Toryu 156 Posted July 20, 2012 (edited) Okay. To the KAL story.There was a RC-135 in the aera. That had sniffed around a lot of times, came over the radar horizon and hide behind it. Again and again, contiuse provocation over some hours. When the KAL007 appeared, the RC-135 was on the way home, but the soviets thought, that the KAL Jumbo was the RC-135 again. Missidentifikation is easily possible, because the RC-135 has a humpback like the 747. The RC-135 does not have a humpback. The 747 is more than a third larger than the RC-135. You can actually not mistake those two aircraft when taking yout time to identify it. Had they not acted under pressure from avove, everybody would have walked home that night. The americans were aware of the soviet alert situation and knew that the kAL was away from its course. In this situation they could have easily contacted the KAL plane or via Red Telephone the soviets. But they did nothing. The americans didn't know of the 747's deviation, because the area is not surveilled by radar. In fact, the 747 used to report being over their INS-waypoints, when they in fact weren't. The crew of 007 didn't even get suspicious, when a KAL 747 a couple of minutes behind them had a signifigantly (somwhat like 35 knots!) different wind aloft. Their mistake was not engaging the INS-waypoint following mode of the autopilot - instead, they flew on a constant heading, which would have gotten them to Seoul as well (I wonder if they'd have enough fuel aboard to make the trip, any way!). However, their lateral deviation was a couple of hundred miles. The US also surely won't call the Cremlin and admit they're espionaging the soviet ballistic missile tests at Kamchatka - that would be the opposite of "intelligence". The american side is as guilty as the soviet side for the dead of innocent people. No, they weren't. Later, when they shot down an iranian A300 and gave the Vincennes' skipper a medal for it, they joined the club. This is only partly true. It was identified as a 4 engine plane with humpback and lights on the side. In the soviet air community is gave the rumour, that the americans used camo lights to cover their SIGINT RC-135 as Boing 747, so the KAL Jumbo was seen as american spy plane and thatswhy shoten down. How would those "camo lights" work then? A nav-light is a nav-light. It looks pretty much the same on all large airplanes. There's no such thing a "camo lights". None of those cowboys could have come up with the idea of using the depression of the gunsight to check distance against wingspan? If that RC-135 has a 747's wingspan, it's most-propably a 747. It's always the other guy's fault! Another good example of soviet paranoia. -+-+-+-+- The soviets have always been more paranoid about airspace-intruders than the westerners (with notable exceptions - one of them an israeli F-4, shooting down a 727 over the Sinai in daylight). Then again, the soviets also played the cat's and mouse game and used trawlers on the high seas to gather intel about US carrier groups - sometimes forcing them to maneuver hard while launching or recovering aircraft! The soviets also tested various air-defence networks by sending the daily Bear. They also took a couple of nice photos of US carriers while overflying very close and low. None of them got shot down. Why didn't they overfly the US and spy-out the ICBM-silos and air-bases? Because they couldn't build an airplane that was suitable, and they couldn't build-up a support-force. They sure as hell would have done it, given half a chance! Edited July 20, 2012 by Toryu Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Derk 265 Posted July 20, 2012 (edited) The Korean 747 should have been forced to land, That's that, the other actions were criminal . Back in the '50's Aeroflot started fying from Moscow to Amsterdam with Tu- 104's, the absolute Badger lookalike,directly developed from it, including the bombers nose. In the north part of our country where we lived then, directly under the airway to the northeast from Schiphol, we regularly saw USAFE 32 FIS "Wolfhounds" F-100 C's from Soesterberg and our own Hunters doing practice intercepts (!) at 30.000 + feet on the Tupolev's (great to see what an afterburner does to a contrail). But on the other side I have seen the Tupolev's flying very much outside the airways at low altitude (a few thousand feet) ..... All our airbases and military installations were photographed, either from directly overhead or oblique. Usually there were "technical problems" in the Tu's, forcing it away from the airway ......... Definitely no question of shooting it down however.... Edited July 20, 2012 by Derk Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Gepard 11,356 Posted July 20, 2012 (edited) One picture says more than thousand words: This picture is taken from an old east german airplane recon book. It clearly shows a humpback four engine plane which can easily missidentified as a 747. Missidentification is possible, especcially by night. Toryu, the rumour of the camo lights said, that the american used them to simulate the lights of the windows of the passenger cabin. (Es sollte aus der Entfernung so aussehen, als ob Licht aus den Fenstern der Passagierkabine kommt.) Edited July 20, 2012 by Gepard Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Toryu 156 Posted July 20, 2012 That looks like a very specific version of the RC-135 (there were lots of versions, depending on the mission!). I have never seen a picture of an RC-135 with a hump before. There are no passenger-windows on that hump (ten hump-windows on each side on a 747-200). Those fake "passenger lights" would make more sense than anything elase, but they'll also give the target away at night. Also, a 747 is signifigantly larger than the RC-135. It furthermore has 5 exit-doors as opposed to 2 (on a 707). I still think the misidentification-thing is dicey. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FastCargo 412 Posted July 21, 2012 Because that picture isn't a RC-135. It's an NKC-135...an airborne test laser...NOT a recon aircraft. And it's silly at best to mistake a 747 for even a NKC-135. Especially when you fly right beside it matching airspeeds. Unless you don't know what a 747 looks like. FC Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MigBuster 2,884 Posted July 21, 2012 Various interceptors including the CF-18 and Danish F-16s had lights on them so they could identify the target even at night - that's not exactly high tech is it - the main point of a manned interceptor is that it can properly identify the target! Shooting down a target you don't identify properly is no better in reality than firing a SAM at a radar blip. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Gepard 11,356 Posted July 30, 2012 Because that picture isn't a RC-135. It's an NKC-135...an airborne test laser...NOT a recon aircraft. And it's silly at best to mistake a 747 for even a NKC-135. Especially when you fly right beside it matching airspeeds. Unless you don't know what a 747 looks like. FC This is not the point. (I agree with you, that it is no RC-135. And i agree with you all, that the shot down of KAL007 was wrong.) The point is, that this picture was in an aircraft identification book. It was wrong, but who on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain had known, that it was wrong? I think nobody. If you has only this picture as reference then a missID is possible. The pilot got the order to intercept an american "Spyplane". He knew the shape of the "RC-135" from ID book. Then he detected the intruder, saw the shape which he identified as RC-135. He saw what he expected to see. A fatal human error. (To be honest, how often a man see what he is expecting to see instead the reality? Very often.) Of course the 747 is much bigger then the RC-135, but i doubt, that the soviet pilot had seen a 747 in reality before. A bad guess is not impossible, especially at night and under stress. At night you barely see more than a shape of the plane and some lights. If the shot down would have been at daylight i would completly agree with you, but it was happend at night. To MiGBusters argument with the search lights. As far as i know the soviet fighters does not had such lights. The only "search" lights were the landing lights, which came out with the landing gear. There it no way to deploy the gears at 800 kph or so. The soviet fighters had position lights, we called them Majaks (Lighthouse if i remember correct). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
B52STRATO 215 Posted July 31, 2012 What I am going to write could be stupid, but this Flagon pilot, would he could not get onto the forward left or right of the 747, or even in front of him at a little more height, then turn on his beacon or even light the A/B for a moment to being perceived ? If the control was aware that it was an RC-135, it should also be aware that this aircraft is only provided with passive defense systems and would in no case be able to fight back or run away ? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted July 31, 2012 The point is the local commander wanted the plane shot down, not run off. He was so eager for that he wasn't going to believe it if the pilot said that it was an airliner because of where it was. He believed it HAD to be a 135, so it was going down. Anything he said after was regret for his own bad judgement. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
