Posted on 06/29/2005 5:41:10 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Ping!
"Vladimir Vasiliev of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies .... He said they were probably spy missions used by the U.S. to test Soviet air defense and command capabilities"
lol. Yeah right. The U.S. always uses Korean passenger planes for spy missions.
Yeah, the 707 penetrated hundreds of miles inland before it was intercepted. LoL!
Remember the German kid who landed at the Kremlin? Haahaa...
Imaging how successful our bomber force would have did in war finding their targets in the Soviet Union.
Mathias Rust, IIRC.
Real Name: Mathias Rust
Category: Politics
Claim To Fame: This is the guy who embarassed the Russians and astounded the world, when in 1987 at the age of 19 flew a Cessna 172B undetected all the way from Malmi airport in Helsinki, landing the craft in Moscow's Red Square.
He was sentenced to 8 years hard labour but released the following August.
Thanks for the following description from SuPi:
"He flew his plane over the sea and then dived under the radar. When he suddenly disappeared from the radar he was first believed to have crashed into the baltic sea. Major search effort was put to place in the coast of Finland before the news came from Russia."
The more famous case of KAL 007 with conservative Congressman Larry McDonald aboard along with 268 others was pretty much the same case but with a more tragic result. The pilot even discussed the red light flashing on top before firing a rocket which sent the aircraft on an eleven minute decent to the Pacific.
Red lights are always flashing on spy planes.
Which showed that cruise missiles would have been the most effective way to hit Russia with little warning.
They keep saying the KAL planes “strayed” and such, but it was pretty common knowledge that they intentionally entered Soviet airspace – even after being told quite clearly not to do it.
Thanks for the the ping. Passing it along.
I will never forget President Carter's strong, forceful response to the Soviets after this tragedy. It made me proud to be an American.
no, but we'd shadow commercial airliners with smaller jet figthers.
Carter made you proud to be an American... Now there is something you don't see everyday...
I am not an aviator, but the KAL pilot seemed to have some skills. Evasive maneuver to dodge a missile and an emergency landing with a 707. Pretty impressive.
Actually, the US uses RC-135 aircraft, which happen to be Boeing 707's. Doesn't surprise me in the least that the Russians thought they were spy planes, heck the RC's were probably collected data at the time.......
I think you can assume that any KAL pilot had prior military experience, but I think that this 'engagement' says more about the low-skill of the PVO/Soviet Airforce pilot and the ineffectiveness of Soviet air-to-air heat-seeking missile. I mean how the heck does a 707 break a missile lock? Those 4 engines would have been easily 'visible' to an AIM-9 Sidewinder. How could you miss?
"Carter made you proud to be an American... Now there is something you don't see everyday..."
I think it was a lame attempt at sarcasm. At least I hope it was, for his sake.
Oops, forgot my sarcasm tag.
I think you're missing the point, that this Vasiliev is writing this after the fact, and saying that they WERE spy missions, not that they may have been mistaken for spy missions. Big difference.
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