Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency JPRS translation, dated 18 September 1990, reproduces an article by Jaroslav Spurny titled "Birds of Steel" from the Prague weekly RESPEKT. It looks at Czechoslovak Air Force reform: high costs, reliance on Soviet equipment, the uneven spread of airfields and the pilot clearance process. The article expects the Air Force to be cut by about half. Its only UFO reference is a passing remark that the MIG-29 has little civilian use except perhaps investigating unidentified flying objects.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
## UNCLASSIFIED ## Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1990 Document 2 of 16 Page 3 targets, guns, and bombs, is the most versatile of the combat aircraft. In addition, the Air Force has supersonic bombers SU-22M4, armored fighter planes SU-25K, and transport planes TU-154-B-2. In view of the natural terrain our most needed weapon is the fighter helicopter MI-24 with a four-barrel machine gun, air-to-ground missiles, and guided antitank missiles. It is not dependent on a runway as are planes, and it can be effectively operational within a few minutes. It can be easily put to peace time use, for example during natural disasters. 10. Obviously, the reduction of the Air Force will also affect the pilots. Here we shall have problems. The training is very demanding and expensive. In addition, military pilots comprise a relative unusual group which did not have enough opportunities to become politically compromised. Of 40 generals who underwent clearance proceedings, only two did not pass the verification commission. A similar situation exists in case of pilots of lower rank. 11. The problems of the Air Force cannot be judged separately from the problems of the other components of the Armed Forces. Minister Vacek said at one time that a professional army is too expensive. It seems that an excessive and unnecessarily expensive Air Force does not bother any one.
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 3 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.