1.
Interceptor aircraft
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An interceptor aircraft, or simply interceptor, is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically to prevent successful missions by enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. For daytime operations, conventional fighters normally fill the interceptor role, few aircraft can be considered dedicated daytime interceptors. Night fighters and bomber destroyers are, by definition, interceptors of the heavy type, examples of classic interceptors of this era include the F-106 Delta Dart, Sukhoi Su-15 and English Electric Lightning. Dedicated interceptor designs became rare, with the widely used examples designed after the 1960s being the Tornado F3, Mikoyan MiG-25 Foxbat. The first dedicated interceptor squadrons were formed up during World War I in order to defend London against attacks by Zeppelins, early units generally used aircraft withdrawn from front-line service, notably the Sopwith Pup. They were told about their targets prior to take-off from a centralized command center in the Horse Guards building. The Pup proved to have too low performance to intercept the Gotha G. IV bombers. Before Second World War started, offensive bomber speeds had improved so much that it appeared that the mission would be effectively impossible. The visual and acoustic detection had a range on the order of a few miles. This could be addressed by a cover of aircraft. The conclusion at the time was that the bomber will always get through, the introduction of radar upset this equation. Radar was able to detect aircraft at long range, on the order of 100 miles even for early systems and this provided enough time for fighters to start up, climb to altitude and chase down their targets. The introduction of jet power increased speeds from perhaps 200 miles per hour to 600 miles per hour in a single step, although radars also improved in performance, the gap between offense and defense was dramatically reduced. Large attacks could so confuse the defenses ability to communicate information to the pilots that the method of manual ground controlled interception was increasingly seen as inadequate. In the United States, this led to the introduction of the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment to computerize this task. In the 1950s, during the Cold War, an interceptor force was crucial for the great powers. Hence for a period of time they faced rapid development. Thus, the doctrine of mutually assured destruction replaced the trend of defense strengthening and their utility waned as the role became blurred into the role of the heavy air superiority fighters dominant in military thinking at the time
2.
Ukrainian Air Force
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The Ukrainian Air Force is a part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Ukrainian Air Force headquarters is located in the city of Vinnytsia, when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, a large number of aircraft were left on Ukrainian territory. Ever since, the Ukrainian air force has been downsizing and upgrading its forces, in spite of these efforts, the main inventory of the air force consists of Soviet-made aircraft. Currently 36,300 personnel and 144 aircraft are in service in the Ukrainian air force and air defense forces, all ICBMs and strategic bombers have been taken out of service. Since 1991s Ukrainian independence the air force has suffered from chronic underinvestment, the air force currently takes part in the War in Donbass. Following the 5 September 2014 ceasefire Ukraine Air Force has been forbidden from carrying out missions in the areas of Donbass. The major mission of the Air Force is to protect the air space of Ukraine, in peace-time, this is carried out by flying air-space control missions over the entire territory of Ukraine, and by preventing air space intrusion along the aerial borders. Every single day, more than 2,200 service personnel and civilian employees of the Air Force, employing 400 items of weapons, on average, the Ukrainian radar forces detect and track more than 1,000 targets daily. As a result, in 2006 two illegal crossings of the border were prevented and 28 violations of Ukrainian air space were prevented. Due to such increased strengthening of air control, the number of air space violations decreased by 35% compared to the previous year. Previously during the World War I on the Eastern Front, Pavlenko was in charge of air security of the Russian Stavka. Sometimes in 1918 the West Ukrainian Peoples Republic created its own aviation corps with the Ukrainian Galician Army headed by Petro Franko, in 1918 he organized an aviation school of the Ukrainian Galician Army Command Center which was active until 1920. Among the airplanes used by the Ukrainian aviation were Belgium-built SPAD S. VIIs, the Ukrainian Galician Army used Nieuport 17 biplanes. The Ukrainian Air Force was established on March 17,1992, the headquarters of the 24th Air Army of the Soviet Air Force in Vinnytsia served as the basis to create Air Force headquarters. Also present on Ukrainian soil were units of the former Soviet 5th, 14th, in addition, the 161st Maritime Fighter Aviation Regiment, at Limanskoye in Odessa Oblast, came under Ukrainian control. It had formerly been part of the 119th Maritime Fighter Aviation Division of the Black Sea Fleet, the new Air Force inherited the 184th Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment of Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack which were based at Pryluky. Discussions with Russia concerning their return bogged down, the main bone of contention was the price. While Russian experts, who examined the aircraft at Pryluky in 1993 and 1996, assessed their technical condition as good, the negotiations led to nowhere and in April 1998, Ukraine decided to commence scrapping the aircraft under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Agreement
3.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
4.
NATO
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states. NATOs headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons. NATO is an Alliance that consists of 28 independent member countries across North America and Europe, an additional 22 countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total, Members defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. N. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Unions Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. He got a hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. In 1948 European leaders met with U. S. defense, military and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, marshalls orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty and it included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in. Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, the creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The members agreed that an attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor, although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily, the treaty was later clarified to include both the members territory and their vessels, forces or aircraft above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France. The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology, the roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved
5.
Strategic bomber
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In addition to strategic bombing, strategic bombers can be used for tactical missions. There are three countries including United States, Russia, and China are operating strategic bombers, the modern strategic bomber role appeared after strategic bombing was widely employed, and atomic bombs were first used in combat during World War II. An example is Frances Mirage IV, a strategic bomber replaced in service by the ASMP-equipped Mirage 2000N fighter-bomber. Study of strategic bombing continued in the interwar years and it was widely believed by the late 1930s that strategic terror bombing of cities in any war would quickly result in devastating losses and might decide a conflict in a matter of days or weeks. But theory far exceeded what most air forces could actually put into the air, Germany focused on short-range tactical bombers. Britains Royal Air Force began developing four-engine long-range bombers only in the late 1930s, the U. S. Army Air Corps was severely limited by small budgets in the late 1930s, and only barely saved the B-17 bomber that would soon be vital. The equally important B-24 first flew in 1939, both aircraft would constitute the bulk of the American bomber force that made the Allied daylight bombing of Nazi Germany possible in 1943–45. Both Britain and the U. S. were developing larger two- and four-engined designs, after American entry into the war, late, in 1941, the U. S. 8th Air Force began to develop a daylight bombing capacity using improved B-17 and B-24 four-engine aircraft. The RAF concentrated its efforts on night bombing, but neither force was able to develop adequate bombsights or tactics to allow for often-bragged pinpoint accuracy. The post-war U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey studies supported the notion of strategic bombing. Attempts to create pioneering examples of smart bombs resulted in the Azon ordnance, deployed in the European Theater, most strategic bombers of the two superpowers were designed to deliver nuclear weapons. For a time, some squadrons of Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers were kept in the air around the clock, the Royal Air Forces British-produced V bombers were designed and designated to be able to deliver British-made nuclear bombs to targets in European Russia. These bombers could have been able to reach and destroy cities like Kiev or Moscow before American strategic bombers, the Soviet Union produced hundreds of unlicensed, reverse-engineered copies of the American Boeing B-29 Superfortress, which the Soviet Air Forces called the Tupolev Tu-4. The Soviets later developed the jet-powered Tupolev Tu-16 Badger, the Peoples Republic of China produced a version of Tupolev Tu-16 on license from the Soviet Union in the 1960s which they named the Xian H-6, it remains in service today. Mirage IVs served until mid-1996 in the role, and to 2005 as a reconnaissance aircraft. Today the French Republic has limited its strategic armaments to a squadron of four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, france also maintains an active force of supersonic fighter-bombers carrying stand-off nuclear missiles such as the ASMP, with Mach 3 speed and a range of 500 kilometers. These missiles can be delivered by the Dassault Mirage 2000N and Rafale fighter-bombers and it is likely that this bomber would also serve as a replacement for both the B-52 and B-1. The Russian Air Forces new Tu-160 strategic bombers are expected to be delivered on a regular basis over the course of 10 to 20 years, in addition, the current Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers will be periodically updated, as was done during the 1990s with the Tu-22M bombers
6.
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress
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The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is an American long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, which has continued to provide support and it has been operated by the United States Air Force since the 1950s. The bomber is capable of carrying up to 70,000 pounds of weapons, the B-52 took its maiden flight in April 1952. Built to carry weapons for Cold War-era deterrence missions, the B-52 Stratofortress replaced the Convair B-36. A veteran of wars, the B-52 has dropped only conventional munitions in combat. The B-52s official name Stratofortress is rarely used, informally, the aircraft has become referred to as the BUFF. The B-52 has been in service with the USAF since 1955. As of December 2015,58 were in service with 18 in reserve. The B-52 completed sixty years of service with its original operator in 2015. After being upgraded between 2013 and 2015, it is expected to serve into the 2040s, the aircraft was to have a crew of five or more turret gunners, and a six-man relief crew. It was required to cruise at 300 mph at 34,000 feet with a radius of 5,000 miles. The armament was to consist of a number of 20 mm cannon and 10,000 pounds of bombs. On 13 February 1946, the Air Force issued bid invitations for these specifications, with Boeing, Consolidated Aircraft, and Glenn L. Martin Company submitting proposals. On 5 June 1946, Boeings Model 462, an aircraft powered by six Wright T35 turboprops with a gross weight of 360,000 pounds. On 28 June 1946, Boeing was issued a letter of contract for US$1.7 million to build a full-scale mock-up of the new XB-52 and do preliminary engineering and testing. However, by October 1946, the air began to express concern about the sheer size of the new aircraft. In response, Boeing produced Model 464, a smaller version with a 230,000 pound gross weight. Boeing responded with two powered by the T-35 turboprops
7.
Radar
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Radar is an object-detection system that uses radio waves to determine the range, angle, or velocity of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, Radio waves from the transmitter reflect off the object and return to the receiver, giving information about the objects location and speed. Radar was developed secretly for military use by several nations in the period before, the term RADAR was coined in 1940 by the United States Navy as an acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging or RAdio Direction And Ranging. The term radar has since entered English and other languages as a common noun, high tech radar systems are associated with digital signal processing, machine learning and are capable of extracting useful information from very high noise levels. Other systems similar to make use of other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. One example is lidar, which uses ultraviolet, visible, or near infrared light from lasers rather than radio waves, as early as 1886, German physicist Heinrich Hertz showed that radio waves could be reflected from solid objects. In 1895, Alexander Popov, an instructor at the Imperial Russian Navy school in Kronstadt. The next year, he added a spark-gap transmitter, in 1897, while testing this equipment for communicating between two ships in the Baltic Sea, he took note of an interference beat caused by the passage of a third vessel. In his report, Popov wrote that this phenomenon might be used for detecting objects, the German inventor Christian Hülsmeyer was the first to use radio waves to detect the presence of distant metallic objects. In 1904, he demonstrated the feasibility of detecting a ship in dense fog and he obtained a patent for his detection device in April 1904 and later a patent for a related amendment for estimating the distance to the ship. He also got a British patent on September 23,1904 for a radar system. It operated on a 50 cm wavelength and the radar signal was created via a spark-gap. In 1915, Robert Watson-Watt used radio technology to advance warning to airmen. Watson-Watt became an expert on the use of direction finding as part of his lightning experiments. As part of ongoing experiments, he asked the new boy, Arnold Frederic Wilkins, Wilkins made an extensive study of available units before selecting a receiver model from the General Post Office. Its instruction manual noted that there was fading when aircraft flew by, in 1922, A. Hoyt Taylor and Leo C. Taylor submitted a report, suggesting that this might be used to detect the presence of ships in low visibility, eight years later, Lawrence A. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa followed prewar Great Britain, and Hungary had similar developments during the war. Hugon, began developing a radio apparatus, a part of which was installed on the liner Normandie in 1935
8.
Yakovlev Yak-28
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The Yakovlev Yak-28 was a swept wing, turbojet-powered combat aircraft used by the Soviet Union. Based on the Yak-129 prototype first flown on 5 March 1958, the Yak-28 was first seen by the West at the Tushino air show in 1961. Western analysts initially believed it to be a rather than an attack aircraft —. After its actual role was realized, the Yak-28 bomber series was redesignated Brewer, the Yak-28 had a large mid-mounted wing, swept at 45 degrees. The tailplane set halfway up the vertical fin, slats were fitted on the leading edges and slotted flaps were mounted on the trailing edges of the wings. The two Tumansky R-11 turbojet engines, initially with 57 kN thrust each, were mounted in pods, the wing-mounted engines and bicycle-type main landing gear were widely spaced, allowing most of the fuselage to be used for fuel and equipment. It was primarily subsonic, although Mach 1 could be exceeded at high altitude, total production of all Yak-28s was 1,180. It was in a Yak-28 that Captain Boris Kapustin and Lieutenant Yuri Yanov performed an act on 6 April 1966. The crew managed to avoid a housing estate but crashed into Lake Stößensee without ejecting and they were posthumously awarded the medal of the Red Banner. The first engine was recovered on September 18,1966, both engines were returned to the Soviets on May 2,1966. The Yak-28P was withdrawn in the early 1980s, but trainer and other versions remained in service until after the fall of the Soviet Union, the reconnaissance and ECM aircraft were eventually replaced by variants of the Sukhoi Su-24. Initial production version, built in small numbers without radar, yak-28B Production of Yak-28 with weapon-aiming radar fitted, and various improvements such as fittings for JATO bottles. Yak-28L Tactical bomber with ground-controlled targeting system using triangulation from ground-based transmitter sites, yak-28I Tactical bomber with the internal targeting system Initsiativa-2 360-degree ground-mapping radar. Yak-28UVP prototype A single Yak-28 converted for testing short takeoff and landing techniques with JATO bottles, yak-28U Dual control trainer with a second cockpit in the nose for student pilots, prototype in 1962. Yak-28SR prototype first use of SR, chemical warfare aircraft for dispensing dust or liquid agents from underwing tank/applicators. Though recommended for production none were delivered to the VVS, Tactical reconnaissance aircraft fitted with an active radio/radar jammer. Production was on a small scale. Yak-28TARK Television reconnaissance system to send images to a ground base
9.
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25
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The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 is a supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft that was among the fastest military aircraft to enter service. It was designed by the Soviet Unions Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau primarily using stainless steel and it was the last plane personally designed by Mikhail Gurevich before his retirement. The first prototype flew in 1964, and the aircraft entered service in 1970 and it has an operational top speed of Mach 2.83, and features a powerful radar and four air-to-air missiles. The appearance of the MiG-25 sparked serious concern in the West, the capabilities of the MiG-25 were better understood in 1976 when Soviet pilot Viktor Belenko defected in a MiG-25 to the United States via Japan. It turned out that the aircrafts weight necessitated its large wings, production of the MiG-25 series ended in 1984 after completion of 1,190 aircraft. A symbol of the Cold War, the MiG-25 flew with Soviet allies and former Soviet republics, remaining in limited service in Russia and it is one of the highest-flying military aircraft, and the second fastest after the SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft. During the Cold War, Soviet Air Defence Forces, PVO was given the task of air defence of the USSR. The performance of these types of aircraft was steadily improved, overflights by the very high altitude American Lockheed U-2 in the late 1950s revealed a need for higher altitude interceptor aircraft than currently available. A major upgrade in the PVO defence system was required, and at the start of 1958 a requirement was issued for manned interceptors capable of reaching 3,000 km/h and heights of up to 27 km. The Mikoyan-Gurevich OKB had been working on a series of interceptors during the half of the 1950s, the I-1, I-3U, I-7U, I-75, Ye-150, Ye-150A, Ye-152, Ye-152A, Ye-152P. The Ye-150 was noteworthy because it was specifically to test the Tumansky R-15 engine. This led to Ye-152, alternatively known as Ye-166, which set world records. The Ye-152M was intended to be the definite heavy interceptor design, but before it was finished, the PVO had selected the Tupolev Tu-128. As the work on the MiG-25 was well under way, the single-engine Ye-152M was abandoned, work on the new Soviet interceptor that became the MiG-25 started in mid-1959, a year before Soviet intelligence learned of the American Mach 3 A-12 reconnaissance aircraft. It is not clear if the design was influenced by the American A-5 Vigilante, the design bureau studied several possible layouts for the new aircraft. One had the engines located side-by-side, as on the MiG-19, the second had a stepped arrangement with one engine amidships, with exhaust under the fuselage, and another in the aft fuselage. The third project had an arrangement similar to that of the English Electric Lightning. Option two and three were rejected because the size of the engines meant any of them would result in a very tall aircraft which would complicate maintenance
10.
Soviet Air Forces
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The Soviet Air Forces was the official designation of one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces, the Air Forces were formed from components of the Imperial Russian Air Service in 1917, and faced their greatest test during World War II. The groups were involved in the Korean War, and dissolved along with the Soviet Union itself in 1991–92. Former Soviet Air Forces assets were divided into several air forces of former Soviet republics. March of the Pilots was its anthem, the All-Russia Collegium for Direction of the Air Forces of the Old Army was formed on 20 December 1917. This was a Bolshevik aerial headquarters initially led by Konstantin Akashev and it became the Directorate of the USSR Air Forces on 28 March 1924, and then the Directorate of the Workers-Peasants Red Army Air Forces on 1 January 1925. Gradually its influence on aircraft design became greater, from its earliest days, the force mimicked ground forces organization especially in the 1930s, by which time it was made up of air armies, aviation corps, aviation divisions, and aviation regiments. At first, the I-16 proved superior to any Luftwaffe fighters, however, the Soviets refused to supply the plane in adequate numbers, and their aerial victories were soon squandered because of their limited use. Later, Bf-109s delivered to Francos Spanish Nationalist air forces secured air superiority for the Nationalists, on 19 November 1939, VVS headquarters was again titled the Main Directorate of the Red Army Air Forces under the WPRA HQ. Between 1933 and 1938, the Soviet government planned and funded missions to break numerous world aviation records, not only did aviation records and achievements become demonstrations of the USSRs technological progress, they also served as legitimization of the socialist system. With each new success, Soviet press trumpeted victories for socialism, furthermore, Soviet media idolized record-breaking pilots, exalting them not only as role models for Soviet society, but also as symbols of progress towards the socialist-utopian future. The early 1930s saw a shift in focus away from collectivist propaganda. In the case of aviation, the government began glorifying people who utilized aviation technology instead of glorifying the technology itself. Pilots such as Valery Chkalov, Georgy Baydukov, Alexander Belyakov, in May 1937, Stalin charged pilots Chkalov, Baydukov, and Belyakov with the mission to navigate the first transpolar flight in history. On 20 June 1937, the aviators landed their ANT-25 in Vancouver, a month later, Stalin ordered the departure of a second crew to push the boundaries of modern aviation technology even further. The public reaction to the flights was euphoric. The media called the pilots Bolshevik knights of culture and progress, Soviet citizens celebrated Aviation Day on 18 August with as much zeal as they celebrated the October Revolution anniversary. Literature including poems, short stories, and novels emerged celebrating the feats of the aviator-celebrities, feature films like Victory, Tales of Heroic Aviators, and Valery Chkalov reinforced the positive hero imagery, celebrating the aviators individuality within the context of a socialist government
