I loved being an air traffic controller but without a doubt, working traffic in Berlin was the hardest, most complicated, and difficult place I ever worked. Where else could a Master Sergeant screw up and have it land on the desk of the Secretary of State the next morning!!
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Re the MIGS in the corridors.I was the USAF rep in the Berlin Air Safety Centre which gave approval to all flights in the corridors and the Berlin Control Zone. On a flight from Frankfurt to Berlin a MIG pulled up on my wing and flew formation with me. I called Berlin Control and told them to contact BASC and tell the Soviet rep to call Scharnhorst Airfield where the MIGs were controlled from and tell him to get the hell off my wing. He left and when I got back to the BASC I spoke to the Soviet rep who told me that they had no aircraft in my vicinity at the time I reported. The next day I gave the Russian Colonel who was their senior commander a 8 by 10 photo of the MIG with all its markings and asked him to contact the pilots commander and have him grounded as he was evidently lost and incompetent and therefore a hazard to all other aircraft. Funny, I never got an answer!!
I flew C-97s through the Berlin Corridors in the early 70s
armed with a 48 inch camera taking snapshots of those airfields and other interestings sights on the ground.You can get some great pictures with a camera longer than your arm. We also had EWOs on board recording all the Russian radar signals. We would ask for our “own navigation” and wander to within 4 miles of the corridor edge to get in position to shoot the targets we wanted. Top Secret stuff-the Russians didn’t know a thing. Right. We had a photo of an airfield that had “Merry Xmas” and our squadron number plowed out of the snow on the ramp. Saw Migs all the time. Somehow managed to not get shot down. All at 190 knots.