When we, then young air traffic controllers got to the Hungarian ACC to begin our on- the-job training in mid 1975, it was a very strictly restricted area yet shared the building with the Country’s air defence command positions.
Armed forces of the Peoples Republic’s Army had guarded the entrance since the secrecy of a nation’s air defence system was of strategic importance. This secrecy was however made somewhat obvious to the public by the numerous no parking and no camera signs in the surrounding streets indicating that something must be there.
Then suddenly everything altered in 1992.
The winds of change here too have blown. So much so that from one day to another a NATO officer was sitting next to me in front of my radar screen. I was selected as his liaison officer in my team. That was the title of that position, although we all were civilian ATCOs.
On 30th October, 1992 precisely, the Hungarian Government approved the Balkan airspace-monitoring operation of the NATO AWACS planes.
NATO did not hesitate much; the very next day on the 31st, they set up their observation airspace, flying big hippodrome-like holding areas between Hungary’s southern border and Lake Balaton.
The defence of the E3 AWACS planes was covered by the Hungarian Air Force’s MIG-23s.
(Just between brackets: The NATO planes were not yet threatened by anyone I knew of, and it was their luck anyway. I never knew how and by whom the Hungarian fighters could be alerted in the event of a serious incident. It was not more than a year earlier, when Serbian war-planes had entered Hungarian airspace and bombs were falling on Hungarian territory, that our fighters – alerted by acrimonious voices – only reached the scene, when the Yugoslav crew had already finished their first coffee in their canteen, after having landed safely at Batajnica military aerodrome near Beograd.).
It was also amusing for us to know, that NATO had earlier procured these same planes for monitoring the Eastern-bloc Countries from the borders of the western ones. Life had changed somewhat by then: the AWACS planes of the 8th Squadron were cruising in the east and watching the west.
The NATO guy next to me had not much to do. He coordinated the alternating planes making their swap in the morning, talking rarely to the crews. Luckily enough, there was no requirement for anything more.
Just to pass the time, we began to talk to each other, about ordinary little things initially, then it evolved to tales and stories. He had been some weeks there and eventually even some type of a colleague-like friendship had evolved between us. The guy – let’s call him Fred – himself a captain of an AWACS plane, was very much devoted to his job. So we didn’t hold back from showing him the mysteries of the tiny pubs in Pest and Buda from time to time. There, of course the story-telling went on, and we continuously swapped stories.
One time the captain told us the following story:
Not long after the Berlin wall had been dismantled, there was an important reception in the former capital of the German Democratic Republic, in early 1990. The organisers had invited many high-ranking officers and also some lower ones who held important posts, both that of NATO and of the Soviet Red Army alike.
Fred was invited as well, so he went along to the party “just for fun” as he said himself.
After an extremely regal dinner and some glasses of champagne, most of the company stood up and started to roam about the saloon, as did Fred.
All at once he came across a general of the soviet air force who seemingly enjoyed having a few drinks.
Fred turned to him with the idea of asking something he had wondered about for a long time.
– General, let me ask you something.
The Russian interpreter came closer to him, but the general pushed him aside.
– Leave me alone I speak English. Then he turned to Fred.
– What do you want to know Mister?
– I served here, in the neighbourhood at Ramstein until quite recently, started the
captain. We were equipped with air-to-ground missiles to eliminate your radar
stations here in East-Germany – he smiled at the general, who just stood there
puckering his brows – if necessary of course.
– Those missiles were guided by the radar signals themselves – Fred continued -, as you may very well know. The task of my plane was the detection and identification of the positions and frequencies of those stations. So far so good. But we also needed to know when you operated the particular radar positions in order to identify the targets in advance. But it was a problem we could never solve. We could not work out what algorithm you used to alternate the operation. Was it done by random number generation? You can give me the information now…
– Algorithm? Random number generation? The general racked his brains.
The interpreter came over to help him.
– What system was used for swapping the radar-locators, Comrade
General?
– I see! Sistiem! – The General’s face went red. No, we had no system
for that – he broke into a smile – yet maybe one: we simply used the
ones that happened to be working at that time…
