[Milsurplus] Russian equipment-KGB espionage-etc.

[jhhaynes@earthlink.net]

There was a program a while back about the Russian copy of the B-29
bomber.  The U.S. had given USSR some B-17s in WW-II but would not
give them any B-29s, our latest and best bomber.  As the war went
on there were about 3 B-29s that made emergency landings on Soviet
territory.  The USSR let the crews go home but kept the airplanes.
A few years later there was a Soviet copy of the B-29 flying.

On the program someone connected with the Russian side of the activity
told what had happened.  They repaired all three airplanes.  One they
carefully preserved as a reference model.  One they used for flight
tests (and ultimately lost to a crash).  The third they took apart,
rivet-by-rivet and used the parts to prepare drawings for manufacture.
He said the copies were so exact that the Russian-made engines caught
on fire just as often as the US-made ones did.  (engine fires were a
serious shortcoming of the B-29)  

But he didn't go into detail about whether the avionics was copied
exactly or whether they used their own stuff.  But then I suppose
after the war there was so much of that stuff on the surplus market
that they could have bought all they wanted really cheap.

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jhhaynes at earthlink dot net