MiG Pilot Survival


Book Description

Siberia - infamous for its brutal winters, and larger than the entire United States - is not the only wilderness within the former Soviet Union. Harsh southern deserts, arctic islands, disputed border regions, and minority populations beligerent towards the their present government are spread all across the gigantic nation. Flying over Russia presents risks few other aircrews in time of peace must face. And while Russian combat aircraft are world renowned for their reliable performance, what happens when something does go wrong? Given their exceptional egress systems - odds are the pilot will eject safely, but how does he survive and advance under such potentially dire circumstances? MiG Pilot Survival: Russian Aircrew Survival Equipment and Instruction explores the components and details of Russian survival science with color photographs, in depth descriptions, and a full translation of the exact manual - with original illustrations intact - as used by Russian aircrews in time of crisis, Alan R. Wise is a consultant, writer, and photographer who has done work for the Department of Defense, Department of State, U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Air Force Museum, and the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center. He has served as a military advisor and has written numerous articles for magazines such as National Defense, Journal of Defense and Diplomacy, Armor, and Behind the Lines: The Journal of Special Operations. He is also the coauthor with Michael S. Breuninger of Jet Age Flight Helmets (see page 5 of this catalog). He resides in Middletown, Ohio and is an experienced collector specializing in flight gear, survival and special operations equipment, and military vehicles.




United States Combat Aircrew Survival Equipment


Book Description

A detailed study of United States Air Force, Army, Army Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aircrew survival equipment. Items covered are: survival vests, leggings, and chaps, life preservers, survival (ejection) seat and back pad kits, personal survival kits and first aid kits, etc. Tag and label information is provided for each item. AUTHOR:




Call-Sign KLUSO


Book Description

A US Air Force Captain tells the story of his life and service during Operation Desert Storm in this thrilling military memoir. A pilot all his life, Rick “Kluso” Tollini turned his childhood dream into a reality when he became a fighter pilot for the US Air Force. In Call Sign KLUSO, Rick “Kluso” Tollini puts the fraught minutes above the Iraqi desert that made him an ace into the context of a full life; exploring how he came to be flying a F-15C in Desert Storm, and how that day became a pivotal moment in his life. He recounts his training, preparation, and missions, as well as the life of a fighter pilot in a combat zone. He also explores life as an air force veteran, and his turn to Buddhism as he comes to terms with his actions in combat. Rick’s first experience of flying was in a Piper PA-18 over 1960s’ California as a small boy, and his love of flying through his teenage years was fostered by his pilot father, eventually blossoming into a decision to join the Air Force as a pilot in his late twenties. Having trained to fly jets he was assigned to fly the F-15 Eagle with the “Dirty Dozen,” the 12th Tactical Fighter Squadron, at Kadena AB, Japan, before returning Stateside to the 58th Tactical Fighter Squadron “The Gorillas.” Throughout training, Reagan’s fighter pilots expected to face the Soviet Union, but Rick’s first combat deployment was Desert Storm.




A MiG-15 to Freedom


Book Description

On September 21, 1953, U.S. airmen at Kimpo Air Base near Seoul, Korea, were startled to see landing a MiG-15, the most advanced Soviet-built fighter plane of the era, piloted by Senior Lieutenant No Kum-Sok, a 21-year-old North Korean Air Force officer. Once he landed, Lieutenant No found that his mother had escaped to the South two years earlier, and they were soon reunited. At his request, No came to the United States and became a U.S. citizen. His story provides a unique insight into how North Korea conducted the Korean War and how he came to the decision to leave his homeland.




RAF & East German Fast-Jet Pilots in the Cold War


Book Description

“You’ll learn what these pilots went through knowing that their actions or reactions could trigger a global nuclear war.” —Historic Aviation RAF and East German Fast-Jet Pilots in the Cold War is the result of ten years of research, involving many visits to the former German Democratic Republic by a small Anglo/German team of military specialists. Their purpose was to explore the lives of RAF and East German fighter and ?ghter-bomber pilots, in the air and on the ground, at work and play, during the Cold War in North Germany. The book is based largely on personal testimony from these pilots, coupled with facts drawn from official archives and comment from other historical sources. Where possible, political considerations have been avoided and no outright criticism has been intended, readers being left to draw their own conclusions on the thinking, strategies, equipment and tactics discussed. Far from being an intellectual polemic on the Cold War, the text and photographs merely record a slice of history as seen through the eyes of a select few who took up arms in the defense of their respective homelands—and faced each other daily across the Iron Curtain. In an insightful conclusion, Nigel Walpole reassess the threat that both sides believed was genuine during those tense decades of the Cold War and examines the possible course and nature of a conflict which neither NATO nor the Warsaw Pact wanted but both actively planned for. “The writer has avoided politics where possible, and in doing so reassesses the threat and uncertainty—and ultimately the fears—both air forces faced. It’s truly fascinatingl.” —Flypast




Aces and Aerial Victories


Book Description




MiG-17/19 Aces of the Vietnam War


Book Description

At the beginning of the Vietnam War, the Vietnam People's Air Force (VPAF) were equipped with slow, old Korean War generation fighters – a combination of MiG-17s and MiG-19s – types that should have offered little opposition to the cutting-edge fighter-bombers such as the F-4 Phantom II, F-105 Thunderchief and the F-8 Crusader. Yet when the USAF and US Navy unleashed their aircraft on North Vietnam in 1965 the inexperienced pilots of the VPAF were able to shatter the illusion of US air superiority. Taking advantage of their jet's unequalled low-speed maneuverability, small size and powerful cannon armament they were able to take the fight to their missile-guided opponents, with a number of Vietnamese pilots racking up ace scores. Packed with information previously unavailable in the west and only recently released from archives in Vietnam, this is the first major analysis of the exploits of Vietnamese pilots in the David and Goliath contest with the US over the skies of Vietnam.




Sierra Hotel : flying Air Force fighters in the decade after Vietnam


Book Description

In February 1999, only a few weeks before the U.S. Air Force spearheaded NATO's Allied Force air campaign against Serbia, Col. C.R. Anderegg, USAF (Ret.), visited the commander of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe. Colonel Anderegg had known Gen. John Jumper since they had served together as jet forward air controllers in Southeast Asia nearly thirty years earlier. From the vantage point of 1999, they looked back to the day in February 1970, when they first controlled a laser-guided bomb strike. In this book Anderegg takes us from "glimmers of hope" like that one through other major improvements in the Air Force that came between the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. Always central in Anderegg's account of those changes are the people who made them. This is a very personal book by an officer who participated in the transformation he describes so vividly. Much of his story revolves around the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base (AFB), Nevada, where he served two tours as an instructor pilot specializing in guided munitions.




Memories of a Fighter Pilot


Book Description

Jay E. Riedel was born 19 November 1939 in Freeport, Long Island, New York, and received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mathematics from the University of Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, and his commission as a Second Lieutenant through AFROTC in July 1961. Colonel Jay E. Riedel retired 1 April 1992 after thirty years of active service to his country. His last assignment was Senior Air Force Representative to the United States Army Infantry, Ft. Benning, Georgia. Memories of a Fighter Pilot is a collection of as many of his personal recollections as he can remember that would be of a significant interest to most readers. They are as accurate as he remembers them. Many will make you laugh, some will water your eyes, and some will have you gripping your chair with white knuckles. "I have experienced many of life's ups and downs, and I hope all who read of these episodes will be entertained, yet glean some information that may be of use in their own lives. It was quite a ride." Foreword by General Chuck Horner.




MiG-15 Fagot


Book Description

In the years following World War II, many nations made use of captured German technology, and given the pressures of the incipient Cold War, Soviet engineers often had very little time to produce an "answer to the West". As a result, the MiG-15's designers made use of German technologies and a British powerplant, which served to accelerate the fighter's development. The MiG-15 had a long service career and was built in huge numbers both within and outside the Soviet Union. The main factors in the MiG-15's success were a turbojet rated at over 2,000 kg (4,409 lb) of thrust, a new configuration with swept wings and empennage, and new pilot survival aids including an ejection seat. These, together with heavy armament and ease of manufacture and operation, made the MiG-15 a superb fighter jet. In fact, it paved the way for Soviet fighter design for the next decade. WarbirdTech Volume 40.