The Big Bottle

As a young nut for things with wings growing up during the height of the Cold War in the early to mid 1980s, your blogmeister was fascinated for a time with Red Stars. Conjuring in his head images of air fighting over European battlefields involving Warthogs and Phantoms and MiGs (oh my), he was initially little aware of the likes of the Sukhoi Su-15, or its mission. But upon learning of this Russian interceptor, and viewing it as something of a mystery, seldom covered as it was in aviation rags of the time, the 'Flagon', as NATO knew it, captured his imagination like no other Russkie jet.

The Su-15 entered service with the Soviet Air Defense Forces in the mid-1960s, replacing the earlier Su-9 and Su-11, both of which, over the course of less than a decade, had proven somewhat insufficient for the task of intercepting Yankee Air Pirates that dared intrude upon Matushka Rossiya's airspace. The Flagon was not without problems of its own, though, as is usually the case with pretty much every type, but it was nonetheless a vast improvement over its short-lived predecessors. So much so that it remained in service with the Soviets until the early 1990s.

In the future we may delve a bit deeper into the operational history of the Sukhoi Su-15. But for now, we leave you with an iconic image of the Flagon that caught your blogmeister's eye so many years ago...

US DoD photo

Fade to Black...