Anyone intercept this in the 80's?

[Pittsextra]

Soviet Union used civilian airliners to spy on Britain - Telegraph

[ORAC]

We didn't intercept, just tracked them and made tracings/recordings.

[E L Whisty]

Intercepted one in the mid-70's somewhere between Shetland and Faroe Islands. Interestingly, they filed a complaint. Interesting since the only way they might have known we were there is by 'hearing' our radar (We stayed out of sight until shadowing line astern) or by data from other assets.

Claims of air piracy had little effect on my career which, by then, was proceeding downhill, out of control and at ever increasing velocity.

[Green Flash]

'Civvy' airliners, trawlers, trucks full of listening gear driving around West Germany. And I suppose the west was probably doing similer things, witness the furore about the Gaul. All's fair in love and Cold War as long as you don't get caught.

[SASless]

Of course they did not think to issue a complaint over KAL 007 did they?

[SpringHeeledJack]

In the 70's and 80's it was relatively common for Soviet-bloc airliners flying into Frankfurt to request the runway closest to the USAF Rhein Main AB and whilst landing used to snap/film away to give a daily reference of what was on the flightline, especially as to the whereabouts of the 4 almost unmarked EC/RC-130's that flew happily up and down various air-corridors gathering information.

[fantom]

Yak 40 (I think) came to demonstrate to us at Norwich c1978.

I climbed in and noticed a huge cine camera on the rear seat. Put in a quick call to Colt to make sure they were aware; they were... It had flown down the eastern side of the UK over most of our interesting bases.

[4eyed anorak]

A friend of mine stated that whilst his father worked for Embraer in Sao Paulo he was made aware that Aeroflot IL 62 s were fitted with various camera equipment and other devices in the late 70s-80s

[keesje]

I spoke to a russian guy yrs ago, who's fathers job it used to be to be on western aircraft flying over the USSR and prevent them getting "lost"..

I guess, theoretically, information on use of flights by western state carriers for reconnaissance / intelligence would still be confidential today, to prevent the public misunderstanding.

[MightyGem]

An Aeroflot IL62 made an unauthorized and unannounced descent from 35,000 ft to 10,000 ft just below cloud level, to fly over RAF Boulmer

Remember an IL 76 low over Dhekelia in the early 80s on it's way to Larnaca.

[RedhillPhil]

Presumably that's why so many soviet airliner types had a glass nose.

[big v]

More Cold War shenanigans?

.... to add to the paranoia, there was a Russian tractor distribution company under top of drop for RAF Wattisham ....... it just goes to show........

Regards,

Vernon

[LowObservable]

The glass nose was for bomb-aimer training, perhaps?

[BOAC]

Presumably that's why so many soviet airliner types had a glass nose

- modern Soviet commercials do not have them (IL62?). This is from the time when military types were simply pressed into civil use.

[airborne_artist]

There was hard evidence that many of the truck drivers coming out of the GDR in the 70s and 80s were tank commanders on secondment.

[Sir George Cayley]

Didn't we drive Vauxhall Carltons around Berlin too?

SGC

[FantomZorbin]

For our activities look up BRIXMIS on YouTube ... veeery interestink.

[Milo Minderbinder]

I don't understand what the surprise about this "news" article is.
Its been long established that Aeroflot was simply a civilian uniformed extension of the Soviet armed forces, with crew and aircraft subject to military tasking and discipline. The aircraft were all dual-purpose, cabable of rapid conversion to either transport or recce roles, in which case the glass nose made sense both for photography and to aid visual navigation. Remember the Soviets were years behind in electronics at the time - no ground mapping radar worth considering, minimal nav systems.