Fiddler & Mystic.

This is coolbert:

From the Russian aviation web site we have some startling assertions that I must question.

First regarding the Soviet era interceptor aircraft Tu-28 NATO codename "Fiddler":

"Many NATO automatic recce aerostatic balloons were shot down by Tu-128s in 1970s."

And for the high-flying M17 reconnaissance aircraft NATO codename "Mystic":

"Myasishchev/Molniya M-17 "Mystic" (Ram-M) was designed originally as high-altitude aircraft with a dorsal gun turret, to shot down US reconnaissance balloons floated over the USSR after WWII."

* "Tu-128A 36.5K Fiddler (Monino Museum, Moscow 26-Aug-1995) - The Tu-28 (bureau designation Tu-128) is a development of the Tu-98 bomber. It is probably the largest fighter ever built, and armed with outsized missiles. Around 200 were built, to patrol to vast areas of Siberia, which are not protected by a SAM screen. [the] main objective was to intercept B-52 long before they approached the soviet airspace. Twin-engined, two seat long-range all-weather interceptor."

* "M-17 Mystic-A/Stratosfera [Ram-M] - Single-seat high-altitude research aircraft ([Ram-M] - high altitude balloon interceptor) designed originally as high-altitude aircraft with a dorsal gun turret, to shot down US reconnaissance balloons floated over the USSR after WWII."

These "US reconnaissance balloons" and  "NATO automatic recce aerostatic balloons" are the various unmanned intelligence-gathering projects as sent aloft beginning in the late 1940's and ending [?] in the middle 1950's? Free-floating and very high-altitude balloons "Projects" having names such as Skyhook, Mogul, Moby Dick, Grandson, Genetrix.

"Project Genetrix was a United States Air Force program which, beginning in January 1956, sent 516 surveillance balloons over Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in order to take photographs and collect intelligence. Authorized [Genetrix] by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on December 27, 1955 . . . Genetrix was a follow up to Project Skyhook, Project Mogul, Project Moby Dick and Project Grandson."

These "projects" ended with the advent [1956] of the U-2 reconnaissance airplane? The unmanned balloon "projects" for intelligence gathering produced very meagre and scant results, probably not even worth the time, money, manpower invested?

[in lieu of a better way to do things, given the technology existing at the time, the balloons were what you went with, no other alternative existing - - even if the results were unsatisfactory!]

"Fiddler" and "Mystic" did not come off the drawing boards until some time AFTER these balloon projects came to an end? There WERE NO shoot-downs as claimed because from 1956 onward there were NO balloons to shoot at? After the mid-1950's there was the U-2 and after the U-2 there were space satellites, the need for balloons passe' and outmoded - - the very concept of balloon intelligence gathering overflights flawed and ineffective to begin with!

Maybe the Russians know something the rest of us do not know?

coolbert.