As I come from the Czech Republic, I got to read some inside-sight stuff about the soviet-made aircraft. Mostly MiG-21s (which we, meaning Czechs and Slovaks, manufactured in licence) and -23s, but also ground attack Sukhois (mostly Su-7s of various versions and Su-22s; we also had Su-25s, bot there's not as much info on that). All of the info applies to the then-People's Army of the Czechoslovakia Air Force.
Anyway, I thought I could share some info if someone was interested. So...
There is a story from one maintenance guy from 47th Aviation Recon Regiment
(his \"specialization sector\"was 430, making him an \"aircraft ingeneering specialist on airframes and engines\"), who went to Russian tundra with our Su-22s for some tac-nuke training. Our crew accidentally filled the fuel tank with diesel instead of kerosine, so he went to some Russian in order to get a tanker for draining out the diesel and washing out the fuel tanks. Instead of providing him with desired tanker truck, the Russian guy just walked him to the plane and showed him a little table with \"Toplivo\" written on it (Fuels in plural). The Su-22s were (at least) partly multi-fuel, capable of working with some amount of oil/diesel in the fuel system..
As for the tac-nuclear stuff, PAotCZ never had any at it's disposal
(and most probably, there were no nukes on Czechoslovak soil, although some people believe there were nuclear warheds on the Russian Temp-S tactical missile unit, dislocated in Hranice na Moravě). But, there was a huge infrastructure built for it - there were special bunkers called \"Granit\" nearby airfields and some designated fighter bomber units (mostly Su-22s) had special training in handling nuclear weapons, which were called \"special products\". As far as common understanding goes, nuclear weapons were to be airlifted from Ukraine to Czechoslovakia in the case of political escalation (something like DEFCON 2, I suppose), relocated to Granits and in case of further escalation and political decision to strike, finally taken from Granits to czechoslovak units, which were supposed to execute the first strike (and bleed out doing that).
Interesting note: about the 2000's, there were numerous photos of Granit 1's through the newest Granit 5's on czech website fortifikace.net, which specializes on abandoned bunkers and so on. They also had photos of abandoned Polish bunker of air awarness control - sometginh like US: Cheyenne mountain. By now, all these photos have disappeared from the Czech internet...
In the 1980s, our air force was getting another batch of it's Su-25s, which were flown to Czechoslovakia by Russian pilots. One of them was so addicted to smoking he was rushing out of the \"Frogfoot's\" cockpit so fast he activated the ejection seat lever by his leg. Aircraft canopy was pyrotechnically jettisoned - and fell on the wing, seemingly halting the rest of the ejection process (seat remained on it's place). Our mechanics rushed to disarm the ejection seat, in which they succeeded, saving the life of the russian smoking addict.
This incident happened because unlike the previous versions, which had a button on the ejection seat lever, Su-25K/UBK had a new ejection seat lever without any buttons to press or other mechanisms (probably to speed up the ejection process in low altitudes). This particular seat didn't eject just because the armored plate located behind pilot's head stayed in it's place, instead of falling out and therefore arming the last remeaning safety.
Other maintenance guy wasn't so lucky. He was working in Aero Vodochody, the manufacturing line for L-39 Albatros jet trainers. His job was to reach under the ejecting seat of each aircraft in hanger, making sure the pyrotechnical stuff for ejecting seat was removed prior to transport/storing/whatever. But this guy was to lazy and quickly became annoyed of having to actually get into the cockpit and reach under the seat, just to find it's OK, with no pyro-bag there. So he found out an \"improvement\": instead of checking absence of the pyro-bag, he simple leaned to the aircraft from the outside and pulled the ejection seat lever. Seat didn't eject, he had his proof and could have checked the appropriate field in his checklist. One day, there was a pyro-bag. Ejection seat activated, taking his head and upper torso throughout the hanger roof. Laziness kills... (I've been told this particular story by a guy who worked there with him).
Talking about Aero Vodochody, contemporary Czech Air Force is - apart from others - flying L-159 Alcas (or ALCSs, in which case it's an acronym meaning \"Advanced Light COmbat Aircraft), which are aerodynamically derived from the \"Albatros\" series, but have western's avionics incl. radar and engines
(Alca was developed with Boeing as strategic investor. Many people really hate that company, as it's managers came, ruined the company by buying expensive office equipment as well as some weird management practices and then bugged out of bancrupting company just to make friends with BAe systems and their \"Hawk\"). Anyway, got some nice photos of one particular <strike that - see below>L-159</> L-39, which collided with a buzzard:
The windshield is built to withstand 7,62 ammo; don't know whether 7,62x54 or 7,62x39, though. It didn't stand a chance against such sized bird anyway - it's nowhere near the Hog, speaking of ballistic protection.
Other than that, L-159s flying OPFOR on various NATO flying exercises managed to \"shoot down\" few F-16s and F/A-18s; first of those was on Nato Air Meet 2005, where Alca flying a night strike mission managed to \"down\" an F-16.
Another Su-25K story. Aircraft technician along with flight element technician were doing a motor check on then-new \"Frogfoot\". Fligh element technician took a pilot seat and controlled the systems, while aircraft technician (technical sergeant) was standing outside, doing visual check. During the second part of the motor check, the guy standing outside saw that some switches being \"off\", while they should have been \"on\" for the motor check - so he decided to activate them. Unfortunately, these switches were next to the one of the engine inlets. In the precise moment the guy stretched his hand to the switches, the engine tried to suck him inside. As he had his upper torso in the engine inlet (he was only holding the inlet by one hand), the engine sucked the cossack-hat from his head [these were allowed on subsonic aircraft during winters). The cossack hat caused immediate change in the air flow, resulting in and engine stall, which created overpressure before the compressor, literally pooping the young mechanic from the engine inlet and into safety. He survived with just some bruises and shock.
These are all the stories I know, but on palba.cz website, there are numerous details on technical stuff, published by nickname Pop - he's a guy who worked in the air force and knows a lot of the pilots, being a go-between between ex-pilots and crews and the internet audience. So, just the few he has got about \"Frogfoot\":
Unlike A-10, the Su-25's external fuel tanks weren't filled by the aircraft's fuel system, but manually - each ext tank on it's own, via tanking fuel hose similar to the one on a gas station. Each tank had it's own floater, visually indicating fuel level to the ground crew.
In the event of trigger activation, the Su-25 automatically eject flares - philosophy behind this is simple: pilot is presumably doing an airstrike on enemy, which will fire back. Pilot would have no time to thing about flares, so the plane will launch them for him.
- - -
This is all I have on Su-25; if it's of any interest to you guys, I could translate some tech details on MiG-21 and -23. If you would have some Su-25-speficic questions, I could try to ask him on your behalf. I just hope I don't bother you by all this stuff.
Apart from that, please excuse my English - my passive knowledge of the language far exceeds the active one and as I learned most of the language learned from reading books and watching movies, not even the best spell checker could fix my quite thorough ignorance of grammar.
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