Željava - 4868
OFFICERS
In peace condition, 117th Fighting Aviation Regiment was counting 280 men:
- senior officers............76
- officers.......................121
- privates.......................85
From above mentioned number, in peace condition 64 officers were pilots; however it was filled with 62 pilots or 97%. In war condition, regiments constitution was 520 officers were 95 are pilots. Beside two squadrons in peace condition, in case of emergency 129th fighter squadron from 185th Fighter-Bomber Aviation Regiment was under direct command of 117th Fighting Aviation Regiment. In peace conditions, 185th Fighter-Bomber Aviation Regiment located on airport Pula (Croatia) was practicing young pilot cadets. In peace condition, 117th Fighting Aviation Regiment had 30 airplanes, 25 MIG-21 BIS (L-17) i 5 two-seaters MIG-21UM (NL-16).
PRIVATES
Private purposes and duties in 117th Fighting Aviation Regiment was to serving airplanes before, during and after flying. Also, their duty in underground complex was preparatory, maintaining hygienic conditions, etc. Regarding duties on planes, private of 117th Fighting Aviation Regiment had several privileges then other privates in other branches of armed forces:- Privates never wear hats, nether on airplane parking or in barracks, not even in the city. It was allowed to wear hat, but strictlyNOon airplane parking and runways as it can be sucked during starting jet engine
- Privates never saluted officers, neither on airplane parking, neither in barracks while they do that in the city with respect. Exception was Airbase Commander and Squadron commanders
- Private had working time from 7 AM until 14 PM if was regular flight schedule. In case of night flying schedule, private was off-duty until sunset. During flying, privates were working hard. There were a lot of them who would go home on Friday night and coming back on Monday morning. Permissions to go out to the city were allowed without any problems, but it was more practiced to go across “wire” without permission
- Private was always first on breakfast, lunch and dinner
- Most important privilege was Identity Card for entering underground complex. Many privates from other branches were serving in the base, but they could even approach in front of entrances to the underground complex
After breakfast in barracks, privates goes to room for their personal things (cigarettes, etc), then straight to the bus which take them to the entrances into underground complex. Inside complex, each squadron had its own gallery where airplanes where parked and each gallery had a classrooms for ground crew and pilots.
After arrival to the complex, ground crew commander has been handing out a flight schedule allocating technicians and privates to their tasks to taking airplanes out from tunnels. Privates remove bins with kerosene that leaks from airplanes, taking off engine intake covers and hook airplanes on electric vehicles who take them out on runways. One or two privates walk together with mechanic and tractor to the room where accumulators where stored. They loading them and taking out on runway to put them in airplanes.
Pilots where doing final checking of aircraft and once they enter into cockpit, privates are ready to start the engine. Private takes a cable with high voltage and connects in to the aircraft. When engine overhauls proper speed rotation, private detach power cable from aircraft. This was one of harder jobs that privates had to do. Noise has been destroying ears in the case if you were not protected with ear muffs.
During flight, privates didn’t have some specific tasks to do. If it was good weather, they been waiting on parking points, sitting near cantina. After aircrafts returns to base, privates pushing them back to park properly. Kerosene tank vehicle arrives and privates pour kerosene into aircrafts tanks.
At end of all flights, privates were putting back engine intake covers, hooking up aircrafts on electrical tractors and taking them inside tunnels. Once aircrafts are parked inside tunnel, privates put bins below which collects kerosene leakage. Some of hardest tasks for privates were changing tires or servicing breaks.
The hardest tasks privates had during scheduled aircraft bomb practice. Privates had to load ammo, hook up bombs and missiles, filling rocket lancers and after practice is done and aircraft is back, privates had to clean all devices.
Also, what was considered as a very hard task for privates was cleaning the underground complex: first, they would drop around sawdaust to pick up the grease and other liquors from the floor; after that, they would was floor with detergent and on the end, they would polishing floor to that point it was looking like a mirror.
AIRCRAFTS
Airbase Zeljava were hosting 117th Fighting Aviation Regiment which was configured with two interceptor squadrons and one reconnaissance squadron. It belonged to the fifth corps of Yugoslavian Air Forces. Interceptor squadrons (124th Fighter Aviation Squadron and 125th Fighter Aviation Squadron) had MIG-21 BIS fighter aircrafts, while reconnaissance squadron (352nd Reconnaissance Aviation Squadron) had MIG-21 R reconnaissance-fighter aircrafts that were operated near Italy, Austria and Hungary, sometimes even flying over international borders. However, that was rare situations, since those aircrafts were equipped with long-range aerial panoramic photographic system that could take shoots 200 kilometers away. Aircrafts MIG-29 couldn’t be taken into tunnels on Zeljava airbase, however before Yugoslavia collapse one entrance has been prearranged so aircrafts MIG-29 could be taken into underground complex hangar. Less than year before airbase was destroyed and abandoned, 352nd Reconnaissance Aviation Squadron got eight aircrafts IJ-21 Hawk that were parked near entrance No. #4, as they couldn’t get into the underground complex because of their wingspan. Two UTVA-66 aircrafts was parked near entrance No. #1.
Airbase Zeljava had a chance to host a few apparatus of MIG-23 with Iraqi markings on it who has been at military maintenance center “ZMAJ” in Zagreb. At that moment, Gulf war was more intensive and Council of United Nations voted for sanctions on importing weapons to Iraq. As they couldn’t be returned to Iraqi Air Forces, those MIG-23 aircrafts never left Yugoslavia and today they are preserved at the Aeronautical Museum in Surcin, Serbia. Also, during conflict in Yugoslavia, airbase hosted Uganda’s cargo airplane Boeing-707, known by “Kikash” affair, when this airplane has been used for smuggling around 20 tones of weapons into Croatia for their forces. First it was landed and captured on Pleso Airport near Zagreb (Croatia). Than it was ordered to fly and land on military airport Batajnica near Belgrade (Serbia), but on flight to Belgrade it make one stop at Zeljava airport where it was partially unloaded. This airplane was used for cargo by Serbian Air Forces until 1996 when it was sold to unknown British-American Company for $500.000 US. In 2004, airplane was seen being demolished in Belgium.
RADARS
There were 7 radars installed at Zeljava Airbase. Each of them had value of $12 million US, while navigation system cost around $50 million US which was the most expensive system that Yugoslavian People’s Army possessed. On Zeljava Airbase was operational center of 5th Corps of Yugoslavian Air Forces located in Zagreb (Croatia). Also, it was a center of 5th Regiment for Air Reconnaissance/Intelligence and Guidance. Collective center was equipped AS-84 automatic system. That was computers which were collecting all radar information from Yugoslavian air space. This was possible by networking radars installed on Pljesivica Mountain, near city of Zadar (Croatia), on Kozara Mountain (Bosnia), on Biokovo Mountain (Croatia), near city of Pula (Croatia), near city of Vrhnika (Slovenia), near city of Sisak (Croatia), near city of Bjelovar (Croatia), etc.
On the highest peak of Pljesivica mountain (1648 meters above sea level) was installed radar position “Pljesivica” – communication center. As primary radar, this center used British made Marconi S-600 which have 600 kilometers long range that was enough to monitor almost entire air spaces of Italy, Austria and Hungary. Beside this radar, there was installed S-613 height-finding radar. Secondary radar was CD-2 that was networked with Marconi S-600. Beside all these radars, there was also installed S-645M and S-645D which could work networked together with other above-mention radars or they could operate manually.
Those radars were protected with duralumin dome shielding from cruel weather conditions. So big that they were seen from city of Bihac, domes were protecting radars from strong wind, rain and ice. There were two domes built on Pljesivica radar position: one was 18 meters, while other one was 6 meter diameter. They’ve been built on concrete foundation with triangular shape elements coated with special elastic wax. Structures like these could survive strong winds up to 200 kilometers per hour. From this point you can see a very nice panorama of Bihac valley and city of Karlovac during good weather conditions.
In configuration of this radar station was included automation system S-5014B with built-in LOCUS 16 computer which was able to process data in automatic and semi-automatic mode. Reliable soviet-made VAZDUH-1 P system was outstanding in automatic processing and sending processed data regarding air targets. Also, it was shown as very failsafe system during automatic guidance of fighter aviation. VAZDUH-1 P was protected with LAZUR station which provided safe digital frequency password system developed at Mihajlo Pupin Institute in Belgrade, Serbia. The most of radar equipments and aircrafts used on Zeljava Airbase were soviet-made.
Entire radar installations on Pljesivica mount were a part of unique system belonging to Center for Air Reconnaissance/Intelligence and Guidance and Anti-Aircraft Artillery of Yugoslavian People’s Army. Complete territory of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was covered with these defense systems.
