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10 Times the Soviets Shot Down US Warplanes in the Cold War
Playing with Fire: Jet-Age Brinkmanship in the 20th Century
The dangerous skies of the Cold War were even more perilous than is often understood, and there were several times Soviet air defences obliterated U.S. warplanes. Now largely forgotten, they reveal the startlingly dangerous nature of Cold War flying. Here are ten, often shocking, times the Soviets Shot Down US warplanes in the Cold War.
The dangerous skies of the Cold War were even more perilous than is often understood, and there were several times Soviet air defences obliterated U.S. warplanes. Now largely forgotten, they reveal the startlingly dangerous nature of Cold War flying. Here are ten, often shocking, times the Soviets Shot Down US warplanes in the Cold War.
10: ‘Turbulent Turtle’
The PB4Y-2 Privateer was a well-trusted U.S. Navy patrol bomber adapted from the B-24 bomber. Used in the Second World War, it later served as a reconnaissance aircraft. Its long range and large airframe made it suitable for surveillance, including maritime patrol and electronic intelligence collection missions.
During the Cold War, Privateers conducted “Ferret” missions to intercept and study enemy radar and communications. Some were modified for nuclear delivery, but most aimed to provoke enemy intercepts and record air defence chatter. These high-risk flights pushed into contested airspace, gathering critical electronic intelligence for U.S. military analysts.
On April 8, 1950, a VP-26 PB4Y-2 Privateer (BuNo 59645, nicknamed “Turbulent Turtle”) was intercepted by Soviet La-11 (though some reports say ‘MiG’) fighters over the Baltic Sea. It was shot down, killing all ten crew (though there were rumours that eight of them were captured and sent to a gulag).
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The aircraft was reportedly attacked even after crashing. This marked one of the earliest deadly Cold War confrontations between U.S. and Soviet forces. As you would expect with such secretive missions, many of the photos in this article show the aircraft type rather than the specific airframe that was shot down. The crew of “Turbulent Turtle” were probably the U.S. Navy’s first casualties in the secret war with the U.S.S.R.
9: January 28, 1964, Erfurt Sabreliner
On January 28, 1964, a U.S. Air Force T-39 Sabreliner on a routine training flight was shot down by a Soviet MiG-19 near Erfurt, East Germany. The unarmed jet had taken off on this cloudy winter afternoon from Wiesbaden Air Base but reportedly strayed into East German airspace due to navigational error or weather conditions.
Forty-seven minutes after take off, two U.S. air defence radars spotted the T-39 heading toward East Germany at 500 mph (800 km/h). Both stations tried to contact the plane on USAF and international distress frequencies, but got no response—likely due to radio failure. Two MiG-19s were scrambled to intercept. The Soviets engaged, firing and destroying the jet midair.
All three crew members were killed instantly. The incident provoked outrage in the West, with U.S. officials calling it an unjustified attack on an unarmed training flight. The Soviets insisted the plane had violated their airspace and ignored orders to land. Diplomatic protests followed, but tensions remained high throughout the Cold War.
The shootdown exemplified the razor-thin margins of error during Cold War reconnaissance and training missions. Even peacetime flights could trigger deadly encounters in divided skies. The 1964 T-39 incident served as a grim reminder that Cold War boundaries were not just political—they were lethal, and often unforgiving.
8: Barents Sea Shootdown
IMAGE USAF/Public Domain
On July 1, 1960, a U.S. Air Force RB-47H reconnaissance aircraft was shot down by a Soviet MiG-19 over the Barents Sea. Flying in international airspace, the RB-47H was on an electronic intelligence mission when it was attacked, leading to the deaths of four crew members and the capture of two.
The Soviet pilot reportedly jammed the RB-47’s MD-4 fire control system, disabling its tail guns and leaving it defenceless. The two surviving crew members were held in Soviet captivity for over a year before being released in 1961, amid Cold War tension and diplomatic pressure from the United States.
Credit: USAF/Public Domain
The RB-47H, part of America’s strategic reconnaissance fleet, had a long history of high-risk missions along Soviet borders. On April 28, 1965, another RB-47 was attacked by North Korean MiG-17s over the Sea of Japan. Despite sustaining heavy damage and losing three of its six engines, it managed to return to base.
The RB-47 remained in limited use into the Vietnam War, conducting ELINT (electronic intelligence) relay missions. However, the ageing platform was soon replaced by the more advanced RC-135. The last RB-47H was officially retired on December 29, 1967, marking the end of a perilous yet crucial chapter in Cold War aerial espionage.
7: Seminole survival
On October 21, 1970, a U.S. Army RU-8 Seminole reconnaissance aircraft strayed into Soviet airspace over the Armenian SSR. The RU-8, a modified Beechcraft used for electronic surveillance, was conducting an intelligence mission when it reportedly suffered navigational issues, inadvertently crossing the sensitive border during heightened Cold War tensions.
Flying near the Turkish-Soviet frontier, the aircraft entered Soviet territory under unclear circumstances. The incident triggered a rapid Soviet military response. Though intercepted, the RU-8 managed a forced landing without fatalities. Remarkably, all four crew members survived the ordeal and were later rescued and returned safely, avoiding a major international crisis.
Seminole surviva
The loss of the RU-8 highlighted the risks associated with Cold War intelligence-gathering missions along volatile borders. Reconnaissance aircraft, such as the Seminole, were often deployed in ambiguous airspace, relying on outdated navigation systems and flying perilously close to hostile zones to intercept enemy communications and radar signals.
Despite the successful rescue, the incident served as a stark reminder of how easily intelligence missions could escalate into international incidents. Fortunately, in this case, diplomacy prevailed over escalation. The RU-8 crew’s survival and recovery offered a rare, positive ending in the often dangerous world of Cold War aerial espionage operations.
6: Destroyer down!
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Experts share most accurate Bin Laden Raid Stealth Helicopter Insight and Artwork so far
Designer of Stealth Helicopters takes on the Stealthhawk
Even elite SEAL Team Six members were unaware of the existence of the stealth helicopter days before the famous raid in 2011 that killed Osama Bin Laden. Just before the mission, they were shown the top-secret stealth helicopters and responded, “We have a ‘Transformers’ chopper, we’re going to be alright.”
The helicopters evaded Pakistan’s air defence network thanks to stealth technology and daring ultra-low-level flying. Fourteen years after Bin Laden’s death, the stealth helicopter remains secret, and little other than a tail section left at Bin Laden’s house in Pakistan is in the public domain. But further investigation is possible of this tantalising subject. We analyse and assess previous guesses of its appearance, examine the factors that shaped the helicopter’s design, and consider likely upgrades. We provide what we believe is the most realistic artwork to date. In unravelling this mystery, I enlisted the help of Dr Ron Smith, the former Head of Future Projects at Westland Helicopters, who himself created an early stealth helicopter design, and Dr Michael Carley, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Bath University, specialising in aeroacoustics, and aviation master artist Andy Godfrey from the Teasel Studio.
Reducing the detectable signature of a helicopter
Operationally useful reductions in the observable signature of a helicopter can only really be achieved if low observability is considered as the most dominant design feature from the outset. Clearly, there will be limitations when modifying a pre-existing type and some of these compromises are discussed below.
Type of Aircraft: In terms of the type to be used, this is likely to be a Special Operations mission. This is because Special Forces (SF) missions are very likely to be conducted in contested territory, and SF training and operational procedures will already be in place for such missions. A sufficient force must be deployed to break into a potentially heavily defended compound. In terms of SF equipment to carry that force, the US Army choice would be between the Black Hawk and Chinook.
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One can immediately rule out the Chinook, whose physical size and distinctive acoustic signature would both be problematic.
The starting point is therefore a Special Operations Black Hawk – assumed to be an MH-60M of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment – the ‘Night Stalkers’.
Detection
Helicopter detection will rely on human senses (visual and acoustic), augmented by radar, infra-red and (potentially) night vision sensors.
Taking each detection method in turn, what can we predict about the equipment and operational techniques that could be used for a Special Forces raid into a non-cooperative nation-state?
Visual Detection:
The first requirement is to be quiet. This may seem counterintuitive in the context of visual detection, but anyone who lives in proximity to helicopter operations knows that their unique acoustic signatures often give the first clue that there is a helicopter in the vicinity. The recognisable audible cue is likely to be the first trigger alerting ground forces. Reducing that signature will be discussed in more detail below.
Coming to the purely visual aspects – be hard to see. This would favour being small, but, on the other hand, the chosen aircraft must have sufficient cabin volume to carry the required manpower and equipment to complete the mission. The aircraft must also have sufficient range (fuel capacity) to carry out the mission.
Given the capability available to the US Army, the next obvious operational consideration would be to fly at night, preferably in minimal moonlight conditions. Night vision equipment would be used by the flight crew, but the use of radar for terrain following and obstacle detection / avoidance may not be desirable. The aircraft would, in all likelihood, be painted matte black and would not use navigation lights.
Operational Aspects
The key operational procedure to avoid detection will be to fly as low as possible using valleys and folds in the landscape to remain out of sight (and similarly not visible to ground-based radar or low-light sensors). This implies prior reconnaissance of specific ingress and egress routes – probably based on the best available terrain mapping. Military districts and centres of population must be avoided to the greatest extent possible. In addition, flight techniques will be adopted to minimise the risk of blade slap and other distinctive audio cues.
Acoustic Detection
The most distinctive means of human detection of a helicopter is its acoustic signature. There are several components ranging from pure tones (e.g. the sound of a Gazelle Fenestron or a Wasp tail rotor) to distinctive burbling sounds (e.g. the noise of a Lynx tail rotor interacting with the main rotor wake, for example).
Blade slap, caused by a main rotor blade encountering the tip vortices shed by a preceding blade or blades, produces the ‘wokka, wokka’ beat associated with types such as the Chinook or Bell 212 or 214ST. This is often heard during manoeuvring flight, or when descending or flaring to slow down. It is assumed that routine training will have identified techniques to minimise the risk of blade slap to the greatest extent possible.
There are other more broadband acoustic signatures arising due to gearbox meshing, turbine engine sounds and the general rotor wake.
The primary design approaches to minimise rotor noise would be to reduce main and tail rotor tip speeds and blade loadings. Because of the risk of high blade stresses, gearbox limitations and loss of control power in manoeuvres, the extent to which tip speed can be safely reduced may be somewhat limited. The RAH-66 Comanche had a low-speed quiet mode, which involved a 10% reduction in rotor tip speed, accompanied by corresponding reductions in speed and manoeuvring envelope.
Of course, with the significant redesign, one could consider increasing the number of main rotor blades, combined with a reduced tip speed; however, this would necessitate the design and qualification of a new rotor hub, as well as the development of a revised flight control system and the application of revised transmission and flight control fatigue lives. Unless an ongoing programme of this type is already underway, it is unlikely to be implemented at short notice for a single special operation, regardless of its high profile.
This does not mean, however, that the rather simpler tail rotor could not be redesigned. Given a clean sheet of paper, a Fenestron with unevenly spaced blades would probably offer the quietest solution. In this case, the anti-torque device would also be shielded from radar sensors from a front and rear aspect.
Alternatively, a new tail rotor with lower tip speed and an increased number of blades could be adopted. Whilst remaining balanced, an uneven blade spacing would broaden out the acoustic signature and potentially make it harder to track.
Radar Detection
Since the public showing of the Lockheed F-117 in April 1990, nearly every military platform has been designed with consideration of its radar signature. There is a degree of trade-off between being difficult to detect and track by surveillance radars and being difficult to engage by higher-frequency fire control radars.
For air systems, the general approach has been to reduce the radar cross-section primarily in the frontal aspect and primarily against enemy fire control radar. In most cases, only monostatic threats (i.e. those having co-located radar transmitter and receiver) are considered. Without going into the detailed physics, it is possible to list several guidelines that should be applied, to the maximum extent practicable.
These measures are likely to come with penalties in terms of performance (due to increased weight and drag), and maintenance. Taken to their logical extreme, there will also be compromises in terms of trading off other desirable features that affect survivability, sensor performance, aircraft handling and control, weapon load, radius of action, etc.
The following list addresses topics to be considered; not all of these are likely to be fully implemented, dependent on the threat profile and the degree of risk that the operator / command structure are prepared to accept.
The Paid Subscriber Section HERE Features Full Colour Artworks of the Stealth Blackhawk
You VOTED on the 10 best-looking British aircraft….and here are the results
STAY CALM!
“All beauty is founded on the laws of natural forms.”
– John Ruskin, The Lamp of Beauty
“The U.K.’s perception of beauty is totally out of whack.”
– Gok Wan
You were asked to vote for the best-looking British aircraft. With such a mouthwatering bevvy of sublime flying machines, selection was a tough task for the many people who took part. Such is democracy that, sadly, your favourite aircraft may not have made the list, so apologies in advance (international designs like Concorde and the Eurofighter Typhoon are not included). The good news is that the following ten are all absolute stunners.
Before we look at the winners, let’s look at some stunning machines that failed to make the top 10: Percival Mew Gull, Gloster VI, BAC 221, Miles Hawk Speed Six
NOW TO THE TOP 10
10: de Havilland DH.106 Comet ‘Elizabethan Wet Dream’
The de Havilland company had produced a slew of beautiful aeroplanes throughout the 1920s and 1930s, among them a series of elegant biplanes and the streamlined four-engined DH.91 Albatross airliner (incidentally, voted joint number 11 with the Hawker Typhoon/Tempest). Drawing on their interwar know-how of the highly advanced DH. 88 Comet and Albatross, de Havilland created the phenomenal Mosquito combat aircraft.
Also, de Havilland flew the Vampire jet-powered fighter in the Second World War. When the war ended, with the experience gained from high-speed aircraft, airliners, and jet propulsion, de Havilland was well-positioned to build the world’s first jet airliner. This they did, and the resultant machine, with its sleekly buried engines, streamlined form and bare aluminium, was a revelation when it entered the world.
de Havilland DH.106 Comet
The de Havilland DH.106 Comet was a silver dream of the future when it was unveiled in 1949. In a world of spluttering piston-engined DC-3 airliners, the Comet looked like it had arrived from another planet. It was the world’s first jet airliner, promising unprecedented travel speeds and altitudes. Sadly, the beautiful Comet would have a tragic early life with several crashes.
Later, podded engines would totally dominate airline design, but the Comet’s four jet engines neatly contained in the inner section of the wing was the far more aesthetic solution. The Comet lived on as the military Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft, but it as an airliner that it was purest in form.
9: Blackburn Buccaneer ‘The Lancashire Hotpot Pirate’
A pleasingly left-field choice, the Blackburn Buccaneer was a naval attack aircraft that first flew in 1958. It is not beautiful but imposing, rugged, and rather eccentric in appearance. The Buccaneer was built to operate from Royal Navy aircraft carrier and perform low-level anti-shipping missions. To see a Buccaneer, the observer is impressed by its heavy industrial look, which reeks of physical strength
To create space on the crowded carrier deck, the ‘Bucc’ has folding wings; the ‘Bucc’ is a particularly imposing sight when its wings are folded up. Scale, as with the English Electric Lightning, is where some of the Buccaneer’s visual impact comes from; the massive Buccaneer certainly knows how to dominate a hangar.
Blackburn Buccaneer
The tail section is particularly wonderful; many British jets have a seductively curved leading-edge to their tailfin, but the Buccaneer takes this to extremes, with a long curve that starts halfway down its back. Then we have a T-tail (a design feature that we’ll meet a few more times).
To this already characterful tail, add a banana-shaped (perhaps yam is more appropriate) airbrake protruding from the back, and we have one of the coolest rear-ends in aviation. Incidentally, the Buccaneer’s nickname is not from the airbrake design but because the aircraft was initially known as the BNA (Blackburn Naval Aircraft) or BANA (Blackburn Advanced Naval Aircraft).
As a flying ‘fuck you’ to a world that never truly appreciated it, Blackburn Aircraft Limited, after decades of debacle, went out on a high with this absolute unit.
8: English Electric Lightning ‘Holy fuck!’
The Lightning, with an aggressive spiked cone protruding from its gaping ‘mouth’ is not pretty. It is also probably not conventionally beautiful (though some may disagree): but it is impressive and terrifying in appearance. It looks fast with its unusual wing swept back at an alarming sixty degrees.
The novel feature of overwing stores (ferry fuel tanks and even weapons on export aircraft) also won the Lightning many votes. This unusual feature results from the undercarriage occupying a significant portion of the underwing area that is normally reserved for stores carriage. The position of standard two air-to-air missiles (Red Top and Firestreak) is also rather unusual, being carried beneath the forward fuselage.
The Lightning looked aggressively futuristic, especially in the shiny bare aluminium skin it wore for much of its life. The tail was somewhat brutal, and the aircraft’s proportions imposing. The height of the Lightning is quite remarkable; almost unbelievably, the fighter stands higher than an adult male giraffe.
The most idiosyncratic feature, other than the wing shape, was the double-stacked engines, the twin vertically stacked nozzles at the rear are quite unlike any operational aircraft (though there were a few cancelled aircraft, notably the French SNCASE Grognard which adopted this approach). The Lightning invented heavy metal and tore the sky to pieces, with all the mad performance (and endurance) of an ADHD greyhound.
8: Avro Vulcan ‘The Sound of 1,000 orgasming Brian Blesseds’
Few lucky enough to have seen an Avro Vulcan take off will forget it. The combination of ear-splitting noise and the vast shadowy mass of the delta wing is as dramatic as any opera, and far louder! The Avro Vulcan was a bomber used by the Royal Air Force, first flown in 1952.
Initial Vulcans had a straight leading edge, giving the aircraft a sleek, futuristic look; the later models had a kinked leading edge, which gave a more sinister, perhaps even Gothic appearance. The very thick wing gave the Vulcan a satisfying look of solidity. The Vulcan was unusual in being a subsonic delta.
Avro Vulcan
The Vulcan’s beauty was despite its grim intended role, as a nuclear bomber. The Vulcan enjoyed some wonderful paint schemes, notably the white ‘anti-flash’ for the nuclear role. The 1960s scheme for low-level bombing combined dark green and dark sea grey on top surfaces with Light Aircraft Grey on the underside.
No other aircraft looked like the Vulcan, which oozed charisma and even today, enjoys a larger ‘fan’ following than the other V-bombers, the rather conventional Vickers Valiant and radical Handley Page Victor. Fortunately, the Vulcan never carried out its nuclear attack role but did carry out conventional attacks in the Falklands War of 1982.
7: Vickers VC10 ‘The Flying Jaguar E-Type’
The VC10 was born close to Weybridge in Surrey, England at Brooklands. This was the centre of British speed, both motor racing and aircraft production. Brooklands was where the Hurricane took its first flight, and was instrumental in creating the declinist poster-boy, the cancelled TSR.2 bomber (number 15 in terms of votes).
The VC10 was one of the fastest airliner this side of Concorde and the Tu-144. Its ‘never exceed speed’ was a spritely Mach 0.94. There is a story of a medical emergency onboard a VC10 en route from South Africa being addressed with a FL430 flight at a hair-singeing Mach 0.95. This would have even given Elvis’ speedy Convair a run for its money.
Vickers VC10
Sublimely uncluttered aerodynamic cleanliness defines the appearance of the spectacular Vickers VC10 airliner. Modern airline engines are too big to be put at the back, but this wasn’t the case in the VC10’s time (to be fair, there are other issues with having the engines on the back) and the VC10 had a neat quartet of jets tucked beneath the tail.
The T-tail was a popular feature in British jet aircraft designs of the 1950s, and the VC10 featured one of the most impressive examples. The brilliantly engineered VC10, with its sharply swept wings and T-tail, had a probing dynamic shape, screaming speed and optimism.
6: de Havilland DH.103 Hornet ‘Give me the horn!’
The most qualified pilot to judge a piston-engined fighter was the test pilot Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown, who deemed the single-seat Sea Hornet to be the finest aircraft he ever flew. Thanks to structural techniques developed from the Mosquito, a tiny frontal cross-section and fuselage, and buckets of power, it was joyfully overpowered.
Combat experience was limited to Malaya, where it replaced the Spitfire and the Beaufighter in the ground-attack role, flying over 4,500 reconnaissance and close-support sorties. Hornets also played a part in the dramatic rescue of survivors, including a six-year-old girl, of the shot-down Cathay Pacific DC-4 near Hainan Island in November 1954.
de Havilland DH.103 Hornet
The Hornets were the first to arrive on the scene to search for survivors, followed by a Valetta, Sunderland, York and Privateer. The DC-4 was shot down by PLAAF La-11s for
reasons unclear, either mistakenly for a Taiwanese military aircraft, to kill a Chinese Nationalist ambassador onboard or in a failed attempt to kill former OSS Head ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan.
The Hornet was the zenith of the minimalist school of piston-engined fighter design, which like the earlier Westland Whirlwind (number 17 in terms of votes) mated the minimum possible ‘wetted area’ with the maximum power. The Hornet was an astonishing warplane.
5: Handley Page Victor ‘J.G. Ballard’s Hotrod’
Imagine a Bell X-1 that has been bodybuilding in the year 5000 and returned, obscenely muscular and futuristic, to terrify the 1950s: meet the Handley Page Victor bomber. Fast as a fighter, the Victor brought style to the insane poker game of nuclear brinksmanship. The pinnacle of British aero-engineering, the Victor was a madly impressive machine.
Of the V-bombers, it could be said that the Valiant was lukewarm in performance; the Vulcan a suboptimal approach (something the engineers of Handley Page strongly believed), but the Victor was a horrifically capable courier of the apocalypse, harnessing the white heat of technology to deliver the white heat of atomic holocaust.
Mike Freer – Touchdown-aviation – Gallery page http://www.airliners.net/photo/Handley-Page-HP-
The Victor viewed from the front is an astonishing sight, a Dan Dare or Thunderbird’s-esque vision of a very British kind of futurism. Its faceted cockpit section, aggressive intake and towering T-tail combine to form an utterly unique ‘cathedral of speed’.
Although one of its most defining characteristics is the huge, dihedral tailplane, the Victor was the only production aircraft to emerge from HP’s extensive studies of tailless aircraft, beginning in the 1930s. It directly descends from the studies of Lachmann’s advanced project department and the HP.75 Manx.
4: de Havilland DH.88 Comet ‘The
Credit: Airwolfhound
Just look at the thing. Absolute fucking perfection.
The de Havilland Comet Racer of 1934 is a ravishingly beautiful machine with an incredible, perhaps miraculous, backstory. Sir MacPherson Robertson put up a £10,000 prize (equivalent to £607,000 in 2025) for the winner of an air race from England to Australia, to celebrate the centenary of the Australian state of Victoria.
Whereas most entrants (rather reasonably) chose an existing aircraft, the de Havilland aircraft company proposed a brand-new aeroplane. The new machine, an utterly modern machine embracing all the latest ideas in aeronautical design, went from conception to winning the contest in only nine months!
de Havilland DH.88 Comet
Credit: Alan Wilson
Innovations included a retractable undercarriage (rare in 1934), a new kind of wooden stressed skin, and two-pitch propellers. Despite its slender fuselage, it contained enough fuel to travel 2900 miles (4667 kilometres) on internal fuel! The DH.88 would lead to the Mosquito, one of the best aircraft of the Second World War.
Today, Comet G-ACSS is part of the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden in England. Undoubtedly, this collection contains some of the most gorgeous aircraft in history, most of which sadly failed to make the cut in our poll (due to a paucity of votes), among them the gorgeous Mew Gull and Miles Hawk Speed Six.
3: de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito
The de Havilland company did well on this vote, and unsurprisingly, the ‘Wooden Wonder’ Mosquito was a popular choice. Some note that the Mosquito’s beauty, unlike that of the DH.88, cannot be adequately captured in a photo and that you need to see and hear one in flight to fully appreciate it.
The Mosquito was one of the most versatile, effective and survivable warplanes of the Second World War. Key to its excellence was its impressive turn of speed, the result of a clean light airframe of wooden sandwich construction, and two of the excellent Rolls-Royce Merlin inline engines.
de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito
Although some Mosquito variants could be accused of having a stubby nose, which sits somewhat obscured by the engines in profile, and not the most attractive canopy, it does boast a beautiful wing, engine nacelles and a rather cheeky tail fin with the tailplane protruding further aft in a somewhat eccentric, and quite appealing way.
The inner section of the wing has a far broader chord than the outer, giving the aircraft a look of structural strength. The ratio of propeller disc to overall size accurately gives the impression that is a very powerful machine capable of great speeds. The Mosquito ‘hangs’ together perfectly, as beautiful as it was brilliant.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a Mosquito, but come on, not more beautiful than a Comet surely? But you voted that it was. I’m not saying you’re confusing brilliance with beauty, but…
2: Hawker Hunter ‘The Kingston Gangsta’
The Hawker Hunter was a very popular choice with Hush-Kit readers, and indeed, it is with most aviation enthusiasts. The Hunter is characterised by exquisite curves, without overly aggressive protruding shapes, and appears as if you could run your hand across the entire aircraft without hurting your hand— a key determinant of vehicle beauty, according to car designer Peter Stevens.
Designed by the brilliant Sydney Camm, creator of the Hawker Hurricane, the Hunter inherited another of his designs, the straight-winged (and very pretty) Sea Hawk (above). The neat wing root jet inlets are absolutely elegant, arguably the most fuckable in Cold War aviation, and both have a nose of handsome curve, and the cockpit canopy of a friendly yet formidable shape.
Hawker Hunter
The distinctive curved tail is characteristic of many British designs including the later Hawk T1. This offer aerodynamic advantages but is harder to manufacture, indeed a historical trend in many British aircraft has been aerodynamics over ease of manufacture. This prioritising of aerodynamics often has the happy byproduct of leading to good-looking aeroplanes.
It perhaps should be noted that some do not consider the Hunter to have an ‘all-aspect’ beauty, i.e, it doesn’t look perfect from every viewing angle: the wing chord is a little too deep, and the rear fuselage, a tad too elongated. But these are rather churlish criticisms of what is undoubtedly a very attractive machine. I still can’t believe you heartless bastards didn’t get the de Havilland Albatross or Supermarine S6 into the top 10.
1: Supermarine Spitfire ‘The Nazi-defeating Goddess of Beauty’
The Spitfire, with its mass of complex curves, was a manufacturer’s nightmare but an aesthete’s dream. Its deadly rival, the German Messerschmitt Bf 109, was the opposite, a nasty waspish block of unyielding angularity; the Spitfire, on the other hand, looked alive, a thoroughbred racer of uncluttered smoothness.
An elliptical wing is a wing shape that tapers from the root to the tip in an ellipse. The elliptical wing of many Spitfire marks is considered by many to be very beautiful (as well as being an excellent aerodynamic solution). Some Spitfires had the wingtips cropped for improved low-altitude performance, giving them a more thuggish appearance.
Supermarine Spitfire
The Spitfire inherited much of its good looks from its race plane heritage, and freed from floatplanes was even ‘faster’ in appearance. Intriguingly, floatplane Spitfires were tested in World War II, with one Spitfire Mk IX becoming the fastest floatplane of the war, with an impressive top speed of 377mph.
Those who prefer a spritely, almost canine, nobility of form prefer the early Merlin examples, whereas those who favour a more aggressive, muscular appearance flock to the late Griffon examples. The Spitfire’s beauty is not just based on its shape; one must savour or consider its historical significance, balletic agility and melodious engine sound to appreciate it fully.
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Reviewing two new V-bomber books
V-Force: Britain’s Nuclear Bombers and the Cold War & Shaping the Vulcan
You and I are jaded aviation readers. We have read a hundred books on the Spitfire and have tattoos of Bill Gunston on our left calf and John W R Taylor onour tanned six packs. We know thatwith aviation books, the sauces are more important than the carbs. The carbs in a Spitfire book must tell us it was a legend and won the war, that the engine sounded nice, etc. This part is a given; it is the sauce and seasoning that matter. To put it another way, it is where the author strays off the main path that things get interesting. So a Vulcan book must deliver the carbs: the Vulcan is iconic, delta-winged and thunderous, first flew however many years after the Lancaster, etc., and it must talk about the Cold War, but what’s the sauce? What’s in the luscious creamy sauce? Two V-bomber books are out (or about to be out), and they take two significantly different approaches in a way that makes them pleasantly complementary.
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Shaping the Vulcan by Stephen Liddle.
Let’s start with Shaping the Vulcan by Stephen Liddle. Stephen wrote an analysis of the B-21 Raider for Hush-Kit, and it was brilliant. His background in engineering and aerodynamics shone through, but unusually for someone with a brilliant engineer’s brain, he can speak human. In explaining aspects of an aircraft’s design in minute detail, there is no fudging or hiding behind fancy words; he will find out why a design decision was made and let you know, in a way you can understand. Want to know precisely why the Vulcan’s intake is the way it is, and what all those funny sticky-out bits do? Stephen will lead you through without hurting your head, the result of clearly brilliant detective work and an excellent understanding of the subject. The backstories and individuals are fascinating – find out who ‘accidentally’ designed the exact modern UCAV form in the 1940s (not Horton or Northrop), and other remarkable tales. There’s a lovely chapter on that crime against aerodynamics, the Gloster Javelin, and the batshit plans to unshitify it. Full of fabulous original diagrams and blueprints, including a gloriously scrappy Roy Chadwick pen sketch. This is a fabulous book, and highly recommended.
Link here
Right to V-Force: Britain’s Nuclear Bombers and the Cold War by Jonathan Glancey.
For Garage Rock bands from the 1960s onwards, covering the song ‘Louie Louie’ was how you showed your colours. The audience’s familiarity with the song meant that bands could use it to show off their own style and artistic sensibilities; the Swamp Rats tore it to pieces in 1966, replaced artistry with furious attitude, and invented Punk Rock.
Iggy Pop turned it into a wild treatise at the end of the Cold War, which managed to namecheck Dostoevsky and capture the zeitgeist. A Spitfire book is the ‘Louie Louie’ for aviation writers, with such audience familiarity with the subject: what can authors bring? Glancey did the impossible with Spitfire: The Biography (2007) – he made the subject fresh and pacy. His highbrow background as an architectural critic and writer (with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford) did not make this book elitist; it was totally accessible, well written and utterly enjoyable. His new V-Force book is a pacy, exhilarating paean to three wonders of British post-war aviation. With Glancey’s usual masterly ability to sniff out the best part of a story, V-Force is a thrilling read. While celebrating engineering prowess, it doesn’t duck away from the dark insanity of nuclear testing and warfare, the human story or the V-Force’s many tendrils reaching into popular culture. A must-have for the aviation fan, general history reader or anyone who has ever got a little turned hearing a howling Vulcan bomber! Gripping, witty and well-informed, a thunderous read!
Link here.
Escalation in the Skies: India-Pakistan Aerial Confrontation Deepens Amid Missile Claims and Possible Downed Rafale Jet
Indian Air Force air strikes have been followed by claims of a downed IAF Rafale and evidence of the combat debut of the Chinese PL-15 long-range air-to-air missile.
In a dramatic escalation of cross-border tensions, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has carried out a wave of airstrikes targeting multiple locations within Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The offensive comes just two weeks after a deadly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, located in Indian-administered Kashmir, which left 25 Indian nationals and one Nepali tourist dead. The Indian government has attributed the attack to militants operating from across the border and has vowed a firm military response.
The Indian Defence Ministry officially confirmed the operation, codenamed Operation Sindoor, emphasising that the strikes are part of a broader strategy to dismantle terrorist infrastructure and hold perpetrators accountable. Indian officials described the campaign as a calibrated yet resolute message to those enabling cross-border terrorism.
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Meanwhile, Pakistani authorities have claimed that in the course of retaliatory actions, multiple Indian aircraft were shot down. According to Pakistan’s military spokesperson, at least five IAF jets were downed during the engagement. However, independent verification of this claim remains elusive, and Indian officials have neither confirmed nor denied the losses, maintaining a deliberate silence.
In the contested airspace high above the India-Pakistan border, what was once a standoff has erupted into the most intense aerial conflict between the two countries in decades. Reports suggest that Pakistan may have deployed its most advanced air-to-air missile, the PL-15, a Chinese-designed system known for its long range. Analysts believe this marks one of the first combat uses of the PL-15. The PL-15 missile is equipped with active radar guidance, and is comparable to Western systems such as the AIM-120D AMRAAM and the MBDA Meteor.
The missile’s seeker head (possibly photographed on the ground) is believed to utilise Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar technology, giving it superior resistance to electronic warfare and enhanced target acquisition range. Some sources also suggest it can engage targets at over 200 kilometres under ideal conditions, giving it a formidable edge in beyond-visual-range combat. India also has long-range air-to-air missiles, in the form of Meteors, on its Rafale (though delivered it is not known whether the Meteor are operational). Whether long-range engagements will be seen remains unknown. Such long-range shots require strong situational awareness to avoid the risk of friendly fire, and so far there have been no known examples in air warfare, though last year a Ukrainian surface-to-air missile used shoot-and-scoot tactics to down a Russian Air Force aircraft at an extreme range.
The age of ultra-long-range missiles started with the US Grumman F-14 Tomcat, which entered service in 1974, and the Soviet MiG-31 of 1981. But these heavyweight specialists interceptors were unusual. It was not until the 2010s that longer-range missiles, like the AIM-120D, MBDA Meteor, R-37, and PL-15, began being carried by smaller aircraft.
On-the-ground images and unverified footage have emerged showing wreckage consistent with PL-15 missile components. Debris reportedly discovered in Punjab’s..
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We’ve just written far more than you need to know about the Westland Wyvern, you can’t resist
Prepare for contra-rotating madness on the deck!
The weight of a Dakota, the rampant good looks (and handling) of a rhino on heat, with more horsepower than Genghis Khan, the Westland Wyvern was a thug. This Fleet Air Arm monster was a strike aircraft for a dying empire wishing to administer a little more pain before it bowed out.
Teddy Petter was a complicated man. He gave the world the Whirlwind fighter, the Canberra, and the Gnat* In January 1960, Petter left the aircraft industry forever to become a holy man. He joined the religious commune of ‘Father Forget’ in Switzerland. Years before this, he had started work on one of the most unholy machines in history, the truly wild Westland Wyvern.
*The intakes were designed by Michal Giedroyc, father of British TV presenter Mel Giedroyc from Mel & Sue fame
8. Where should the engines go?
Though the Wyvern looked sensational, it was obsolescent when it finally entered service in 1953. It had first flown in 1946. Its decade-long development essentially condemned it to relative obscurity. This was not the fault of the intrinsic design, which was basically sound, but because the aircraft had to be redesigned not once, but twice, to accept a different engine when the preferred choice became unavailable. Frankly, it’s remarkable that the Wyvern made it into service at all.
When Teddy Petter designed the aircraft in the mid-forties, the intention was to fit a turboprop engine when one became available. The fact that a turboprop engine had not even been flown at this stage shows just how forward-thinking this was. In the meantime, the Air Ministry suggested using the new Rolls-Royce Eagle piston engine, which would be run for the first time in March 1944. However, before this occurred, the Wyvern, as it existed on paper, was a very different creature. Part of the naval requirement was that the new aircraft should boast an excellent view for landing on a carrier deck. However, with conventional single-engined aircraft at the time, this view was impaired by an enormous aero engine placed directly in front of the pilot. Petter initially decided the best way around this was to remove the view-obscuring engine and put it elsewhere.
His first proposal, influenced by discussions with Commodore (later Rear Admiral and chairman of BOAC) Matthew Slattery, Head of the Naval Aircraft and Production Department, featured two Merlin engines mounted in tandem with a drive shaft to rear-mounted contra-rotating propellers. This configuration was (unsurprisingly perhaps) deemed too complex and too much of a risk in the event of a ‘waved-off’ carrier landing, quite apart from risking a diced pilot in the event of bailing out.
Undeterred, Petter decided the Wyvern should instead place a single Eagle (engine, not bird) behind the pilot and drive the propeller by a shaft a la Bell P-39 Airacobra, allowing a good view over the nose for carrier operations and a configuration Westland already had experience with after building the experimental F.7/30 fighter of 1934, designed by Arthur Davenport, then chief designer at Westland. However, others felt that this configuration was too complex and took matters into their own hands. While Petter was away in London, Harald Penrose, Westland’s chief test pilot (who, as well as being an amateur aircraft and yacht designer, would survive four forced landings whilst flight testing the Wyvern), set about modifying the Wyvern mock-up: he cut a cockpit hole in the fuselage above the wing and raised the top line of the fuselage with curved battens until the same view over the nose could be obtained with the engine in the nose as with the rear-mounted engine. Arthur Davenport, still at Westland but now Petter’s deputy, liked the simplicity of this solution. The design was subsequently approved at a mock-up conference with officials, and the rear-mounted engine was discarded.
Now located in the nose, the engine was a complete departure from previous Rolls-Royce products. The sleeve valve Eagle featured a 24-cylinder H-form layout with two horizontally opposed flat 12-cylinder engines driving two crankshafts geared together to power the airscrew. This was precisely the same layout as the wartime Napier Sabre, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and it seems that Rolls-Royce had realised that Napier were building a better-designed engine than their own Merlin and Griffon. The Eagle delivered a whopping 3500 hp and bid fair to endow the Wyvern with a decent enough performance (notwithstanding the Wyvern’s incredible heft), but sadly for Westland, Rolls-Royce decided the future lay with jets (correctly as it turned out) and the Eagle was abandoned.
“I thought the Wyvern was a beautifully built aircraft, but engine and airframe were both new and this is usually a drawback. Taking over 813 Squadron in December 1954, and wishing to arrive in style, I got a Wyvern from Lee-on-Solent to fly out to Malta to join the ship. This particular one had the very latest cartridge starter, two immense cartridges inserted just behind the main air intake. By the time I was ready to start I was expecting something really exciting. It was a few days before November 5.
When I pressed the starter button, the cartridge gases ignited in the engine compressor and blew the spinner backplate into the front propeller, the whole thing flew to pieces and the odds and sods went into the engine and wrecked it. I got to Malta a week later, by Dakota.” – Commander Mike Crosley DSC,
Fly Navy (Pen & Sword Books)
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The Wyvern was duly reworked to accept a very promising turboprop engine, the Rolls-Royce Clyde. This engine was lighter than the Eagle but was rated at an impressive 4030 hp, exactly the sort of power the Wyvern needed. Sadly for Westland (again), Rolls-Royce felt the future lay with pure turbojets, not turboprops (incorrectly this time). Hedging their bets somewhat, development of the (ultimately very successful) Dart continued, but the Clyde was abandoned. This left very few options for the Wyvern and Westland alighted on the best of what was left, the Armstrong Siddeley Python. This was not an ideal engine for a carrier fighter and was more challenging to integrate with the airframe. Subsequent testing revealed that the Python did not like the sudden acceleration of a catapult-assisted takeoff and had a tendency to flame out immediately after launch. This very problem led to the most famous Wyvern escape, described further down. It also suffered from a prolonged spool-up time, meaning that speed changes, such as might be needed in a go-around, were far less rapid than desired. These issues were improved over time, but never entirely eradicated and most of the operational accidents of the Wyvern could be ascribed to the unfortunate Python.
As for visibility, Georges Barras of 813 Squadron noted, “..the long nose totally obscured the landing area of the deck, leaving the pilot to find the centre line by keeping in the middle between the mirror landing sight on the left and the island and the island superstructure on the right. It was a bit hit and miss as to which wire, if any, were caught, and there was a high proportion of ‘bolters’ (missed all the wires, go round again.”
7. Wyvern Tail
The Wyvern is named for a type of dragon with two legs, two wings, which often has a pointed tail. Presumably as a nod to this mythical beast, Petter gave the aircraft a massive….read the rest of the exciting Wyvern story on our Substack here.
Read the rest of the exciting Wyvern story on our Substack here.
10 warplanes that definitely shouldn’t have carried nuclear weapons, but did
BOOM BOOM BOOM
In researching this article, I spoke to crews of B-52s, B-47s and Vulcans and even chatted on a train with a nuclear scientist. The scientist was more alarmed by the risks of an accidentally dropped nuke than were the Air Force people, so make of that what you will.
WARNING: Do not read this article if you are alarmed by accounts of nuclear accidents
“Broken Arrow is a code phrase that refers to an accidental event that involves nuclear weapons, warheads or components”
A honeybee typically dies after stinging because its barbed stinger gets lodged in the skin of its opponent. When the honeybee tries to fly away, it ruptures its abdomen and internal organs, killing it. Not to be outdone, humans developed a form of self-defence that could potentially kill all humans and make entire regions or even the whole planet uninhabitable. So far, so spicy, but not spicy enough.
To make this enterprise even more exciting, nukes were carried by utterly inappropriate aircraft with deeply concerning crash rates. With 32known Broken Arrow incidents, each with the risk of accidental detonation (see below), contamination or theft of nuclear devices, the apocalypse almost came to town riding a flaming clown car. Here are 10 of those clown cars.
10. Boeing B-47 Stratojet
I asked former B-47 pilot Colonel G. Alan Dugard (Retired) what B-47 pilots were most afraid of
“Loss of an outboard engine on take off. This caused a number of take-off accidents. Two at my home base in New Hampshire and others at other locations. It was discovered that the pilots’ reaction to this was to use aileron movement to correct the loss of direction control. Photos later discovered the problem was exacerbated by the use of aileron and resulted in a situation called “Roll due to Yaw”. Correction of only rudder would correct the roll.”
Then, there were the cataclysmic structural problems. 58 B-47s were lost in only two years, 27 in 1958 alone. Over its lifetime, 203 B-47s were lost in crashes, resulting in 464 deaths. Across 3,725,585 flying hours, 288 aircraft were involved in Class A mishaps. Which, as abysmal as it sounds, is pretty much the gold standard for safety for a first-generation jet aircraft. Unfortunately, a big chunk of the ten per cent of the fleet that did meet fiery ends carried nukes. On 10 March 1956, one just disappeared in the Med. It wasn’t carrying a bomb, but was carrying ‘nuclear capsules’. A nuclear capsule is a small, sealed container holding a radioactive material, which can be dangerous if handled improperly (like being dropped into the sea in a bomber, for example).
Around five months later, on 27 July 1956, a B-47 slid off the runway during a touch-and-go landing and smashed into an igloo full of nuclear weapons.
Losing a nuke in the sea is one thing, but in 1958, a USAF B-47 dropped a nuclear weapon on South Carolina. It started 25 minutes after takeoff. Captain Bruce Kulka, was ordered to the bomb bay area after the captain of the aircraft, Captain Earl Koehler, noticed a fault light indicating that the bomb harness locking pin had not engaged. As Navigator and Bombrdier, Kulka was sent into the bomb bay to insert a locking pin into the bomb shackle to prevent accidental release. The bomb bay and its access were so confined that the Navigator had to take off his parachute. After climbing onto the bomb while trying to locate the right place to put the pin, he accidentally released it. This left him and the bomb on the sheet metal bomb bay doors, which opened almost immediately after. Although the bomb dropped, the Navigator somehow found his way back into the cockpit. The bomb hit the ground, and its conventional high explosives detonated, damaging buildings and killing six people. The Air Force was sued by the victims, who received US$54,000 (600,000 in 2025 dollars). The lead-up to what became known as the 1958 Mars Bluff tragedy inspired the penultimate scene in Dr Stranglove.
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During a night practice exercise in 1958, an F-86 fighter collided with a B-47 carrying a 7,600-pound (3,400 kg) Mark 15 nuclear bomb. Fearing a crash, the B-47 crew jettisoned the bomb off the coast of Tybee Island, Georgia. The B-47 recovered back to base. After unsuccessful searches, the weapon was declared lost. Later investigations found freakishly high radiation levels in the Wassaw Sound bay area.
9: Boeing B-52 Stratofortress
Operation Chrome Dome (1961 to 1968) was akin to a man protecting his garden from his neighbour by walking around with a rucksack full of TNT, smoking a cigar, 24 hours a day, drunk, and hoping nothing went wrong. Except instead of a man with a sack of TNT, it involved actual B-52s loaded with thermonuclear bombs on continuous airborne alert. The United States Air Force maintained up to 12 nuclear-armed bombers airborne 24 hours a day. In a move that almost anyone could have predicted, it went horribly. It took a mere five Broken Arrow events to kill the operation.
On October 15, 1959 Sarah Ferguson, former wife of disgraced British Prince Andrew and author of Budgy the Helicopter, was born. Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera was murdered in Munich by Soviet KGB agent Bogdan Stashinsky with a hydrogen cyanide gas gun shot into Bandera’s face. Meanwhile..
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A Crew Chief’s guide to looking after the U-2 spyplane
Pampering the ‘Dragon Lady’
“On 9/11, I told the Chief of the Guards that if my guys were not allowed in when they came, not only would they have to answer to the President of the United States, but I will personally come over there and shit down his neck…”
Retired SMSgt TJ NIZNIK was a U-2 Crew Chief
Everything about the U-2 is unique. The U-2 was designed for a very specific mission, and the designer of the U-2, Kelly Johnson, once said, and I paraphrase, “If you want this aircraft to go high, I cannot design it to military specification”. The U-2 is known to save weight. For instance, there are very limited access panels. The requirement of having 2-3 threads of a screw protruding past the nut plate was reduced to being flush with the nut plate. Every pound of weight saved is a foot higher in altitude, and altitude is survivability. There are no self-sealing fuel cells on this jet. The U-2 is a wet wing, meaning the entire wing, from the wing tip to the fuselage, is all fuel. No single point refueling for this jet, nope it’s all over the wing refueling. There are 6-8 Crew Chiefs assigned to the aircraft, which is very unlike the rest of the Air Force, where 2-3 are typical.
“The biggest difference between the U-2 and A-10 pilots is that one thought their shit didn’t stink, and the other group knew their shit didn’t stink.”
The U-2 is a groundcrew nightmare. This is the only aircraft in my career where there is a file system of manufactured blueprints on hand because the tech data may only say remove and replace item X. Well, in any other military standard aircraft the tech data will be step-by-step how to remove and reinstall a part, with pictures and part numbers for consumable items. Not this jet.
The tech data will tell you what to do, but to find out the list of consumables, the ‘angle to the dangle’ of each fitting to be installed, etc, you will have to pull the blueprint and take all of the references from that. Now, I left the program in 2002, and they have been diligently working on changing the tech data to become more to standards. Another unique item is that this is the last taildragger in the inventory. With a bicycle landing gear and outboard wing pogo to prop up the wing during ground movement, this aircraft cannot turn on a dime.
It needs space, and some pilots misjudge their turn and get stuck on a taxiway, only to be rescued by a bunch of Crew Chiefs who will push back the jet and manually realign him. To fix a hydraulic leak in the engine bay, the jet has to be placed on a fuselage dolly, the tail section is removed, the engine is removed, and then one can tighten the fitting. Then it’s a 23-36 hour job to reinspect the entire inside and have Quality Assurance Inspections performed after you just inspected it before you can begin reinstalling everything. This is a time-consuming jet. However, every effort to eliminate this jet from the inventory has met in disaster because no other platform can do what this aircraft can.
