 22:07 Mike Shower: ... and then followed it up very shortly after, cuz it was active. We're so close, it was active off the rail. 22:11 Mike Shower: We switched over to AIM-7 because we had 2 AIM-7s, 4 AIM-120s. 22:15 Mike Shower: And AIM-7s got a big warhead, you hope it really does, you know, takes care of the problem if it's still, the aircraft still working. 22:21 Mike Shower: And... plus I always wanted to shoot one. So they're one of those kind of things as well. 22:26 Mike Shower: Okay I can shoot as many as I want here, because it’s combat and we also had a philosophy of typically always shoot 2. 22:31 Mike Shower: Because missiles miss! They are not (hit)iles, they are missiles, right. They miss a lot. In our peak it's like sixty percent or so. You know whatever X number of missiles aren't gonna hit. 22:42 Mike Shower: Something's not gonna work, the enemy's going to maneuver, is gonna get jammed or chaffed or whatever. So you always try to shoot a couple to up the probability of a kill. 22:49 Mike Shower: I did that! And off they went... And staring at Belgrade in the background, pretty cool because it's a VFR night so crystal clear. 22:49 Remark: VFR stands for Visual Flight Rules (flying is not impaired by the weather). 22:54 Mike Shower: Lights of the city in the background and I'm just watching the missiles go and they get to about 5-6 miles and the aircraft is breaking into the beam on me... 22:54 Remark: 5-6 nautical miles is 9.26 - 11.11 km. 23:03 Mike Shower: And I watched the first missile time out about the time the second one times out I don't see a fireball. 23:08 Mike Shower: Oh-Ohooo switch over back to an AMMRAM shoot a third one. 23:11 Mike Shower: And now I'm diving down towards him and he's kind of you know in a corner to me turning. 23:17 Mike Shower: When that last missile comes off at about five-ish miles he breaks out of the beam, starts to kind of merge head to head. 23:24 Mike Shower: And we were about a mile and a half - two (1.5-2) miles apart the missile which I'm just watching the motor I can see it burn, so I don't know... 23:24 Remark: 1.5-2 nautical miles is 2.78 - 3.7 km. 23:29 Mike Shower: I can't see him with the eyeballs. I am just watching the missile so I'm looking outside. 23:33 Mike Shower: The missile motor from that little orange goes to a big fireball. 23:36 Mike Shower: And so my god... I say, I call splash on the radio and kind of watch it spiral you know down towards the ground. 23:40 Mike Shower: You never know what happens to pilot. You find out after you know all the things are over. 23:46 Mike Shower: They had picked him up and he survived. 23:49 Mike Shower: And I believe only one pilot that was down down died and they told us based on, you know, what they had for intelligence assets gathering information, that the only one that actually died was, I believe, one of them died during the ejection... 24:03 Mike Shower: ... in that 2 vs 2 date-time couple days later that we had and one… And/Or one of them might have died because they believe one of their own aircraft was shot down by a surface to air missile. 24:11 Mike Young: Right, yeah... 24:12 Mike Shower: So I even have the interview from the guy that I shot down from the Ser...Yugoslav press is kind of funny because all the time we matched. 24:20 Remark: He explains how he made another CAP turn afterwards end encountered another Mig-29, but his story will stop at this moment. His story will continue in story about Ljubiša Kulačin. Rescue mission - Aleksa Milanović, Gazelle pilot 8th video segment at 47:57 47:57 Miodrag Marić: How did you rescue him? 48:01 Aleksa Milanović: Let me tell you, one of my responsibilities was to help the colleagues if they needed it. 48:04 Aleksa Milanović: By the way, that first day was very chaotic, interrupted with alerts. 48:08 Aleksa Milanović: I personally was assigned the task down toward Kuršumlija, to the south, but it was cancelled and I found myself the search and rescue service for that evening. 48:19 Aleksa Milanović: The story the "Keša" told us, this attack on Batajnica, Buca was also there, it was a light show. 48:19 Remark: Keša is a nickname of Nebojša Nikolić. Buca is the nickname of Slobodan Pejić. 48:26 Aleksa Milanović: It was a light show... 48:32 Miodrag Marić: "Star Wars", they were targeting you? 48:36 Aleksa Milanović: Maybe, "Star Wars" or "War of the Worlds", whatever... 48:38 Aleksa Milanović: I believe I have seen "Keša" taking off. 48:41 Aleksa Milanović: When he taxied from 7th, I only saw the spot light and he disappeared in the dark. 48:48 Aleksa Milanović: The tomahawks started to hit the hangers one by one. 48:52 Aleksa Milanović: All this happens in some sort of confusion, we did not have the correct information. 49:00 Aleksa Milanović: We watched the TV and during News: "The missile attacks happened in Kosovo". 49:00 Remark: For pilots to find out that the war started from the TV news, does not paint a good picture of the command. 49:05 Aleksa Milanović: That was the first information on the war. 49:07 Aleksa Milanović: And then the events started to occur... 49:11 Aleksa Milanović: After 3 attacks on Airbase Batajnica, I have received the order from Operation Center: "Do you have a helicopter ready?". I replied "I believe I do". It was in the dark just like the rest of the things... 49:22 Aleksa Milanović: "We received the information that our pilot ejected in area Čenta - Zrenjanin". Keša likely reported the area like that. 49:29 Aleksa Milanović: "He should be picked up." I replied "OK". 49:33 Aleksa Milanović: The AKL was functioning somewhere in some hole. 49:39 Remark: AKL = Aerodromska kontrola Letenja. English: CTR = Control Zone 49:37 Aleksa Milanović: I announced the take off to them, so they can eventually pass the information to "those nearby". 49:37 Remark: He means the PVO (Air Defense) units. 49:43 Miodrag Marić: So to avoid friendly fire? 49:46 Aleksa Milanović: That's right! 49:47 Aleksa Milanović: To prevent further circus acts. 49:49 Aleksa Milanović: We took off just like in American movies, you know Vietnam, Apocalypse... Fire is everywhere, smokes... 49:57 Aleksa Milanović: I flew toward Inđija, and then I received over the radio: "You have been detected, land immediately!" 50:03 Aleksa Milanović: Again darkness everywhere, we land near Inđija. 50:06 Aleksa Milanović: A younger colleague was with me. Even if we find him, the single person can not provide help properly. 50:14 Aleksa Milanović: We landed near Inđija, we lit cigarettes, while watching the sky, we searched for the lights of airplanes and wondered if among 6 millions of stars something is flying... 50:26 Aleksa Milanović: Finally we arrived in the area of Čenta toward Zrenjanin, with a logical assumption: to search for him in dark areas. If he is in a village, our people are there... 50:34 Aleksa Milanović: It's a swampy area, if he, god forbid, landed in the swamp, he might be drowning, so we can help him if there is any chance. 50:44 Miodrag Marić: Do you have any communication with him? 50:46 Aleksa Milanović: No, we did not have any communication with him. 50:53 Aleksa Milanović: We searched the dark places, and while returning from Zrenjanin, we arrived at the triangle Tisa-Danube(Slankamen)-road. Darkness... 51:04 Aleksa Milanović: We found the airplane which was still burning. 51:07 Aleksa Milanović: We landed near the airplane... to check what was going on... We see the debris of the airplane, burning, and foam from the fire extinguisher all around. 51:17 Aleksa Milanović: Logically he must be within a circle of a few km around the airplane, if he ejected and if he is still alive. 51:22 Aleksa Milanović: And we found him nearby, he started a small fire and smoked a cigarette while standing near the channel. 51:22 Remark: He presents this as almost a joke... 51:30 Aleksa Milanović: I landed on an embankment, Keša approached us, alive and well, holding a helmet and parachute. 51:40 Aleksa Milanović: I asked him "Are you well?", he replied "Yes, I am well". I asked "Do we fly to VMA hospital?" ,he replied "No, not needed", "So where do we go then?", "Back to the airbase." 51:45 Remark: Story interrupts here as Miodrag Marić asks about organization of US rescue missions. 03:09 Remark: Instead I will continue with the conclusion of the rescue mission, which was placed in the introduction part of the interview. 03:09 Aleksa Milanović: I still remember clearly, when we returned to Batajnica, at some time well after midnight. 03:14 Aleksa Milanović: It was a time when we reported each one of us to his own commander, that we were alive and successfully completed the mission. 03:23 Aleksa Milanović: I look at Keša, and a thought - a comparison comes to my mind... 03:29 Aleksa Milanović: He's so burnt behind the neck, so burnt in front, on his eyelashes and eyebrows, his camouflage flight jacket, so, not to say shabby. 03:44 Aleksa Milanović: A box of cigars, a "Blue Best", is sticking out of his pocket, which I also did smoke at the time. That was the standard for us, normally. 03:54 Aleksa Milanović: I think to myself, "On one side: NATO pact, on other Keša, like the one in Cervantes, when the one with the pitchfork goes to fight with the armored man." 03:54 Remark: He refers to the novel "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes, and the scene where Don Quixote fights with the penitents. On one side Don Quixote, with the sword, and on the other penitent with forked prop. 04:10 Remark: He introduces himself as Aleksa Milanović, retired as colonel in 2005, and that he was a pilot of Gazelle helicopter. Reconstructed flight The provided map is rough reconstruction based on interview and publicly known information. Slight differences and personal speculations Nebojša Nikolić stated that enemy airplanes were already above the city of Belgrade during his take off. Mike Shower had just started tracking Nikolić's MiG-29, while at the same time Nikolić is counting misses from the enemy missiles, effectively avoiding them by flying north. This slight discrepancy, indicates possible presence of other enemy airplanes capable of launching air-to-air or air-to-ground missiles on Nikolić. One such group could certainly be 10 F-117 which made an ingress from the East along the border with Romania, and according to the published NATO video⁶, one of them did hit the hangar at Batajnica airbase. Another group could be 4x F-16CJs which were tasked with SEAD missions, but also carried AMRAAM air-to-air missiles (e.g. the one shot down on May 2nd, 1999 had 2 x AIM-120⁷). It should be noted that practically all S-125 missile batteries were not active: aside from 2 at firing positions south of the city, the remaining 6 were in transport configuration and ready to move. The 2 batteries at their firing positions, even if active, could not engage due to the orders not to fire at azimuths that would endanger the city. Meanwhile VOJIN (EWR) has reported a much larger number of targets to the North, which was likely protective jamming, covering the ingress of the large F-117 group. Cruise missiles had taken out nearly all 4 active EWR radars belonging to the primary radar network. My personal conclusion is that conditions allowed for the presence of non-stealth aircrafts above the city at the time of Nikolić's take off. Personal memory While investigating the events by hearing the accounts of different people, sometimes you can find yourself crossing paths with your own memories. One such personal memory was brought back to the surface when considering the story differences of two pilots and trying to reconcile them with information from other sources. On March 24th, the author of this post was himself on the ground some 25-30 km away from the Batajnica air base. Already during the day, our regular activities were interrupted multiple times with combat alerts starting already around 08:45 in the morning. The last alert we received was around 19:30 in the evening. After we had our dinner, we moved to our allocated dispersion location and awaited further instructions. The sky was crystal clear, and I still remember being very unhappy about that. The city lights were bright as if there was no war going on. Around 20:00 we could already hear remote detonations. Few minutes later a low flying missile passed over us, coming from the East and direction of the city. It was heading toward the direction of the railway marshaling yards in Železnik. Some 30-60 seconds later, we saw a bright flash reflecting from the ground into the sky, which was followed up by the loud sound of an explosion some time later. We judged that it fell in the direction of Jakovo, where we knew there was some PVO base (3rd missile battery of 250th missile brigade, as it turned out later⁸). It is sometimes difficult to judge the significance of events, but the research of this event brought this memory back to me. Sources 1. Niko nije rekao neću (drugi deo) - Nobody refused - part 2 (see above), author Slađana Zarić, director Boban Simojlović, journalist Vesna Ilić, montage Marija Bogićević, link. 2. Aircrew Interview with Mike "Dozer" Shower on the F-15C Eagle , link. 3. Piloti ( SFRJ/SRJ/SCG ) o Nato agresiji 1999 god..., link. 4. Ratni dnevnik 1999, link. 5. NATO Briefings, link. 6. NATO Briefings Video - 26 March 1999 - Batajnica Hanger, link. 7. Pad noćnog sokola (2nd edition) - Slaviša Golubović, link. 8. Zoltan Dani's lecture on the downing of the F-117A aircraft, link. Credits Ronin Gaijin, for review and english corrections

If I may guess: Chinese have returned this aircraft...

?

Three small but very important updates: while searching for more information on other flights I have determined the following based on source 3 (added as separate section in first post) 1. After heading north to Niš, Boro Zoraja has landed at Lađevci Airbase, since radio contact with Niš was not established. This additional leg has brought the flight to exactly to the 40 minutes (originally software was calculating 37 minutes). 2. This finding also resolved the ambiguity with flight date (e.g. documentary graphic shows April 7th, and source 2 gives April 6th). At the time of landing at Lađevci (23:40 April 6th) Milenković was at Ponikve, and proceeded with the relocation of pilot/maintenance crews to Lađevci. My estimate shows that they have arrived no sooner than 01:30 on April 7th, likely later. His report could have not been written before April 7th, after the relocation was completed. Each report entry starts with date and time of the report and likely this caused confusion with the date in documentary. 3. As a result of the relocation, Milenković was on April 8th flying on #18101 airplane. The flight of Milenković will be published at later time.

The fuse distance is in a nutshell defined by the amount of damage the warhead is able to inflict on the target. This value is chosen while having in mind the ability of warhead to inflict desired effect on the target. The desired affect can range from causing low/medium level of damage (basically mission kill) to high level of damage (you blast the target into tiny pieces). Typically smaller missiles bring less explosive than larger. The choice of the size depends on technological limits in ability for guidance to achieve as close distance to the target as possible. If those limitations are high enough or more devastating effect is desired, the designer will choose the missile with heavier warhead instead, which in turn means more weight, for motor fuel and with all that higher drag at the end. Also there are considerations on what kind of effect the missile is expected to have: from causing the damage, toward blasting the target into tiny pieces. For A-D missile its easy to go with more explosive and have much higher fuse distances in tenths of meters than mentioned here for amraam. While the increasing of fuse distance as suggested by default may look right, it actually rises the question of current lethality of the warhead of amraam in DCS compared to the events observed IRL. E.g. at distance of 15 meters I would expect far less damage than with distance of 9 meters. E.g. the AMRAAMs impact we see in DCS, does not quite correspond to the effect reported by IRL pilots who survived the impacts, and I am not talking here about isolated cases. For example: in 1999, only 2 pilots were killed by the impact: others survived to either to eject or land their aircraft damaged or completely undamaged. It should be noted that the standard NATO practice was to launch AMRAAMs in pairs, or complemented with a Sparrow if a range allowed. This was confirmed by both NATO and Yugoslav pilots who in many cases counted the contrails approaching them or the explosions in the vicinity of their aircraft. If we take this into account then the AIM-120 is likely over-performing in this respect in DCS, where it's more likely you will turn into the fireball than IRL. In the Mig-29a (grumble, correct would be 9.12a) section I left already 3 account, where for 2 cases we know for sure the AMRAAMs were utilized: https://forum.dcs.world/forum/1217-dcs-mig-29a-fulcrum/ In one case I could not confirm if friendly fire occurred or aircraft potentially got hit by amraam: the pilot has landed his damaged airplane at the airport. Sadly I could not confirm where exactly and against which pilot the Dutch F-16AM did score a kill against and if this was his "kill".

This is the easy one: Warsaw Pact was disbanded on July 1st 1991 Hungary got their Mig-29 in 1993 Hence Hungary was eligible for 9.12b.

24.03.1999 - Mig-29 combat flight - Dragan Ilić Pilot: Major Dragan Ilić Airplane type: L-18 (MIG-29 9.12b) Airplane ID: 18104 Time: March 24th 1999, 20:12 Take off: Airbase Niš Landing: Airbase Niš Flight length: 17 min (minimal estimate) Interview with Major Dragan Ilić, pilot of MiG-29 1st video segment at 04:21 04:21 Narrator: Pilots assigned to combat readiness in Niš that evening were Dragan Ilić and Iljo Arizanov. Major Arizanov took off first and flew toward Kosovo and Metohija. Dragan Ilić has been vectored to the expectation zone Kuršumlija. 04:35 Dragan Ilić: After establishing the radio connection with a GCI officer, the first thing he asked me was: "Are you Blue or Red?" (Ilić makes a funny grimace and rolls his eyes over). 04:44 Dragan Ilić: "I was a bit confused, since we have already seen that the enemy attacks on mountain Jastrebac have already started”. 04:44 Remark: EWR is located at the peak of the mountain Jastrebac. 04:49 Dragan Ilić: Since I recognized that this is a younger colleague working as GCI officer, it was clear to me that strikes were ongoing and that we could proceed in the direction we were heading. 05:00 Dragan Ilić: First information and first guidance was: "Go to the Kuršumlija zone, heading 200. 05:09 Dragan Ilić: Immediately afterwards: "You have a target at bearing 180, turn to the left, target is at 75 m altitude, distance 90 km". 05:20 Dragan Ilić: During the taxing, I had a radar malfunction, and I was not sure how reliable it would be during the flight. 05:28 Dragan Ilić: We had cases, due to the state of the equipment, where despite radar malfunction indication, the radar could still work in some of the modes. 05:36 Dragan Ilić: The target he has given to me at course 180, I had on the radar screen. Most likely it was a cruise missile, since the only weapon flying at that altitude under those conditions could be a cruise missile. 05:49 Dragan Ilić: I could not switch to track mode for that target and the next target I received was at bearing 220, distance 90 km and altitude 100m. 06:03 Dragan Ilić: I could not track it, until the distance of about 30 km, when I finally got the reflection on radar, but only in the scanning mode. 06:14 Dragan Ilić: I could not establish the tracking, because the radar already gave its final verdict during taxiing. It was no wonder I could not do it. 06:28 Dragan Ilić: The third guidance was practically at the base group (of airplanes), which moved behind the cruise missiles. 06:36 Dragan Ilić: I was told: "Turn toward course 220, enemy at 10.000 m, distance 50-60 km. 06:36 Remark: Story is interrupted here. 2nd video segment at 14:19 14:24 Narrator: Major Ilić takes off from airbase Niš. The GCI officer informs him that at 10.000 m and distance of 60 km he has a group of enemy targets. 14:38 Dragan Ilić: At that moment I was at 3000 m altitude, and during climb toward 4500 m, slightly ahead of the airplane on right of the nose the explosion occurred. 14:51 Dragan Ilić: The nose part and right side of the airplane have passed completely through the fireball. 15:00 Dragan Ilić: Front glass has cracked, the complete PVD installation has failed. It provides airplane speed and altitude. 15:11 Dragan Ilić: Since it was night, the first thing I did was to use the flashlight to inspect the glass condition. 15:17 Dragan Ilić: It was cracked, but it still held together, it did not splinter. 15:22 Dragan Ilić: Once I switched to backup pitot-static installation, the instruments started working again. 15:28 Dragan Ilić: I have reported to the GCI officer, that I am aborting the mission, and that I am returning to the airbase. 15:35 Dragan Ilić: The officer has guided me toward Airbase Niš, and with a reduced speed of 450 km/h I was returning to the Airbase Niš. 15:45 Dragan Ilić: The lucky part of the whole thing was that the (explosive) device did not come directly into contact with the airplane and that I just passed through the explosion just ahead of the airplane. 15:57 Dragan Ilić: It is possible that the missile came either from ground or from air. 16:01 Dragan Ilić: It would have been necessary to inspect this in more detail, e.g to determine which kind of explosive left the traces on the airplane. 16:08 Dragan Ilić: Unfortunately this was just about the last thing "someone" would inspect during that period. 16:08 Remark: Story is interrupted here. 16:08 Remark: In book "Mig-29 - Naša priča"⁸, part of the interview of Dragan Ilić to military magazine "Vojska" states: "I had indication of the enemy missile lock. The fireball hit the airplane and the aircraft shook." 3rd video segment at 49:51 49:51 Dragan Ilić: For each kind of aggression there is a resistance strategy. 49:57 Dragan Ilić: By this kind of aggression, you have to understand that smaller air forces and small countries cannot develop a proper strategy. 50:05 Dragan Ilić: The best strategy in this case is not to be in the position we were at. 50:05 Remark: Story is interrupted here 4th video segment at 52:52 52:52 Dragan Ilić: The decision maker at that very moment, had the right to decide to scramble a single airplane, but also all of them. 53:00 Dragan Ilić: But, he did not have the right to scramble the airplane which at that moment was not fully operational. 53:00 Dragan Ilić: I will tell you now: all those were "operational". "Correct!" 53:06 Dragan Ilić: All personnel involved in the chain of maintenance of the airplane have signed, honestly and according to their own conscience, that the airplane was operational when it went into the mission. 53:17 Dragan Ilić: But, that equipment was simply not reliable, since we all knew that under real conditions and full voltage and combat use its reliability will be none. 53:27 Dragan Ilić: These 2 things should be separated. 53:31 Remark: The testimony ends here. Part of interview with Colonel Rajica Bošković, member of 126th VOJIN brigade 5th video segment at 39:48 39:48 Remark: This video contains a part of an interview of Colonel Rajica Bošković, who was the member of 126th VOJIN brigade, and was at that time behind one of the monitors in Operational Center. 39:49 Rajica Bošković: Now I will tell you about the beginning... 39:53 Rajica Bošković: They did hit us with cruise missiles... 39:57 Rajica Bošković: Those missiles we did not manage to detect, we were helped by the reconnaissance and reporting service. 39:57 Remark: The help mentioned here was likely used to warn the crews of EWRs and other units about the incoming cruise missiles. 40:04 Rajica Bošković: The active stations were destroyed at the beginning: Kačarevo near Pančevo, Kopaonik, Crni Rt and Koviona. 40:04 Remark: Radar stations are listed as part of primary radar network within source #2. 40:18 Rajica Bošković: At that moment we activated the unit at Sveti Ilija hill above the city of Vranje, equipped with the AN/TPS-70 radar, our most modern radar. 40:29 Rajica Bošković: We tracked how the aircraft attacks were conducted. 40:33 Rajica Bošković: We observed how they grouped over Albania and above (Northern) Macedonia. 40:39 Rajica Bošković: When the attacks started we activated radar at Sveti Ilija, radar at Fruška Gora, and radar at Ulcinj. 40:39 Remark: All locations are listed as part of secondary radar network within source #2. Reconstructed flight The provided map is rough reconstruction based on interview and publicly known information. Due to the possibility of friendly fire from ground the locations of the SAMs belonging to the PVO are also provided. Locations of the short range SAMs and AAA belonging to ARJ PVO KOV are not available at this moment. Damage report taken from book "Mig-29 - Naša priča (Our story)" Technical team from Air Force Institute "Moma Stanojlović" has arrived to the airport very soon, to assess the possibility of repair of airplane 18104, after it was damaged in the air. The team has discovered the following damage: 1. Conical cup was penetrated multiple times and the Pitot tube was broken. 2. Front glass was penetrated and broken. 3. Penetration on the right side of fuselage, below the cabin, sized 80 x 20 mm. 4. Leading edge on right side of the wing, penetration 150 mm in length. 5. First integral fuel tank on upper side of the hump, penetration size 40 x 20 mm. 6. Penetrated root of right vertical stabilizer, at actuator position, size 40 x 20 mm. 7. Penetration on exit side of the left wing, made of composite, 100 x 30 mm in size. Damages marked with 5 and 6 from upper part of the airplane are not likely to be inflicted from the missile fired from ground. Sources 1. Niko nije rekao neću (drugi deo) - Nobody refused - part 2 (see above), author Slađana Zarić, director Boban Simojlović, journalist Vesna Ilić, montage Marija Bogićević, link. 2. Operation Allied Force - Air war over Serbia 1999 - volume 1, Bojan Dimitrijević, Lt. Gen. Jovica Draganić, link. 3. Three Fingers of Death - Soviet 2K12 KUB (SA-6 Gainful) Missile System, Mike Mihajlović, Danko Borojević, Zoran Vukosavljević, link. 4. FRONTKAST ep. 29: priča pukovnika Boškovića 25 godina nakon NATO agresije, PONOS, EMOCIJE, PRKOS, link. 5. Additional documentary material: exact title of documentary is unknown, link. 6. NATO Briefings, link. 7. NATO Briefings Video, link. 8. Mig-29 - Naša priča, Danko Borojević, Dragan Ivić, Željko Ubović, link. Credits Ronin Gaijin, for review and english corrections

The documentary came in 2 parts officially: - Part 1: focused on 2 flights: Iljo Arizanov on 24.03.1999, and pair flight of Perić/Radosavljević. The documentary also contains the stories that are less relevant and IMHO personal and those parts I left out (e.g. missing is part of how Iljo spends his time as a pensioner). The story of the second flight will be also provided as independent translation. - Part 2: focused on 6 flights, obviously this part is shorter since it had to fit the format of a single episode for airing. Given the fact that the videos were captured on multiple locations, I assume that original plan was to have more episodes. Inside this part is already published flight of Boro Zoraja(you can find it in the "Mig-29A" section of the forum), and flights of Dragan Ilić, Nebojša Nikolić, Abdul Emeti, Predrag Milutinović and Dragan Milenković. I did make raw translation with timestamps for all of them, but need yet to correlate with additional sources. This documentary part was never fully translated. - Part 3: strictly speaking this part had different title and is focused on the Lt. Colonel Milenko Pavlović, the commander of the 204th fighter aviation regiment. He flew on May 4th alone, and unfortunately there is no direct account from the mission, but rather interviews with ground crews and his deputy. I do not plan to translate full documentary, since much about it contains interviews with his family and friends which tell more about himself than about event itself. I will focus only on the parts relevant to the flight and interviews from people who did watch the end of this flight from the ground. I am aware that some additional information by pilot who was credited with the shot down, did additional details so I do not expect everything will match. Aside from these interviews, there is a separate interview of some of them in the show of journalist Milomir Marić. E.g. some additional details are provided for some of the above flights. An example are details about Gazelle rescue mission that picked up Nebojša Nikolić (spoiler: rotorcraft pilot makes jokes on fixed wing pilot). Missing is the account of the flight of Lt Col Ljubiša Kulačin who was flying on 24.03.1999 and landed his aircraft. To my best knowledge he never gave any interview and very little is known about his flight, so if anyone is aware or has sources that I could use PM me with the information. The flight that resulted in crash landing does not count toward combat flights, since it included the relocation from Podgorica airport to Ponikve of the aircraft that was damaged on 24.03.1999 on ground at Podgorica airbase. I did find some information including the potential crash site, but at this moment there is not enough information to justify the page here. Aside from the Mig-29 pilots it should be mentioned that pilots of J-22 Orao aircraft did fly combat missions against ground targets. Their missions were never publicized and were told more in the form of rumors. Lt Col Života Đurić was the commander of the 241. fighter-bomber espadrille and has lost his life on 25.03.1999, during the attack on the target. When providing the testimonies, primary focus will be to translate them accurately and to enable others to easily locate the section and if necessary validate the translation. Additional information will be provided in form or inline remark or one of the sections below the interview. Such additions are not meant to correct the pilot interview, but rather provide more accurate information, e.g. in case if there is alternative explanation.

Fixed, it should work now.

Will fix when I get home... I suspect the links were temporary sessions connected with my account.

Some additional pictures of things that save pilot's lives... Soviet survival pack, unsure if it corresponds to the one found in K-36D, thanks @Ronin_Gaijin Ejection seat itself: Wind deflector in extended position: Operation sequence of the seat:

24.03.1999 - Mig-29 combat flight - Iljo Arizanov Pilot: Major Iljo Arizanov Airplane type: L-18 (MIG-29 9.12b) Airplane ID: 18112 Time: March 24th 1999, 20:00 Take off: Airbase Niš Landing: Shot down, Drenica area. Flight length: 10-20 min Interview with Major Iljo Arizanov, pilot of MiG-29 1st video segment at 03:07 03:07 Narrator: Air alert sirens are heard... 03:22 Iljo Arizanov: On March 24th we were located at airbase Niš, with 2 airplanes 03:28 Iljo Arizanov: Present were me, colleague Ilić, colleague Đurđević and colleague Emeti. 03:34 Iljo Arizanov: Around 19:00, there was an air alert at the airport and we received the readiness signal. 03:42 Iljo Arizanov: Colleague Ilić and me went ahead and sat in the airplanes, where we awaited for further orders 03:47 Iljo Arizanov: A very tense hour passed and around 20:00 we received orders to scramble. 03:56 Iljo Arizanov: I received orders to fly and go to the Suva Reka - Đakovica, Kosovo zone at 3000m and cruise there while awaiting enemy airplanes. 04:11 Remark: Hissing sound with distinct canopy locking click is heard. 04:14 Iljo Arizanov: At the moment when I received the signal for take off we were still not sure if the ”Bombing” had started and what exactly was going on. 04:14 Remark: He refers not to the individual event, but rather to the whole NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia. NATO has designated the this war as “Operation Allied Force”. 04:22 Iljo Arizanov: We did not have any information. During the whole day we were very busy, we were in a general rush. 04:29 Iljo Arizanov: Personally, I was not sure if this was going to be an ordinary flight or a real flight under combat conditions. 04:38 Remark: A single Mig-29 is displayed taxing toward the runway. 04:45 Iljo Arizanov: I took off, when I reached 1000 m in the vicinity of Jastrebac, turned toward Priština, Suva Reka - Đakovica zone. 04:58 Iljo Arizanov: I attempted to establish communication with the GCI officers or with the command center. 05:06 Iljo Arizanov: But I could not reach anyone on any of the channels. 05:10 Iljo Arizanov(over radio): "Hidro, Hidro 101, do you hear me?" 05:14 Iljo Arizanov(over radio): "Hidro 101st, at 3000m above Jastrebac, towards Suva Reka zone." 05:20 Iljo Arizanov: "Krka, Hidro 101, do we hear each other?" 05:20 Remark: Krka refers to the river Krka in Croatia. Unrelated toponyms are often used in open radio communication. 05:24 Iljo Arizanov: Since I could not establish a connection after several attempts, I decided to proceed to the zone. 05:33 Iljo Arizanov: I switched the radar on, it showed it was operational and it was working. 05:38 Iljo Arizanov: Already 1-2 minutes into the flight, I noticed on the right side at great distance, practically at the horizon’s edge, a strong explosion. 05:48 Iljo Arizanov: Later, a colleague based in Podgorica, told me that they hit the airport in Podgorica and that the ordonnance depot had exploded. 05:48 Remark: "Later" does not mean "during the flight", due to the events that followed. 05:57 Iljo Arizanov: It was the first moment that I had confirmation that aggression had started. 06:03 Iljo Arizanov: It meant that it was an actual combat flight and that I was likely to encounter another airplane. 06:12 Iljo Arizanov: After 5-6 minutes of flight, a few minutes before reaching Traversa Priština, I saw an airplane, equally high, coming from Albania. 06:24 Iljo Arizanov: I detected him visually, since it was still illuminated by the Sun, and the condensation trail was visible behind him. 06:32 Iljo Arizanov: Since he was still far I did not want to change my altitude and heading, instead I carried on, tracking him and waiting for him to approach. 06:43 Iljo Arizanov: When I reached 10 km north of the Priština airport, I noticed the target at the distance of 25 km right of me and I turned the aircraft toward that direction. 07:00 Iljo Arizanov: At that phase of the flight, the most hindering issue was a non-functioning SPO device, which was supposed to alert me. 07:06 Iljo Arizanov: I did not have information if another airplane is intercepting me or if a radar is illuminating me, which would allow me to execute the missile avoidance maneuver. 07:17 Iljo Arizanov: Since the target disappeared and I had no further information, I decided to turn toward the airplane that was going toward the airport in Priština. 07:26 Iljo Arizanov: I turned the aircraft resolutely left toward the target, started to climb and brought the enemy airplane into the HUD. 07:39 Remark: Story interrupts here and story of Major Perić and Cpt. 1st class Radosavljević starts. 2nd video segment at 11:52 11:54 Narrator: MiG-29 pilot Iljo Arizanov is above the Drenica area, while holding the enemy airplane in targeting sights. 12:11 Iljo Arizanov: I held the lock button, which we use to direct all devices toward the target, so they can perform the necessary measurements and prepare the missiles for launch. 12:11 Remark: Iljo Arizanov sits in the cockpit at this moment... 12:24 Iljo Arizanov: I needed roughly 30 seconds before I would reach a distance less than 5 km, where one of the missiles would have guaranteed acquisition, or at which I could visually identify the aircraft. 12:42 Iljo Arizanov: At that moment I felt the impact from the left side, an explosion. Missile had hit me. 12:50 Iljo Arizanov: At that moment the aircraft, from climbing position, was displaced to the left with its nose pointing down and started a left downward spiral. 13:02 Iljo Arizanov: I noticed the fire in all 3 mirrors. The airplane was burning. 13:06 Iljo Arizanov: I observed the cockpit, there was no smoke, no warning light indications were shown. 13:16 Iljo Arizanov: When I tried to move the stick to bring the airplane into normal position, the airplane did not react to my input. 13:24 Iljo Arizanov: Once I realized that airplanes could not be flown anymore, I released the stick, I grabbed both ejection handles and pulled them towards myself. 13:33 Iljo Arizanov: First the movable part of the canopy was ejected and afterwards the seat started moving on its rails. 13:39 Iljo Arizanov: A shield extends out in front of the pilot's body that protects him from the air flow impact. 13:46 Iljo Arizanov: To the sides, arm limiters dropped... Their purpose is to press the arms against the body, so they do not hit the frame during the ejection. 13:55 Iljo Arizanov: Legs are tightened together by leg tighteners. The body of the pilot is confined and all the fasteners are tightened, in order for the body to be in the correct position to avoid spine or limb injuries against the sides of an airplane. 14:12 Iljo Arizanov: I managed to see the protecting shield which shields me from the air impact... 14:12 Remark: His statement was abruptly interrupted and continued with the same account... Perhaps 10 seconds is missing. 14:18 Iljo Arizanov: It was a second or less and while I sat normally in the seat, there were small parachutes that were used to stabilize the seat. 14:25 Iljo Arizanov: Then I saw my own airplane in front of me: the left side was burning quite a lot. The whole left wing, from just behind the cockpit where the fuel tanks are, there was fire all the way to the aircraft’s tail. 14:37 Iljo Arizanov: It also seemed to me that the left horizontal stabilizer was missing on the airplane. 14:43 Iljo Arizanov: I wish I was on another airplane watching, but I was in the ejection seat, knowing where I ejected, above Kosovo, I assumed that I will have the "problems" later (he smiles over this). 14:43 Remark: The area was mostly populated by a hostile Albanian population. 14:56 Remark: story interrupts here, and the story of Major Perić continues. 3rd video segment at 19:13 19:14 Narrator: Major Arizanov has been hit in the sky above Kosovo. 19:19 Narrator: He managed to eject and is falling into Drenica Valley. 19:24 Narrator: He lands in the vineyard, just next to the hangar, being occupied by Albanian guards at that moment. 19:32 Iljo Arizanov: I landed at least 5 km from the airplane crash site. 19:38 Iljo Arizanov: On one side this was good, since the crash site was not directly visible behind some hill and only fire reflection was seen in the sky. 19:49 Iljo Arizanov: I was lucky enough to land between 4 vine posts, and I was not hurt. I heard 2 people shouting (at each other), and realized they are Albanians. I knew I had to run away as soon as possible. 20:05 Iljo Arizanov: They were not approaching and I assumed that they were also too scared to come closer and see who was there. 20:11 Iljo Arizanov: I unbuckled my parachute straps and started to run away to the opposite side with my helmet and mask still on. 20:23 Iljo Arizanov: I did not manage to get anything from the equipment stored inside the ejection seat, the so-called NAZ pack (in Russian). 20:23 Remark: The ejection seat separates from the pilot’s body once the required altitude is reached. At the same time the emergency kit packed underneath the pilot and attached to the pilot separates from the seat. 20:30 Iljo Arizanov: It contains food, water and medicines. There is also a radio device - a radio station which can be used to call the rescue service. 20:41 Iljo Arizanov: Simply put, I took none of that equipment, since I did not want to risk being captured immediately. 20:48 Iljo Arizanov: I concluded that its the best to back track the same way I came with airplane 20:54 Iljo Arizanov: I assumed the rescue service would eventually start searching for me the next day, following the direction I flew. If someone tracked me on the radar, they would know where I was shot down. 21:12 Iljo Arizanov: I moved in the direction of East/North-East, moving towards the direction of Priština airbase. 21:12 Remark: Airbase Slatina, near the city of Priština. 21:24 Iljo Arizanov: I again crossed some asphalt road. I spotted the 2 Jeep vehicles going toward the direction of my landing site. I layed down in a ditch and they did not see me. 21:38 Iljo Arizanov: I had no idea who might be inside the terrain vehicles. 21:38 Remark: The vehicles could belong both to friendly/enemy forces. 21:42 Iljo Arizanov: I left that place soon, moved through the woods. 21:46 Iljo Arizanov: The whole night, I was crossing the hills, while the terrain was rising all the time more and more. 21:55 Iljo Arizanov: I could not follow the desired direction, due to the houses, villages, barking of dogs from all sides, numerous gun fires, presumably from people celebrating the beginning of the aggression. 22:13 Iljo Arizanov: The gun bursts echoed from left and right. I based the direction of movement accordingly. 22:21 Iljo Arizanov: I felt thirst and hunger all the time, since I was constantly walking and sweating with no water I could carry. 22:32 Iljo Arizanov: I drank water from streams and ate the snow in order to extinguish the thirst. 22:39 Iljo Arizanov: Around midnight I got out of the woods and went straight into someone's backyard, a house. 22:46 Iljo Arizanov: Luckily it was uninhabited, located in a village, the last house. 22:51 Iljo Arizanov: I heard the voices of 2 men, approaching from behind a curve and still not visible. I quickly jumped the fence. 22:59 Iljo Arizanov: They did not see me, but stood 2m from me, talking about something in Albanian, which I could not understand. 23:06 Iljo Arizanov: They stood there for about 10 minutes, me laying on the snow got stiff from the cold, not knowing what to do. 23:13 Iljo Arizanov: I held my gun, waiting to see the further development. 23:27 Remark: story interrupts and continues the story of Perić/Radosavljević. 4th video segment at 29:11 29:12 Narrator: Iljo Arizanov, shot down on the first day of bombing, in the area of Drenica, whole night attempts to move between KLA camps. His drama continues... 29:28 Iljo Arizanov: The moment I laid down to sleep I was very hot and sweaty, but as soon as my body cooled down after about 30 minutes, I woke up shaking. 29:37 Iljo Arizanov: I took off my boots and wet socks, which I left on a branch to dry. 29:43 Iljo Arizanov: I inspected the First Aid kit containing some bands and used them to wrap and warm up my feet. 29:52 Iljo Arizanov: Time was passing very slowly, waiting seemed long until in the morning around 7:00, until dawn. 30:00 Iljo Arizanov: It was a nice morning, and the sun warmed me up nicely within 30 minutes. 30:06 Iljo Arizanov: I stayed there until 07:00 at the same spot. I realized that helicopters belonging to the rescue service were not coming. 30:15 Iljo Arizanov: From that spot, I could see on the opposite hill a village, houses. I could hear wood cutting and cattle. 30:30 Iljo Arizanov: I approached within 300-400m from the houses and I saw that they were Albanian. All around were Albanian villages with mosques. 30:37 Iljo Arizanov: I could not observe any police or army forces movement on the roads that were visible. 30:43 Iljo Arizanov: I concluded there is no point in establishing contact, since it would lead to my capture. 30:50 Iljo Arizanov: I had to hide myself until the darkness. 30:56 Iljo Arizanov: I arrived again at another road, where the house was being built. 31:01 Iljo Arizanov: Nobody was there. I tried to find some food, since hunger was the main problem. I have not eaten for a long time. Unfortunately I found nothing. 31:12 Iljo Arizanov: I continued further. I was already approaching the river Drenica which I had to cross. 31:20 Iljo Arizanov: Due to tiredness and since I am not a great swimmer, I did not attempt to cross, instead I tried to find upstream the more suitable place to cross. 31:32 Iljo Arizanov: It was muddy, covered with branches, which hurt me, but the basic problem persisted, depth was too high. I ended up chest high in the water, but at the end managed to cross to the other side. 31:32 Remark: Iljo Arizanov is of small stature. 31:50 Iljo Arizanov: In the morning when it dawned, between 6 and 7, I was several kilometers away from the foothill of Goleš. 31:59 Iljo Arizanov: Dilemma was there again, whether to move by day, during which I can be seen, or to hide during day. 32:06 Iljo Arizanov: Given my situation: hungry, thirsty, tired, I decided to continue these few km, hoping to pass through. 32:24 Iljo Arizanov: It was around 7 o'clock, some 500m away from footsteps of Goleš, already very tired, with declining concentration and not listening properly, I arrived at a crossroad of 2 paths. 32:38 Iljo Arizanov: I turned to the left and I spotted a man 10-15 m away from me. 32:45 Iljo Arizanov: He was wearing rubber boots, pants, a camouflage jacket with KLA emblem with a radio station antenna sticking out of jacket pocket, carrying a hunting rifle over his shoulder. 32:58 Iljo Arizanov: I started drawing the gun out, it took a few seconds, he looked at me and the next moment with wide opened arms, he threw himself into the bush, while removing the rifle from his shoulder. 33:12 Iljo Arizanov: He just rolled into the bushes and I did not see him afterwards anymore. 33:15 Iljo Arizanov: I started running away in the opposite direction, this is where I lost my helmet. 33:19 Iljo Arizanov: After some 20 meters, I reached a fenced area of the woods, pole endings tilted toward me in addition to barbed wire. Completely fenced part of the woods... 33:34 Iljo Arizanov: The only direction I could move to... I jumped over the fence and continued running away for another 200-300 m. 33:45 Iljo Arizanov: I could see the asphalt road and once I could cross the road I could start climbing the Goleš. 33:52 Narrator: Arizanov, after 2 days of moving through Drenica Valley, managed to reach the airport at Priština on 26.03.1999. 34:02 Narrator: The command had already written him off. 34:04 Narrator: On that day, March 26th, from Airbase Batajnica, his close friends and colleagues Slobodan Perić and Zoran Perić took off later... 34:19 Remark: Iljo Arizanov story interrupts here. 5th video segment at 40:22 40:22 Iljo Arizanov: When I arrived in Belgrade, it turned out that during those 3 days I lost 7 kg in weight. Next 10 days I suffered from a high fever. 40:32 Iljo Arizanov: I felt pains across my whole body, due to all that "walking", due to the strain. 40:38 Iljo Arizanov: Some 2 weeks later, during the control examination at our institute, doctors established the heart problems. 40:46 Iljo Arizanov: Further examination was conducted in order to establish that due to the stress, the blood circuits have contracted spasmodically. 40:58 Iljo Arizanov: They suggested an operation, and I got an operation at VMA. 41:01 Iljo Arizanov: I have been retired later as an Invalid. 41:01 Remark: In video, retired Iljo Arizanov, in civilian clothing climbs to the Mig-29 cockpit. 41:09 Remark: Video alters to black and white video which shows the pilot Iljo wearing uniform climbing to the cockpit. Briefly the rank of Lt. Colonel can be seen, along the escadrille 127. “Knights” patch on his uniform. 41:10 Iljo Arizanov: Regarding our take offs, my opinion was that we should have flown, despite our airplanes not being functional, despite being inferior. 41:24 Iljo Arizanov: Our country was attacked and our duty was to defend it in every possible way. 41:29 Iljo Arizanov: The same way the common soldier would defend it with his rifle, I must take off and attempt to do something with my airplane. 41:37 Iljo Arizanov: Now the conditions we were utilized? If it could be better? if we could be more efficient? For certain there were problems. 41:47 Iljo Arizanov: Simply we never decided on that, we were in such a situation, it was certainly no excuse not to fly or say “We will just wait for them to drop the bombs on us”. 41:57 Remark: story interrupts, meanwhile major Perić concludes with his thoughts on the matter of inapt operational command. Video shows Iljo Arizanov and Slobodan Perić walking through shelters of a damaged airbase, and occasionally rusted ordnance can be seen. 41:57 Slobodan Perić (angerly): The tactical usage of us was almost complete nonsense. 42:01 Slobodan Perić (angerly): You simply can not scramble someone up to fight in the air, if the opponent has a much longer spear. 42:12 Slobodan Perić (angerly): You can fight him in other ways: get near, get low, come underneath, come from multiple directions, but to take off and fly at someone head to head who has more powerful machines, longer missile range, all possible support... 42:27 Slobodan Perić (angerly): … that was completely absent minded. 42:28 Iljo Arizanov (calmly): We had the feeling all the time, it did not matter to them what you could possibly achieve, since all the time insane orders were arriving. 42:40 Iljo Arizanov (calmly): They scramble you to intercept the airplanes configured for a dedicated air to air combat during an unfavorable situation. 42:44 Iljo Arizanov (calmly): All being perfectly aware you could not achieve anything. 42:48 Iljo Arizanov (calmly): All of us pilots had the feeling that people were not important, but rather a story that shows "The pilots are flying, they are dying...", rather than having a reason or purpose. 43:03 Remark: Story of Iljo Arizanov interrupts here... 6th video segment at 44:50 44:50 Remark: What follows are reactions of Iljo Arizanov on the stories presented by US pilots. 44:49 Narrator: In TV channel History, documentary "Dog Fights", two of the US pilots talk about their flights on March 24th, during which they have reported downing of 2 Mig-29s. 45:08 Iljo Arizanov (after watching the documentary): The stories sound like a kind of free interpretation, however there are elements similar to my flight in both cases. 45:17 Iljo Arizanov: However, there are also lots of things that are different. 45:21 Iljo Arizanov: E.g. There is the variant, which I mentioned also earlier, that our SAM units which had orders to shoot at anything that flies, around that time and that place launched the 3 KUB missiles and reported the downing of Tornado at 3000 m. 45:21 Remark: The first downing of a NATO airplane was reported on March 24th on national television, I vividly remember hearing this news and our reaction. 45:21 Remark: The shot down of Tornado was never confirmed with material evidence, but due to the dark and 2 engine design it could have been one of the plausible theories. 45:21 Remark: Based on the 45:37 Iljo Arizanov: Somebody did hit me, but from the airplane I could not determine that. 45:37 Remark: SPO device was not operational, with no GCI support from his point of view it is really not possible to be sure who hit him. 45:45 Iljo Arizanov: And later no investigation took place at the crash site to determine which exact missile had hit the airplane and what exactly had happened. 45:56 Iljo Arizanov: Unfortunately this will remain a lasting mystery. 45:56 Remark: Lt. Colonel Iljo Arizanov passed away on 03.09.2011 at the age of 51 as result of a heart attack. Interview with Major Cesar "Rico" Rodriguez, pilot of F-15C 7th video segment at 00:58:10 00:58:10 Remark: The following transcript has been taken from the interview “Rico” Rodriguez, the Last Fighter Ace on VBC’s A Veteran’s Story with Pete Mecca. 00:58:10 Pete Mecca: Tell us about third kill. 00:58:14 Cesar Rodriguez: Third kill, again the opportunity to fly on night one, I can tell you that you can't say to have a T-shirt for flying on night one, I have done it two times already. 00:58:30 Cesar Rodriguez: This is my third one and each of those T-shirts and white underwear I was wearing were drenched in sweat and had brown spots all over the bottom. 00:58:41 Cesar Rodriguez: I was scarred poopless on night one and it does not change. 00:58:48 Cesar Rodriguez: But, I had a real new wingman, lieutenant on mine wing, had a brand new weapons officer as my leader. 00:58:58 Cesar Rodriguez: Again he was being tested, he had never been in combat before, we had a young wingman on his wing. 00:59:03 Cesar Rodriguez: As we were on night one to execute the pre-strike sweep for the NATO strike package, that was going to hit Montenegro and then start to build/open up the corridor to the east, to get us all the way to Kosovo... 00:59:20 Cesar Rodriguez: ... so that air to ground strikes could come in uncontested. 00:59:26 Cesar Rodriguez: And of course we knew there was going to be significant surface to air threat. 00:59:31 Cesar Rodriguez: But they outmaneuvered us in a lot of ways with their SAMs, because they read the book, they took the lessons of "Desert Storm" to heart and they applied them very tactfully. 00:59:45 Cesar Rodriguez: Luckily, we had made investments and capabilities that gives the warnings in airplanes or provide electronic defeat against some of those assets. 00:59:55 Cesar Rodriguez: So, we were prepared but we were surprised. 01:00:01 Cesar Rodriguez: When (I) we came north... We went the south from Cervia, Italy, down to the edge of Italian boot and then hooked a big huge left-hand turn and we started to come north. 01:00:01 Remark: Airbase located there is: Airport Militare di Cervia Pisignano. 01:00:15 Cesar Rodriguez: ONE and TWO were feet-wet. They were over the Adriatic and I was over land with mine wingman as we headed north. 01:00:25 Cesar Rodriguez: As we were heading north, my responsibilities were low-search environment. 01:00:32 Cesar Rodriguez: So as I was searching low, looking up for any movement, I picked up on radar a fast moving target, so I started to work: 01:00:44 Cesar Rodriguez: 1. on opportunity lock him up and 2. start to work on ID matrix and proceed. 01:00:52 Cesar Rodriguez: The target came out of Priština airfield, an airfield that was built by North Koreans for the Yugoslavs, and it was built into a mountain. 01:01:02 Remark: Please note that Iljo Arizanov took of from airbase Niš, so likely the F-15C picked up target first in the vicinity of Priština. 01:01:02 Remark: Airbase Slatina near Priština was home of the 83th fighter aviation, at the time of the event 20 Mig-21bis and 6 Mig-21UM were located inside. Remaining aircrafts were relocated to other airports. 01:01:02 Remark: Except for the underground hangar, there are no hardened armoured shelters at this airbase. Furthermore both blast doors of underground shelter are shaped for single tail airplanes. 01:01:02 Remark: Mig-29 can not pass through the blast doors. The only remaining place where it could be placed is open area with next to zero possibility of camouflage. 01:01:02 Remark: Regarding the North Koreans I would cast doubt. It would be interesting to learn the source of this information. 01:01:02 Cesar Rodriguez: And inside that mountain there was a basically an airfield. 01:01:06 Cesar Rodriguez: They did all their operations, they did their maintenance. 01:01:10 Cesar Rodriguez: They had natural defense mechanism, except when they took off, you wouldn't see them until they broke the line of sight with the doors in the mountain. 01:01:24 Cesar Rodriguez: As we were headed down, I see this fast moving target, I start to talk to my AWACS controller, to get his eyes at the same piece of sky. 01:01:35 Cesar Rodriguez: The target clears the mountains which were 8000 to 10000 ft in elevation, and he is above the mountains and I have a clear RADAR picture of him. 01:01:35 Remark: 8000 ft = 2438,4 m, 10000 ft = 3048 m. For precise information on altitudes see the "Topography" section below the testemony. 01:01:49 Cesar Rodriguez: I start to lock him up and do the ID matrix, to make sure its not a friendly. 01:01:54 Cesar Rodriguez: In the meantime my number 1 is experiencing some radar problems, so I go to his area of responsibility and search in that area and I hand of my target to my number 2 man “Wild” Bill Denham. 01:02:14 Cesar Rodriguez: I look over where number 1... We assess that there is not a threat there, there was a little poodle jumper that was flying around at about 100 knots (185 km/h). 01:02:25 Cesar Rodriguez: And unfortunately that guy would try to land at the Montenegro airfield as the first F-15Es were pretty much dropping Mark 82s and 84s at that runway and that guy never cleared the runway, he became a part of those craters. 01:02:42 Cesar Rodriguez: Once we determined that number 1's air space was clean, then I came back to mine, my wingman accurately had already completed most of the ID criteria. 01:02:47 Cesar Rodriguez: The only problem from his standpoint tactically was, he was not qualified to wear goggles, so he was literally behind me in about 3 miles of my right wing. 01:03:05 Cesar Rodriguez: And tactically we were not going to employ AMRAAMs over our shoulders, just because the AMRAAM as an active missile can also be, what we call "Mad Dog" in the meat park. 01:03:16 Cesar Rodriguez: It can find you and go after you, even though its not a target, that you thought you are gonna engage. 01:03:22 Cesar Rodriguez: So I started to go through my ID matrix, and as I talked with to Googs earlier, I did not complete the matrix... 01:03:31 Cesar Rodriguez: ... because there were some challenges in communication between myself and other partners that were in the air, that were supposed to do other parts of rules of engagement. 01:03:42 Cesar Rodriguez: But I felt that I had enough of information in my jet and I was in a position where if I did take a shot, this guy was gonna start getting very close to the front end of the strike package. 01:03:52 Cesar Rodriguez: So, at beyond... About 37 miles, I took my shot. The AMRAAM missile did everything as advertised. It came off the jet within a couple of seconds. It was no more than a little flicker in the air. 01:04:13 Cesar Rodriguez: But I could digitally track what was happening, both with the threat and a missile, and I assessed that at that point I did not need to take a second shot. 01:04:22 Cesar Rodriguez: Just as I took my shot, my wingman starts to get lock by the surface to air missiles, I start to get locked by surface to air missiles. 01:04:31 Cesar Rodriguez: So we start to maneuver the formation to the west, away from the integrated air missile defense systems of the Yugoslav Air Force and Air Defense Force. 01:04:42 Cesar Rodriguez: When my missile time of flight in the cockpit was approaching time 3 seconds left, I was in a position where the target intercept was gonna happen right in my 1 O'clock -2 O'clock position and probably 14 by 15 miles away. 01:05:02 Cesar Rodriguez: And sure enough when it hit 0, the missile hit the airplane, the airplane blew up, and what really caught my attention was, we were flying over mountainous snow covered terrain. 01:05:16 Cesar Rodriguez: And so, that fireball, when it blew up, missile is coming from high to low, the fireball goes down, the light from the fire goes against the mountains and the it reflects back in the sky. 01:05:29 Cesar Rodriguez: It just lit up the entire sky, like nothing I have ever seen before or ever seen since than. 01:05:36 Cesar Rodriguez: And so, that was the first kill over the "Kosovo campaign", and again I had not only the privilege to use the new technology that we have developed since Desert Storm, but my wingman was part of the training process to get us there. 01:05:53 Cesar Rodriguez: And of course, the team, the nature of the team, not only what we were doing, but what the first night event was taking place, represented some of the strengths of what Coalition brought to the table. 01:06:09 Cesar Rodriguez: It also represented some of the weaknesses. Some of our partners were not ready to fly on night one campaign like we had to do on night one. 01:06:20 Remark: "Rico" ends the story here. Reconstructed flight The provided map is rough reconstruction based on interview and publicly known information. Fictional evacuation path Map is based on the interview description and does not necessarily correspond to the actual path. Topography Majority of terrain in Kosovo as at elevation between 500 m and 1000 m, heavily intersected with low mountains and hills often with steep slopes. In the central part the area Drenica valley splits the region in two major areas Kosovo on East, and Metohija at west. Goleš mountain is in central area, located at eastern edge of Drenica and stands at 1018 m ( 3543 ft ). North of Goleš, at almost 80 km is the Kopaonik mountain range with highest peak at 2017 m (6617 ft). South of Goleš at distance of 40-47 km the Šar-Planina mountain range raises at the borders of North Macedonia‚ Kosovo and Albania, with peaks from 2092 m (6864 ft) to 2748 m (9016 ft). West of Goleš at distance of 58 km the Prokletije mountain range raises at borders of Montenegro, Kosovo and Albania with peaks ranging from 1725 m ( 5659 ft) to 2694 m (8839 ft). East of Goleš, at distance of 20 km extends the region of lower mountains with highest peak at 1260 m (4134 ft). Sources 1. Niko nije rekao neću (prvi deo) - Nobody refused - part 1, author Slađana Zarić, director Boban Simojlović, journalist Vesna Ilić, montage Marija Bogićević, link. 2. “Rico” Rodriguez, the Last Fighter Ace on VBC’s A Veteran’s Story with Pete Mecca, link. 3. Operation Allied Force - Air war over Serbia 1999 - volume 1, Bojan Dimitrijević, Lt. Gen. Jovica Draganić, link. 4. Three Fingers of Death - Soviet 2K12 KUB (SA-6 Gainful) Missile System, Mike Mihajlović, Danko Borojević, Zoran Vukosavljević, link. 5. The Atlantic - The Last Ace, link. 6. Combat Story (Ep 12) Cesar "Rico" Rodriguez - F-15 Eagle Fighter Pilot | Three Air-to-Air Victories, link. 7. F-15 Eagle Pilot Explains Exactly How He Downed Three Migs During Two Wars, link. 8. Veteran Tributes - Cesar A. Rodriguez, Jr., link. 9. Appendix 10 - Spatial coverage RJ PVO 24.03.1999. god (from unknown book), link. 10. The K-36D Ejection Seat Foreign Comparative Testing (FCT) Program, Lawrance J. Specker / John A. Plaga, link. 11. K-36D Operation, link. Credits Ronin Gaijin, for review and English corrections (many hours spent here). Aeria Gloria, for checking the operation of Mig-29 sensors.

Operating frequency of of the radar is 150-170MHz => its a meter range and HARM should not be able to guide. These radars, while offering a good ECM resistance and being in theory mobile, have a lengthy relocation process, meaning that cruise missiles will be able to destroy them if not protected. As a matter of fact, one of these radars was destroyed on March 24th 1999 during the first wave precisely due it's static nature. I assume they concluded its better to leave it in active role as long as it lasts, since moving it was not considered practical. Meanwhile, you should adjust your tactics.

This would be a great detail touch!!!

Credits: - @Ronin_Gaijin, for review and english corrections - @AeriaGloria, for clarifying that DAGON, is actually DOGON, switch D - JJay, for review Sources: Niko nije rekao neću (drugi deo) - Nobody refused - part 2 (see above), Author: Slađana Zarić, director: Boban Simojlović, journalist Vesna Ilić, montage: Marija Bogićević. "Operation Allied Force: air war over Serbia 1999 - volume 1", Bojan Dimitrijević, Lt. Gen. Jovica Draganić

The following map is very rough reconstruction of the flight based on the interview, based on what was known to me so far. It is provided to get you better idea about flight, with possible engagement assumptions. I welcome any additional information you may be able to provide, including possible alternative flight paths. Map should not be cited as reference of absolute truth, since a number of assumptions were made while I tried to fit them together with all known facts: - direction and distance after first launch, - direction and distance after second launch, - precise location point where Boro turned north. Note: course 190 was take into account as well as location of Airbase Petrovac as possible direction for blue. - landing direction was assumed to be from Ribar approach. We do not know if he took instead landing over the city of Niš.

06.04.1999 - Mig-29 combat flight - Boro Zoraja Pilot: Major Boro Zoraja Airplane type: L-18 (MIG-29 9.12b) Airplane ID: 18101 Time: April 6th 1999, 23:00 Take off: Airbase Ponikve Landing: Airbase Lađevci Flight length: 40 minutes Interview with Major Boro Zoraja, pilot of MiG-29 1st video segment at 09:41 09:46 Narrator: While Major Milenković was waiting for a U2 mission, new orders were received at Ponikve airport. 09:55 Boro Zoraja: Exactly at the point when we went off duty and undressed for rest, around 23:00 the "Buzzer" (alert phone line) rang. 10:09 Boro Zoraja: I responded to the call. They gave us signal 1-into-number-1; take off, 6000 m, zone of expectation Kruševac, landing at airport Niš. 10:19 Major Milenković: "I will go to the car." 10:22 Major Milenković (loudly): "Number 1, lets go!" 10:24 Boro Zoraja: Once I sounded the alert, I started to dress. 10:31 Boro Zoraja: I took my uniform on, and hooked the upper part of the Anti-G suit, took Helmet into hand, and went to the vehicle together with Major Milenković. 10:42 Boro Zoraja: I continued dressing in the vehicle. 10:45 Boro Zoraja: The only thing I was thinking about was not to miss any of the details of the aircraft inspection and aircraft startup procedure. 10:51 Boro Zoraja: I did not rush when I was set into the aircraft, in order not to make a mistake. 11:01 Boro Zoraja: About other things I did not think about at all. You know, you think only about the assignment and that is your priority. 11:07 Boro Zoraja: You simply can not think about the family, friends or anybody else. 11:10 Boro Zoraja: You think only about the things you need to do at that moment. 11:15 ATC(radio): "Orao 356, full startup, as soon as possible to the runway!" 11:19 ATC(radio): "356th QFE 9-6-6, expectation zone Kruševac, 6000 m, report at traverse Užička Požega." 11:27 Boro Zoraja: I have confirmed, arrived in the zone Kruševac, reported arrival and they told me to take one of corso, left or right and await further instructions. 11:41 Boro Zoraja: I have made several 8s in the zone Kruševac, and at one moment, my SPO device for radiation signalling went wild. 11:53 Boro Zoraja: I heard the sound in headphones and SPO was fully lit and blinking. 11:57 Boro Zoraja: This means that I am locked by the enemy, who has already launched the missile(s) and that I have very little time to avoid the missiles. 12:06 Remark: story is interrupted and the narrator continues the story of Major Nebojša Nikolić. I will skip these parts and continue with the testimony of Boro Zoraja. 2nd video segment at 19:22 19:23 Narrator: Pilot Boro Zoraja is locked by enemy planes, missiles were launched at him and he had just a few seconds to attempt the escape manoeuvre. 19:36 Boro Zoraja: I pulled the stick onto one side, I do not remember which now, left or right and pulled up. 19:43 Boro Zoraja: I have pulled left and right, changed the turn, while climbing all the time, arriving at 8000 m, when I managed to drop their lock. 19:53 Boro Zoraja: The SPO device stopped showing a threat and there was no more sound in headphones 19:57 Boro Zoraja (radio to GCI officer): "Orao 356, I dropped outside of the lock, report the information on the enemy!" 20:03 Boro Zoraja (radio to GCI officer): "Olymp, Orao 356, do we hear each other. Please, Olymp 356, confirm if you hear me!" 20:11 Boro Zoraja: I repeated these messages several times, and while doing so, I started a free hunt, to scan and seek for the enemy 20:19 Boro Zoraja: I came to 6000 m and was on course between 130 and 140, and I detected 3 targets. 20:25 Boro Zoraja: I selected the nearest target and established the lock, the radar switched from scanning into targeting mode. 20:34 Boro Zoraja: That mode allows me to see the range of the targets. 20:38 Boro Zoraja: The target was at a distance of about 35 km, and was moving toward me. 20:43 Boro Zoraja: My next action was to flip the cover for missile launch trigger up, since we had a very high closure rate. 20:51 Boro Zoraja: It was just a few seconds and in the meantime he was already at a distance of 30 km, and at that moment I got spiked by them again, and SPO started to indicate I have been locked, while radar dropped the lock. 21:06 Boro Zoraja: My next reaction was simply to escape the missile launched at me. 21:12 Boro Zoraja: Again, 2000 m lower at ~4000 m, I managed to drop the lock, and started turning to search for them. 21:20 Boro Zoraja: I switched the radar into DOGON mode (pursuit mode) and started to chase after them. 21:20 Remark: While he speaks, the HUD is displayed showing active Radar and occasional targets. Note: this might not be original recording. 21:27 Boro Zoraja: At this point they were at the distance of 45 to 47 km, I locked the gas and chased them at the speed of 1000 km/h. 21:35 Boro Zoraja: What next! The only thing that worried me was that my missiles will not go off the rails, since I did not have the signal showing that the missiles are still mounted. 21:43 Boro Zoraja: I chased them for about 3 minutes, perhaps a bit more at that speed, while they moved toward south, toward heading 190. 21:55 Boro Zoraja: At that point I have been reaching the borders of (Northern) Macedonia and Bulgaria, when at some point I decided to abort. 22:04 Boro Zoraja: So what happened? The 3 targets split: 2 of them went to the left and right, while the 3rd continued straight. 22:15 Boro Zoraja: At that point I decided to interrupt the pursuit, turned the jet towards North and continued toward Niš. 22:15 Remark: According to later interview of Dragan Milenković, Boro Zoraja has landed at Lađevci airport, since at Niš airport there was no response over the radio. 22:20 Boro Zoraja: My flight was 40 minutes long, and this was the longest flight during the aggression. 22:25 Remark: story is interrupted again and the narrator continues the story of Major Nebojša Nikolić. I will skip these parts and continue with the testimony of Boro Zoraja. 3rd video segment at 50:40 50:40 Boro Zoraja: We were truly inferior, primarily due to having missiles of shorter range, and they could launch their missiles from distances of over 60 km at us. 50:53 Boro Zoraja: Accordingly, I had to get very close in order to achieve the conditions for the launch of missiles. 51:00 Boro Zoraja: This has to be under 30 km, in order for missiles to leave the rail, while they could do the same thing at distance of 60 km. 53:39 Boro Zoraja: Our radio connection with Operation Center and VOJIN systems, which are used for guidance, did not work, and essentially we had to rely on ourselves and onboard electronics. 53:39 Remark: VOJIN is acronym "vazduhoplovno osmatranje, javljanje i navođenje" - aerial surveillance, reporting and guidance. 53:53 Boro Zoraja: I got those enemy targets in free hunting (search mode). 54:01 Boro Zoraja: The only other thing I could do, was to accelerate toward them and hit them directly with my own jet, but doing this under night conditions is practically impossible. Interview with Major Dragan Milenković, talks about the events after Boro Zoraja proceeded to land at Niš airport. 4th video segment at 46:29 46:29 Remark: This is only part of a much longer interview with Dragan Milenković. The part I have transcribed is the one where he talks what happened after Boro Zoraja proceeded to land at Niš airport. 46:29 Dragan Milenković: According to the fuel level, he got the command for landing. 46:37 Dragan Milenković: He could not land at Niš airbase. Since nobody responded over the radio at Niš, he landed at airbase Lađevci, near Kraljevo. 46:47 Dragan Milenković: Since the complete pilot and maintenance crews, and aircraft support vehicles have remained at Ponikve, we have relocated the crews and equipment to Lađevci. 47:06 Dragan Milenković: We have continued our duty within RV and PVO at airport Lađevci. 47:11 Host: Since the plan of U-2 spy airplane intercept mission attempt was cancelled, you have received the new mission orders, and if I am correct it was on April 8th? 47:28 Dragan Milenković: That is correct. After the landing in late ours on April 6th (to April 7th), we have relocated and arrived at airbase Lađevci during the night... 47:43 Dragan Milenković: After familiarization with the situation, upon inspection of the airplane, maintenance crew have established that one of the course verticals is not working. 47:43 Remark: During the original documentary the date of flight is incorrectly stated as April 7th. This was likely due to the fact that the original report could be written only after the night relocation. Reconstructed flight The provided map is rough reconstruction based on interview and publicly known information. Sources 1. Niko nije rekao neću (drugi deo) - Nobody refused - part 2 (see above), author Slađana Zarić, director Boban Simojlović, journalist Vesna Ilić, montage Marija Bogićević, link. 2. Operation Allied Force - Air war over Serbia 1999 - volume 1, Bojan Dimitrijević, Lt. Gen. Jovica Draganić, link. 3. Pilot Dragan Milenković - Svi smo leteli u smrt! Neko je imao manje, neko više sreće!, link. Credits Ronin Gaijin, for review and english corrections Aeria Gloria, for clarifying that DAGON, is actually DOGON, switch D JJay, for review

You might want to experiment with CPU affinity. E.g. I got 6 cores x 2 (multithreading). Just for fun I disabled every even core, and stutter was much shorter. It was still there, but not few seconds. Need to test this under more realistic conditions, since I am not sure that this does not cause another issue How to set affinity? You need to calculate a number from the bit field where each bit represents the core. Easy way to do this is to: 1. start Calculator 2. switch to Programmer mode 3. switch to BIN 4. type e.g. 010101010101, and read the value you see next to HEX (if your processor has performance/efficiency cores, you need to find out which bit corresponds to which core, ideally you use performance cores.) 5. go to DCS shortcut and append the following --affinity HEX_NUMBER_YOU GOT

Can you tell us more about those limitations IRL(e.g. what is stated IRL manual) vs DCS limitations?