aviation - the past, present and future of flight

In the Luftwaffe, the Fulcrum did not

have an air-to-ground role. Not all the NVA

pilots were integrated into the Luftwaffe, for a

variety of reasons.

Wolfgang Michalski said: “After the

Luftwaffe decided to keep the MiG in the

inventory at least for a limited period, it was

my job to build up an operational  ghter

squadron according to NATO standards and

to integrate former NVA pilots.

“Due to the differences in philosophy and

education, this was a long and rocky road.

We lost a number of people due to STASI

[East German Secret Service] connections

and an inability to adapt to our procedures

and our modes of operation with an aircraft

like this.”

The necessity to learn English was also

a requirement for the pilots. They had to get

used to all communications being in English,

whereas up to this point they had only been

in Russian. This was not an easy task and

some undoubtedly fell by the wayside in not

meeting this requirement.

In addition, all cockpit labelling was in

Russian and instrumentation data in the

metric system. It took time to convert the

aircraft.

Michael Wegerich recalled: “Since not all

aircraft could be upgraded at the same time,

specially trained pilots  ew with the ‘English’

cockpit and the remainder with the ‘Russian’

cockpit. All regulations were also translated

into English. I found this somewhat bizarre at

the time, translating everything into English

on a Russian airplane which only German

pilots were to  y.”

During the transitional period after

reuni cation, there were still Russian Air

Force units in Germany and the Preschen

MiGs often liaised with them. The Federal

German Government had agreed with the

Russians regarding spares for the Fulcrums

and co-operation over  ying schedules, but

there were occasions when the pilots and

maintenance crews at Preschen had to make

their own arrangements.

Michael Wegerich recalled one such

instance: “We had failures in the airborne

radar and had to change a circuit board.

The supplies were quickly used up and the

Luftwaffe’s Command could not procure new

circuit boards quickly enough.

So, our radar specialists (former NVA

officers), with vodka and other gifts, visited

the MiG-29 wing at Merseburg [Soviet MiG-

29 base] and promptly brought the desired

circuit boards to Preschen. After the  rst

 ights with the new circuit boards, the pilots

were surprised by the performance of the

radar. Targets were faster to locate and the

lock-on was much more stable.

“If we had not got the circuit boards from

the Russian MiGs by visiting Merseburg,

we would never have known about this

improvement in performance.”

On another occasion, Michael organised

with the Soviet Sukhoi Su 24 Fencer base

at Welzow, some 31 miles (50km) from

Preschen, to use their air eld as an alternative

landing base for the MiG-29s, as many former

NVA bases were no longer available. At the

same time, the Su-24s were offered similar

facilities at Preschen. This arrangement lasted

until the Russians left Germany in 1993.

In June 1993, the Luftwaffe activated

Jagdgeschwader (Fighter Wing) 73 (JG 73)

at Preschen to which the MiG squadron

was assigned and assumed QRA alert. In

October 1994, the move began to Laage Air

Base in the north of Germany. By December,

JG 73 had completed the transfer.

Meanwhile, in 1994, JaboG 35 at

Pferdsfeld was given an air defence role and

reduced to one squadron. Its F-4Fs were

then part of JG 73, although at this time

the Phantoms remained at Pferdsfeld, later

moving to Laage Air Base to join the MiG-29

squadron in September 1997.

At Laage the MiG-29s assumed a QRA

alert as they had done at Preschen.

http://www.aviation-news.co.uk 23

‘It was “the

opponent”, the

ultimate threat, we

were trained to fi ght

and all of a sudden

we were about to

fl y it ourselves’

In September 1997, the F-4F Phantoms of JG 73 joined the MiG-29s at Laage, having

previously been based at Pferds eld. Stefan Petersen

Flying over the Mediterranean in the

company of a couple of JG 73 MiG-29s are

two 510th FS F-16Cs, two Italian Air Force Lockheed

F-104 Star ghters, and two Luftwaffe F-4Fs. All the aircraft

were detached to Sardinia for DACT training. USAF Archives

The story continues next month with more

on how the German MiG-29s were used

by NATO and their phasing out of service.

18-23_german_migsDCDC.mfDC.mf.indd 23 05/02/2018 14:03