Inside Stories -
Valery Stepanovich Gamziuk flew thousands of hours in the most sophisticated, high-altitude interceptor of the Cold War. As the Tupolev Tu-128 ‘Fiddler’ celebrates 60 years, Sérgio Santana describes the type’s operation from a pilot’s perspective
If the strategic bombers operated by the main air forces during the Cold War represented concrete threats to the state of peace between nations, the interceptors were the element designed to contain that threat. Among the jet interceptors of that time, none had the operational range and electronic sophistication of the Soviet Tupolev Tu-128 Fiddler, manned by an elite group of pilots and navigators that Colonel Valery Stepanovich Gamziuk, who died two years ago, was part of for 16 years.
