BOXART STORY

#7471

Those mistrusted

The beginning of the fifties was marked by

political purges in the Czechoslovak army,

and therefore also in the air force. Pilots with

any western combat backgrounds or other

suspicious ones were gradually weaned from

flying. However, the influx of new blood in the

form of properly trained and indoctrinated

sons of the workers and peasants, supposedly

“ruling” the Czechoslovakia under Communist

government, was still insufficient, so it was

necessary to turn a blind eye here and there and

keep in service pilots who found themselves

below the line after the political screenings

for admission to fly the then state-of-the-art

technology, which was the MiG-15, referred to

in the Czechoslovak Air Force as S-102. They

represented a quantum leap for the renewed

Czechoslovak Air Force, which until then had

guarded its western border with WW2 aircraft.

By day with the worsened Messerschmitt

Bf 109Gs, i.e., Avia S-199s, while the night

readiness was served with one of two airworthy

LB-79s, i.e., with German Heinkel He 219 night

fighters.

Pilots who had failed political screenings at

the beginning of the Czechoslovak Air Force’s

jet era were condemned to still fly the S-199s.

These aircraft were already obsolete at the

time of their creation in 1947, and less than

five years later they were just a caricature of a

fighter aircraft. Thus, the 22nd Air Division was

created, which was established on June 1, 1951,

at the Plzeň-Skvrňany airfield. It included the

4 Aviation Regiment (not the original Aviation

Regiment 4 based in České Budějovice, which

had already been renamed LP 6) and the 18

October 2023

Aviation Regiment. The latter was established

on the same day as the 22 Air Division and had

29 S-199s, two CS-199s and nine C-2s aircraft in

its inventory. Zdeněk Praus was appointed the

CO of the regiment. It is not certain what rank

he held at that time. According to some sources

he even was only a lieutenant. What is certain is

that in 1954 he was already a lieutenant colonel

and from November 10 of that year he was the

commander of the entire 22 Air Division, which

at that time consisted of three Air Fighter

regiments (slp): the 3 slp in Brno, the 4 slp

and the 18 slp, both in Pardubice. His career

continued with a move to the same position

with the 6 Fighter Air Division (from July 15,

1958) and from September 1, 1961, he became

Chief of the Fighter Air Command of the 7 Army

of Air Defence. He remained in this position until

September 1962.

The aircraft of the staff flight of the 18 Air

Regiment were given designations from DA-01

to DA-09, 1st squadron had aircraft with the

designations from PS-10 to PS-29, 2nd squadron

BS-30 to BS-49, 3rd squadron EX-50 to EX-69

and 4th squadron VT-70 and higher.

The 18 Aviation Regiment was designated with

“piston” suffix from 1952 onward to distinguish

it from the jet regiments. However, in November

1953 it was moved to Pardubice, by that time,

it had already partly re-equipped with MiG-15s,

and although it still had 31 S-199s and ten C-2s

in service, it was renamed the 18 Air Fighter

Regiment (jet) on April 1, 1954.

The two aircraft on the boxart of kit 7471

belonged to the 1st Squadron and are portrayed

just after splitting formation, probably starting

Text: Richard Plos

Illustration: Adam Tooby

a dogfight exercise somewhere near Pilsen in

1952. This kind of training has always been, by

the way, the most favored by fighter pilots of all

time. And those politically not-enough-reliable

pilots who were not entrusted by the Communist

party to be given a chance to get their hand

on the latest aviation technology, were flying

their aging “Mules”, as were the S-199s

nicknamed, on the edge. There were a number

of experienced and well-trained pilots among

them, and some of them did eventually get the

chance to fly jets. Others, however, had to step

down from the fighter pedestal and transfer

to other types of aviation after the S-199 were

all retired. Some of them changed fixed wings

for the rotary ones, as the helicopters were

just emerging at the time in Czechoslovak Air

Force with the tests of domestic light helicopter

HC-2 prototypes. In 1959 first ten of Mi-1 Soviet

helicopters were delivered and the helicopter

aviation became reality in Czechoslovak army.

One of these former fighter pilots flying S-199s

and subsequently transferred to helicopters,

was teaching the author of this article to fly the

Mi-2 helicopter in 1985 ...

Avia S-199s, however unreliable and stubborn

on take-off, were still, according to him, aircraft

he loved to fly and fondly remembered. Given

the long time lapse, some of the stories he told

or the performance he stated were achieved

seemed somewhat implausible, but it was

evident that he was one of those who took

a liking to this stopgap fighter, which ensured

the fighter pilots’ were able to maintain their

trained skills in the difficult post-war period.

INFO Eduard

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