RETURN OF THE FOXBATSticed by Israel. Bezhevets was summoned to Okunev: “Moscow is asking how you can
fly without any response.” They concluded that the Israelis simply could not believe
the flight characteristics of the blips on their radar screens. Headquarters authorized
more sorties in the same pattern. The second flight was sent over Israel proper, and
from here on the Soviets knew their new trump card had been detected. Monitoring
the flights from the ground, Bezhevets always saw the same picture: as soon as a
Foxbat came over the Mediterranean, up to ten IAF planes and sometimes more
would appear around Israeli airbases. “When you’re flying in the MiG’s cockpit you
don’t suspect that a hunt [is on] after you, but on the ground when you see the arma-
das chasing your comrade it gets very uncomfortable.”
An elaborate technique for protecting the Foxbat’s vulnerable stage—takeoff and
landing—was now perfected, and soon detected by the Israelis too. In November,
Rabin told Sisco that twelve Soviet-piloted MiG-21s were scrambled to create a
cluster of radar blips around each MiG-25. The following month, IAF chief Hod
spoke of three full squadrons performing this maneuver.^27 Pilot-instructor Petr
Rubtsov, who began his spetskomandirovka (special mission) in November 1971,
describes this exercise in detail but mentions only four MiG-21s taking off from his
base north of Cairo at high speed toward the canal and swerving south at the last
minute, while two MiG-25s continued into Sinai. Either additional MiG-21s took
off from other bases, or the Israelis were overawed. Soviet accounts add that elec-
tronic-warfare platform planes were also used to obscure the Foxbats’ activity, while
the MiG-25s themselves observed radio silence throughout.
The Israelis’ quick response despite this smokescreen rekindled the Soviets’ security
concerns. As Rubtsov describes, “whenever we developed a battle plan together with
the Arabs, it quickly became known to the other side.”^28 As the 63rd’s personnel were
proudly told, their audacity was even discussed in the Knesset “and an official declara-
tion was published that Soviet pilots would no longer be permitted to overfly Israel.”
The Soviets suspected that their identity had been reported by Israeli agents in the
Eg yptian military. Baevsky’s suspicions about the photo in the Cairo paper deepened:
“we clearly were being watched constantly and attentively, by more than one person,
and every day this was increasingly confirmed.”
Bezhevets noticed that IAF scrambling in Israel began even before the time that had
been given to the Eg yptians for the MiG-25s’ takeoff. Secrecy was tightened even fur-
ther, and only a small group was informed at the last minute that a sortie was about to
begin. Originally, on a concrete apron between the four plane shelters, a cross had been
marked to calibrate the automatic navigation system before each flight. But rolling the
plane out and positioning it over the cross could give away an impending flight, so
instead a separate geodesic setting had to be made for each hangar. Various deceptions
were tried out: mock engine tests were abruptly turned into takeoffs. The Soviets cred-
ited such tactics for making the IAF scramble several times a week for more than a year,
even though the actual Foxbat flights were much less frequent.