During the 1970s, Soviet Air Defence Force acquired large numbers of Su-15 “Flagon” interceptors.
They were never exported and other than shooting down airliners never fired a shot in anger (as far as I am aware).
How capable was this aircraft compared to other 1970s vintage interceptor aircraft – MiG-23, Mirage F1, F-4E, F-14, F-15, J-37 Viggen?
By: Jennings - 24th September 2016 at 15:34
Su-15 were flown in flights of multiples generally of 4, operating in pairs.
In my personal first hand experience of seeing them react to our RC-135s and EP-3E’s in the Soviet Far East in the mid-1980s, I’ve never seen more than two Su-15s aloft at the same time. It was standard PVO practice to have two Su-15s on QRA at all times at each base (I’m familiar with Anadyr and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskij), and in every case I ever saw, the pair were launched.
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March 26, 2013 at 1:12 am