Posted on 06/30/2025 10:54:45 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
Viktor Belenko, the former Soviet Air Defence Forces pilot who defected to the West in 1976 in a MiG-25 high-speed interceptor, has passed away on Sep. 24, 2023 Alert 5 first noted.
He died in a nursing home in a small town in Southern Illinois on Sep. 24. However, journalists learned about his death only now. The New York Times quoted Belenko’s son, Paul Schmidt, on Nov. 20 as saying that his father had died after a brief, unspecified illness in a nursing home in Rosebud, Illinois.
Viktor Belenko was born into a simple family of Soviet workers on Feb. 15, 1947, in Nalchik. But he managed to build a military career, making his way into the elite USSR Air Defense Forces, which defended the country from a possible attack from the outside.
On Sep. 6, 1976, then Lt. Belenko flew his MiG-25P fighter to Hakodate Airport in Hokkaido Prefecture of Japan, as the photos in this post show. After circling Hakodate airport three times, Belenko landed at the airport with around 30 seconds of fuel remaining.
As explained by Yefim Gordon in his book Mig-25 ‘Foxbat’ Mig-31 ‘Foxhound’: Russia’s Defensive Front Line, it will probably never be known if Belenko contacted the US military intelligence on his own or was hired by them (there is even a theory that ‘V Belenko’ was just a cover name for a trained agent tasked with stealing the latest Soviet military hardware, shades of Clint Eastwood in Firefox). Investigators found out that the defection was not an impulsive action of a dissatisfied officer – Belenko was expected in Japan and made preparations for the flight. He high-tailed it to Japan the very first time he had a full fuel load, taking the classified technical manuals with him.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaviationgeekclub.com ...
Aviation ping!..................
“You must learn to think in Russian”
This points out how comical the cries for “due process” are for illegals. Your citizen staatus determines what legal process you are “due”. The process due a non-citizen seeking to visit our country is different from the process due a citizen.
The people who vote for the Mamdanis of the world should definitely read it.
A very brave man who did a great service to his new country!
Heard it was a real rust bucket.
It was posted before. The book he wrote-he was an ideal person to defect. Divorced. As a child his step father gave his own son better pieces of meat and whipped Victor. Thought through all the lies he was told.
Then when the US had the plane our people were afraid to test it-hot potato. Soviets wanted it back and we sent it back in crates. All the info on the plane was given through interviews with the pilot. Wing screws were not flat in areas(under the wing) where it didn’t affect performance.
Was this the basis of the 1982 Clint Eastwood movie “Firefox”?
The MiG-25 was basically purpose-built to intercept the B-70. While the US cancelled the B-70 (because it was highly vulnerable to SAMs), the Soviets didn’t cancel the MiG-25. It was a fighter really well-adapted to a mission that it could never actually fly.
Complete with tube type electronis IIRC. EMP proof but likelynot why they were used.
Engines that needed to be replaced it they ever drove the plane to full sped.
He died in a nursing home in a small town in Southern Illinois on Sep. 24.
Surprised the KGB didn’t get to him first?.
R.I.P.
Yes. A great read. I particularly liked the parts where he saw every day life in America. Particularly the passage where they take him to a clothing store in a mall in suburban DC. He marveled at the vast selection of items. And only 2 employees to guard them! And the grocery store with seemingly unlimited choices of food. All marked with contents and a fancy cart to put them in. Also, there was no smell of rotten food. When he saw a lady filling here own gas tank at the corner station he was convinced that this was the US version of the Potemkin Village. It took him a while to realize that this was indeed, an ever day occurrence in the US and everything the leaders in the USSR told him about the West was a lie.
The MiG-25 was also designed to intercept F-108s, SR-71s, U-2s, and the RB/WB-57 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft.
EMP was part of the equation. Better heat tolerance was another.
This man was instrumental in helping end the Cold War.
I know that area of Illinois is quite conservative.
He would have been around people who highly valued him.
Thank you for your service to the world, Viktor.
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