Interesting read!

[mambo]

In the summer of 1985 a Soviet Su-15 crashed in international waters in the Baltic Sea off the Liepaja in Latvia. Now, twenty-five years after the tragic event, can Viggen pilot Göran Larsson tell you what really happened.

 

The cold war had moments when it got hotter. The incidents along the border between East and West were numerous. Not least in the Baltic Sea, the water that in Communist propaganda was called the sea of ​​peace. For the non-aligned Sweden, with its location in the middle between the blocks, it was required to be active; partly to guard their neutrality, and to gather information.

 

Sunday, July 7, 1985 the South Military Command sent an order to the reconnaissance division who was on stand-by, "Martin Red" at F13 in Norrköping.

Naval forces of the Warsaw Pact conducted an exercise in the eastern Baltic Sea and the division was assigned to keep an eye on them.

 

For the times it was a relatively routine mission. But the mission, numbered "Ftg 417" would be one of the more dramatic.

"Martin Red 03" was a SH 37, a SAAB 37 Viggen version specialized for maritime surveillance.

The aircraft took off from its home base in Norrköping with Captain Göran Larsson as the pilot. After about 35 minutes Larsson got contact with the target ships exercising just outside Soviet territorial waters.

- The Russians met me immediately. A pair of Su-15 Flagon F stood for the welcome. I concentrated on identifying vessels in the north end of the "cake", reconnaissance jargon for a group of ships. It was spread out with a couple kilometers separating the ships. It forced me to twist and turn a bit. One Russian kept next to me and the other held a bit awaiting away, says Larsson.

Meetings with foreign powers aircraft over the Baltic Sea was not unusual. But to have them in close in tow could be both stressful and disruptive when at the same time as you were supposed to conduct a reconnaissance mission where you had to focus on data collection and photography. Larsson conducted a number of maneuvers, but the Russian showed no tendency to want to leave his place at the Swede's wingtip.

Larsson got up hand camera and photographed his companion - a Flagon F with the individual label "Yellow 36".

 

The Warsaw Pact fleet exercise covered a large number of vessels scattered over a wide area. To document all of them at one same flight proved difficult, so Larsson decided to divide the work in two flights. He returned to home base to refuel.

Refueling went quickly and efficiently. Larsson's second reconnaissance flight started on the late afternoon. The aircraft was still "Martin Red 03", unarmed and equipped

with a surveillance camera of the type SKA 24 on a body mount.

 

- The second session was radio silent because I did not have any company. The other side listened to our radio traffic and could thereby know when we were coming. After Ark island I dropped to 150 meters. I had neither radio or radar turned on at the time. I crossed Gotland at the height of Slite and just outside the Swedish territorial waters I turned on a straight easterly course.

The route then followed Latvia and Lithuanian coasts to the south and southwest.

Larsson then recieved information from Command and Control about Russian interceptors having taken off from Vainode in Latvia.

Shortly before 18 o'clock Göran Larsson sent of a so-called radar blast against the naval base in Liepaja.

He then turned northwards to complete his documentation of the ships in the "cake".

Radio communication with the command central was impossible because the altitude was too low and the distance is large. Therefore, as a routine, Swedish fighters at high altitude near of Gotland were deployed. They acted as a relay station during missions like this.

It was from them Larsson got the warning: "interceptors from northeast, distance 50 kilometers." about three minutes later, the Soviet aircraft arrived.

The 54th fighter regiment used the same two Su-15s that had been courting Larsson earlier during the day, but now it was their roles were reversed.

- It was the second air craft in the pair who came close and joined me.

We turned around a lot, but then I needed space to work. I thought that he ought to give up and that there had been enough dancing, said Larsson.

 

To understand what now came unfold it might be time for a short introduction of the participants. Viggen was a potent and maneuverable military aircraft at the time. The Maritime surveillance version SH 37 was perfect for a mission like this. Adding to that the plane was in the hands of a very experienced and skilled pilot. Larsson knew where he had his machine and how he could take maximum advantage of its performance.

The Su-15 Flagon F was a twin engine "interceptor" primarily for designed to go up against high-flying bombers. The Flagon was by no means harmless in other environments, but its performance was optimized for something completely different then dogfighting at low altitude.

In contacts with the Su-15 over the Baltic Sea the Swedish Air Force observed that the Flagon F routinely were equipped with a full weapons load. This consisted of two radar missiles, two IR missiles and sometimes even capsules with automatic cannons under the body.

Larsson speaks about a lot of twisting and turning at low altitude, loops and other maneuvers. Russian kept with him all the time at a distance of about 50 meters. Finally, the Swede decided to get rid of his with his troublesome companion.

- I conducted a half-roll [http://imgur.com/a/r2fPu] at a hight of about 500 meters. The speed was 550-700 km/h and G-load was high. As Larsson completed the maneuver leveling out at about 100 meters, he saw in the rear-view mirrors how the Russian pilot, instead of realizing the limitations of his machine, followed the Swede in the half-roll. Unable to save his aircraft he continued towards the water.

- I saw him fly with a high nose, stalled. He hit the 200 meters behind me. I did not see any ejection.

The water splash was followed by an explosion and a huge fireball. Four live missiles probably enhanced the effect. The tragedy was a fact.

Larsson decided to abort the mission and that as quickly as possible to return to base. He turned to a northwesterly course and accelerated to full speed and combat controll of his location.

- When I headed towards the island of Gotland, I saw the second Su-15 at about five kilometers. He swung in behind mid. I lit the afterburner and increased the speed to Mach 1.1, about 1350 kilometers per hour.

 

- I tried to remain at an altitude of 50 meters, but it became more difficult the more the speed increased. Over Mach 1 the aircrofted was behaving anxiously due to the low altitude. When my radar detector indicated that Russian had missiles locked on me, I turned off the afterburner. I tried to turn and look back, but was unable to due of the high speed.

The fighter pair acting as relay station steered towards the southeast to meet their colleague and mark their presence. The Russian broke off pursuit after a minute and returned to the crash site.

 

It is not difficult to understand that Larsson was concerned about the consequences of his involvement in the incident.

Already during the return flight to home base he pondered over how he would word the report. It was important not to be too generous with details of how it all happened.

Routinely, he wrote a so-called IFL, "Observance of Foreign Air Vehicle".

Staff from the intelligence department interviewed him. Larsson was also called to the commander over the first air squadron in Gothenburg To explain the course of events.

Although some maneuvering were common when encountering foreign aircraftt, the official directives were that such should be avoided.

In order not to reveal the characteristics of the flight, a more "neutral" version of incident was given in the report and interviews.

 

The Radar Intelligence Services weekly report sates that the remaining Su-15 stayed for about 40 minutes in the accident area before it returned to Vainode. The Warsaw Pact air and naval units kept searching during the evening and the following two days.

During the following week the Soviet fighter regiments along the Baltic coast were sent up against several foreign flights, but at no time did they contact make contact. It seemed as if they deliberately remained at over 30 kilometers. The air base in Vainode did not resume regular flight operations until Friday, July 12.

[scaflight]

Thanks

 

Your image link is wrong -- it contains a bracket. The correct link is

 

http://imgur.com/a/r2fPu

[mambo]

:thumbup:

[Buckram]

Very interesting, thank you for this.

[mambo]

Good text passage from a RAF pilot interview:

 

Squadron exchanges were a regular occurrence at Coltishall, and while on 41 Mike participated in a particularly interesting one with F6 wing of the Swedish Air Force at Karlsborg, flying the AJ37 Viggen. Right from the start, he and his colleagues realised that much was exceptional about the way the Swedes trained and operated, not least considering that the majority of the pilots were effectively doing national service. ‘When you looked at the people who were flying the aeroplanes, I thought that we could learn from this, definitely. The guy who flew me was a Honda 500cc works motorcycle rider; they had rally drivers, go-kart racers, all kinds of things. These weren’t people with good degrees in underwater basket-weaving, these were people who were recruited to fly the Viggen.

 

The first to go up in the Viggen was our boss, Hilton Moses. I remember going out with him to the aeroplane and seeing him laughing and smiling, and then seeing him getting out and coming back to the crewroom looking like he’d just been put through some kind of crazy combination between a fairground ride and a washing machine. Then I went flying in the afternoon, and it changed my life.

‘They would fly around at Mach 0.95, 650kt give or take a bit, and they trained at 10m. We flew through firebreaks in trees, we flew all over northern Sweden at 30ft, and we never went below 600kt. All of this, I should add, was done under about a 150 to 200ft overcast with no breaks. In the RAF, anybody who wanted to get old would not have flown in that weather. After about 40 minutes, we pulled up into cloud, and the pilot then flew a 4-degree hands-off approach with his hands on his head into a remote airstrip, landed, reversed into a parking bay, did an engine-running refuel without any communication with the people on the ground except hand signals, taxied out and took off in the direction that we’d landed in. Wind
 direction just wasn’t factored.Then we did some approaches onto roadways, flying at 15 or 20ft to clear the cars and warn them that there were going to be some aeroplane movements before doing practice approaches. And the aerobatics beggared belief.

 

The next day, it was time to take the Swedish pilots flying in the Jaguar. I was at a bit of a loss as to how I was going to mission was on 19 January, and even then explain to this guy that we flew at 420kt when they flew at 620kt. So I decided that the way ahead was to leave the part-throttle reheat in, accelerate to 620kt and then give him the aeroplane. That’s what I did I tookoff,and gave him control at 620kt and about
 150ft. He pushed the nose down, took the Jaguar down to 30ft and proceeded to fly it at about 30 to 40ft and 600kt-plus quite happily.

 

It knocked all the myths about who’s got the best aeroplanes, who’s got the best-trained pilots and so on. The Swedish Air Force had aeroplanes that were light years ahead of anything the RAF had, or was going to get, or has got now, and their pilots were in a totally different league to us. This was not just an individual — I flew with three of them, and all three were like that. Each of them was able to fly the Jaguar faster and lower from the back seat than I could from the front seat.

Edited December 4, 2016 by mambo

[Veritech]

Nice stories. I've read about the brit flying the Viggen before. On the other hand, the Su-15 story sounds sad; RIP Soviet pilot.

[Veritech]

Although I can't stand Tyler Rogoway and his racism/patriotism/tabloid way of writing, this article is interesting.

 

I never came to know that the huge tail folded down.

 

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/6237/saabs-viggen-could-stick-a-landing-and-takeoff-again-like-no-other-fighter

[MA_Goblin]

If I remember correctly the fin folding was made manually for entering the underground hangars and hangars with low entry height. It took about 10 minutes to complete and the fin is operated by a manual hydraulic pump.

[Pocket]

If I remember correctly the fin folding was made manually for entering the underground hangars and hangars with low entry height. It took about 10 minutes to complete and the fin is operated by a manual hydraulic pump.

 

Correct. There were a lot of hangers with low ceiling, including below ground level tunnels and rooms for parking and maintenance. One developed large arm muscles during the daily fin pumping routines ;) though nowadays they are nowhere to be found.:lol:

[Goblin]

though nowadays they are nowhere to be found

 

Yours too, huh..? :smilewink:

[Pocket]

Yours too, huh..? :smilewink:

 

:( tell me about it... Age and too much gaming, beer and couching stole them...:music_whistling: