Belenko put the question frankly to an aerodynamics professor the next afternoon. The professor stammered, equivocated, evaded. Every aircraft has certain weaknesses. It is only a question of uncovering them and learning how to exploit them. It may be possible to attack the F-14 from close range with superior numbers.
The professor who taught the technology of advanced aircraft was respected for his intelligence and technical background, so Belenko asked him openly in class. He answered succinctly. We presently have nothing to equal the F-14. We are experimenting with something that could be the answer. It is designated Product 84.
Subsequently Belenko read details of the F-15 being built as an air-superiority fighter for the U.S. Air Force, then accounts of the planned B-l bomber, and they were still more devastating to him. The F-15 would fly at nearly three times the speed of sound and climb to altitudes above 60,000 feet faster than any plane in the world, and at very low levels, where metallurgical problems restricted the speed of Soviet fighters, it could hopelessly outdistance anything the Russians had. The capabilities of the B-l seemed other-worldly. A thousand miles away from the Soviet Union, it could commence firing missiles armed with decoys and devices to nullify radar and nuclear weapons to shatter defenses. Then it could drop to tree-top level, beneath the reach of radar and missiles, and, at speeds making it impervious to pursuit, skim over the target area. Having unleashed a barrage of nuclear bombs, it could skyrocket away at extreme altitudes, at 1400 miles an hour.
The professor of technology again was candid. He said that presently there was no known defense, practical or theoretical, against the B-l should it perform approximately as designed. The history of warfare demonstrated that for every offensive weapon, an effective defensive weapon ultimately emerged, and doubtless, one would be developed. The broader difficulty lay in Soviet technological deficiencies. The Russians still could not develop an aircraft engine that for the same weight generated the same thrust as an American engine. They were behind in electronics, transistors, and microcircuitry. And all technological difficulties were compounded by the comparative inadequacy of their computer technology. Cadets should not be discouraged by these handicaps but rather consider them a further stimulus to becoming better pilots than the Americans.
Again, though, the thrill of flight, the excitement of personal success diverted him from the concern and skepticism such questions inspired. In July 1971 he passed his final flight examinations, receiving both the highest grade of five and a commendation. The 258 cadets remaining from the original class of 360 were ordered back to Armavir to study for the state examinations. But Belenko knew these were meaningless. It was over. Having brought them this far, the Party did not intend to lose any of them. He had done it. For more than four years he had done all the military, the Party, the Mother Country demanded. He had done it on his own, despite the oppressions, brutalities, risks, and stresses of cadet life, despite multiplying, heretical doubts about the Party he was sworn to serve. He was about to be what since boyhood he had aspired to be. And he was proud of himself.
The professors now tacitly treated the cadets as officers, and Belenko for the first time learned of all the benefits and perquisites bestowed on a Soviet pilot. To him they were breathtaking.
Whereas the average Soviet doctor or scientist was paid 120 to 130 rubles a month, and an educator only about 100, he would earn 300. The typical young Soviet couple waited seven to eight years, and often much longer, for an apartment, and the majority of Soviet dwellings still were without indoor plumbing. As a pilot Belenko was guaranteed an apartment with bath and kitchen, wherever stationed. Food constituted the largest item in most Soviet family budgets; meat and fresh vegetables frequently were unavailable; shopping was arduous and time- consuming. Pilots, wherever based, were entitled to four excellent free meals a day seven days a week. Ordinary citizens were allowed two weeks of vacation; pilots forty-five days. Additionally, during vacation, pilots could fly anywhere in the Soviet Union on Aeroflot for a nominal fee. Normally a Soviet citizen did not retire before sixty-five; Belenko could retire at forty, receiving two-thirds of his regular salary for the rest of his life. There was more — the best medical care, free uniforms and shoes, little preferential privileges, and enormous prestige.
Belenko had known of some of these benefits. But their full range was kept secret, never published or discussed.
A political officer at Armavir spoke to them about marriage, and though well intentioned, his advice was somewhat contradictory. He explained that because of the status and glamor of pilots, many girls were eager to marry them. Quite a few enrolled in school or took jobs in Armavir for that express purpose. While most were wholesome, a few were prostitutes. No one should enter into marriage quickly or lightly, because the effects of marriage would endure throughout life.
At the same time, though, the political officer emphasized the personal and professional advantages of marriage. It represented a healthy and natural form of life. Married pilots could awaken fresh in the morning, ready to fly, whereas bachelors were likely to dissipate themselves by prowling around bars, looking for women.
For reasons probably having little to do with the lectures, most cadets did marry shortly before or after graduation, and in late August Belenko attended one of the weddings. At the party afterward the bride introduced him to a twenty-year-old nursing student, Ludmilla Petrovna. She was blond, pretty, sensuous, and, to Belenko, ideal. Their physical attraction to each other was instant and mutual.
Their backgrounds, however, were dissimilar. Ludmilla was the only child of wealthy parents living in Magadan in the far northeast. Her father managed a large factory, her mother ran a brewery, and both had high Party connections in Moscow. She had never worked or wanted for anything and was accustomed to restaurants, to theaters, and to spending money as she pleased. Her parents had lavished clothes and jewelry on her, often taken her to Moscow and Leningrad and to special spas reserved for the well-connected. She shared none of his interests in literature, athletics, or the romance of flying. But the sexual magnetism between them was powerful and delightful, and even though they had seen each other only seven or eight times, they married after he was commissioned in October.
Belenko never had thought of himself as other than a fighter pilot. He expected to join a MiG-17 squadron, from which he hoped to graduate to MiG-23s or even MiG-25s, which continued to be cited as the most promising counter to the new generation of American fighters being deployed in the 1970s. When the Party commission released the assignments of the new officers, he ran to the office of the commandant to protest and appeal. He had been appointed a MiG-17 instructor — to him, the worst duty conceivable. He would be doing, albeit in a reverse role, the same thing he had been doing for the past two years. There would be no opportunity to improve professionally by flying more advanced aircraft, no excitement, no adventure.
“You have been honored, and you should feel honored,” the commandant said. “The Party commission chose the best to be instructors.”
“But I do not want to be an instructor.”
“What kind of bordello would we have around here if everybody did only what he wants to do? You must serve where the Party decides you are needed, and I assure you we need instructors.”
The December night was black, cold, and drenched with pelting rain, and when Belenko stepped on the train at 8:00 P.M., his mood matched the weather. He had been there before, twice, actually: on the train that had taken him from the Donbas to Rubtsovsk in 1953, and the train that had brought him from Omsk to Armavir in 1967. Everything was the same — the close, putrid air, the high wooden seats, the reeking toilet, the lack of beer or any amenities, the foul, unrelenting stink. His first duty station, Salsk, a city of 60,000, was only 100 or so miles away, but the train stopped frequently and did not arrive until 2:00 A.M.
The rain was still falling hard as he waded and slogged through muddy streets to the city’s only hotel. It was full and locked for the night, and at that hour there was no transportation to the base five miles away, so he waded back to the station. All benches and virtually every square inch of the station floor were occupied by human bodies —
