True Story

A friend of mine and his buddy were stationed in Germany during the Cold War. Their job was to man the early warning radar towers to see if any Russian planes were on 'their way.' It was a Sunday morning and the two of them has been out the night before and being rather thirsty, consumed massive amounts of beverages. They were a bit hung over; actually still drunk. So they were tending to other things when they were startled by a knock at the door. After wiping the sleep from their eyes they opened the door and there stood a Russian pilot in full flight gear. He had come across the border, landed on a deserted road and expected to be greeted for his defection. Instead, no one had met him so he hitched a ride with a farmer in a horse driven kart who took him to the Americans. They all jumped into a jeep, and drove back to where he had landed. Sitting there was a MIG with full bombs and missiles. They told their CO that the radar was on the blink that morning and that is why they missed him. True story.

 

One of my customers was a CF-104 nuclear strike/recce pilot with the RCAFand was stationed in West Germany during the late 60's..........he told me a story about how one time during a low level training exercise his radar and instruments went wonky and when combined with the typical european weather he kinda lost his bearings. As he was flying near the Czech border at the time he was a little concerned about creating an airspace violation, so he decided to get real low and look around at 200' AGL when a large patch of clear air presented itself, to see if he could find a main road or some large population centre. He said he figured he'd done it when he flew over large airbase, only to realise that it was a Czech one and not a NATO facility. Ooooopps........