1990: US Army Aviation Detachment: 6 UH-1H, 1 C-12C, 2 UV-20A; 7350th ABG

The screens looks empty, probably because no primary radar information is shown. Therefor, only targets with an active transponder are visible.

Please see the picture above for an explanation of the airfields, airways etc. Texts which is unreadable on the original picture is shown as # in the graphic.

In contrast to the picture above, primary data is shown here. With it, you get a good impression of the flying activities in the southwestern part of former east germany. Clutter is shown in the Berlin area.

The primary targets show their past positions with dots. They also show a figure, ending with "M". This looks like the height of the target, but probably, "M" does not mean "meter". Instead, it could symbolize that the height is measured by the 3D radar (in contrast for being transmitted by the transponder)

To save some efforts when creating the graphic, the past position symbols are not shown dot by dot. Instead, I draw a dotted line along the chain. But it means that the speed-dependend distance between two dots can only be recognized on the photo.

Interesting are the three sequenced primary targets that are on a long left turn in the Dobeln area. On the photo, the past position symbols have great distances, so the targets seems to move at high speed.

The measurement instrument "hangs down" from the HLZ beacon. Accordingly, the textblock shows: BRG/RNG: 174/012.

Several times, planes from Poland were hijacked or used to escape. Among others:

- 12JUN1982 Yak-12A SP-ABX Flight from Wroclaw Szymanow to Tempelhof. The aircraft was painted with red stars to confuse the air defense.

- 17SEP1983 An-2 SP-ANK The flight began on the airfield of Przylep, near Zielona Góra. On board were Jan Z. (pilot) and Mieczysław S., who both coordinated the escape. At an intermediate stop on a field near Letnica, 7 more people were picked up, including 4 childrens.

- 25OCT1983 Yak-12 SP-KLA The aircraft belonged to the Aeroclub Swidnik. The flight to Tempelhof began at the airfield of Leszno.

- 15SEP1984 PZL-101 Gawron SP-CGF Flight from Szczecin Dąbie to Tempelhof.

My trips to Berlin to fly aircraft back to Poland

Each time I was delegated to Berlin as an employee (among others pilot and flight instructor) of the Aero Club of Poland (all four aircraft were property of the Aero Club of Poland). I have preserved - until now - my personal three DDR passes through the Berlin Wall !!! (Friedrichstrasse - Checkpoint Charlie).

The normal procedure was that each time on arrival in East Berlin (three times Ostbahnhof, one time Berlin: Schönefeld Airport) I had contacted Polish Embassy (Unter den Linden) or I had been met by gentlemen from LOT Polish Airlines in East or West Berlin, then I was conveyed through the Berlin Wall (Friedrichstrasse) to the Polish Military Mission in West Berlin (Grunewald, Lassenstrasse 19-21; now the Polish Embassy HQ). The Mission was responsible for all further arrangements with American authorities at Tempelhof and gentlemen from the Mission were quite experienced owing to previous Polish landings at this airport.

The normal route was, in principle: Tempelhof – Drewitz/Dreilinden (= Checkpoint Bravo) - VOR NUF (Nunsdorf) - NDB BKW (Beeskow) - SUI (Slubice) - .... But in practice each time the route was slightly different.

1) 16.06.1982: Jak-12A SP-ABX It appeared that there is no petrol at Tempelhof as only jet fuel was available (only turbine-engined aircraft were operating from Tempelhof) and there was not enough fuel in the plane’s tanks for the flight to Poland. So it was decided that I must make a short flight to Schönhagen for refuelling. (I had occasion to visit this big GST (Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik) centre a year before when I was a member of the Polish team that attended the World Gliding Championships in Paderborn in 1981; and on return route from Paderborn - with 4 gliders on trailers - we stayed overnight in Schönhagen.).

Now my departure from Tempelhof was delayed, as earlier that day I had to pay a visit to GST HQ (and DDR Aeroklub) in East Berlin to discuss details of the flight and refuelling. So I reached Schönhagen only in the evening and I spent the night here, to continue my flight the next day, June 17, via Beeskow - Slubice - to Zielona Góra (Przylep Airfield) = the place of An-2 hijacking in 1983. Here there was passport control and a long interrogation by a special officer; and only after that I followed to Wroclaw / Szymanow, where the plane was from.

2) 20.09.1983: An-2 SP-ANK This time it appeared the day before (September 19) that there is not enough engine oil in the plane’s oil tank. So oil (Soviet oil MS-20, widely used in the East in engines of Soviet origin) was specially transported to Tempelhof from Schönefeld in the morning on September 20th.

As concerns fuel: this time petrol was available at Tempelhof and we took 300 litres. (There were only about 100 litres in the fuel tanks. On September 17, when An-2 departed from Zielona Góra, the left fuel level warning lamp lighted up - as reported later by the pilot, Jan Z. - just after take off, the right one after crossing the DDR border; the lamps light up indicating about 80 litres in left or right tanks).

The flight route was – this time – exactly as laid down in official rules: Tempelhof – Drewitz/Dreilinden - VOR NUF (Nunsdorf) – BKW (Beeskow) - SUI (Slubice). The An-2 was not fitted with VOR (like other Polish Aero Club’s aircraft in those years), but I had identified the VOR on the ground (map and coordinates). Destination - in the Flight Plan - was Zielona Góra / Przylep, but after crossing the DDR/Polish border the weather dramatically deteriorated and we had been directed to Poznan / Lawica.

3) 27.10.1983: Jak-12A SP-KLA and 4) 19.09.1984: PZL-101 SP-CGF The route was slightly amended in that it was not necessary now to overfly Drewitz/Dreilinden road border crossing, so I flew: Tempelhof - NUF - BKW - SUI - EPPO (Poznan Lawica). As the Jak-12A SP-KLA was from the Aero Club in Swidnik (near Lublin), I spent the night 27/28 October in Poznan and on 28 October I continued to Warsaw Babice. With PZL-101 SP-CGF in 1984, I finished in Poznan.

To avoid possible problems with MS-20 oil, on both last trips to Berlin I brought a 3-litre plastic container with MS-20; (I used it for Jak-12A; PZL-101 was OK). But another device that appeared indispensable (I was, providently, equipped with) was an adapter (connection terminal) for compressed air; American air piping terminals did not fit Russian inlets (compressed air is used in these aircraft for starting engine and for operating flaps and wheel brakes; in many aircraft the compressed air installation is not tight and bottles must be refilled from an external source).

I had been in radio contact with both US controllers on Tempelhof and with East German air traffic control, though in two cases this communication was not easy to establish and maintain: two of four aeroplanes were fitted with quite obsolete equipment (4-channel transceivers R-800), so there were air traffic controllers that were kind enough to tune to one of my only four frequencies !!!).

Janusz Krasicki