Word: belenko
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that manner, 1st Lieut. Viktor Ivanovich Belenko, 29, last week pulled off one of the most daring escapes of the cold war. In the view of U.S. Air Force and intelligence experts, it was also one of the most significant; Belenko was flying the MIG-25, which has never been examined by Western specialists. Called "Foxbat" in the NATO code, it is the world's fastest weapons-carrying warplane, having attained a record speed* of 1,852.6 m.p.h. and a test altitude of 118,000 ft.-outrunning and outclimbing even the newest U.S. fighter planes. Thus a study...
...Belenko's flight began at the Sokolovka airbase, 100 miles east-northeast of Vladivostok, where the Soviets are believed to maintain squadrons of their best interceptor aircraft. According to his Japanese interrogators, Belenko had been planning his defection for two years. "There is no freedom in the Soviet Union," he told his interrogators. "Nothing has changed since the czars. It's a suffocating country. You can tell the truth only when drinking vodka with your friends." Furthermore, his marriage was breaking up; he was alienated from his wife and small child, and apparently felt that his defection would...
Shortly after he took off last week on a Monday morning training mission, Belenko made his break. Somewhere near the Primorsky Kray coast, he suddenly put his MIG in a sharp dive, leveling out 150 ft. over the waves of the Sea of Japan, followed shortly afterward by Russian pilots in hot pursuit. After flying this low for a short distance to elude Soviet radar, he climbed back to 20,000 ft. for the dash to Japan; a jet gulps too much fuel at low altitudes...