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Context

I watched a couple documentaries recently and found one where they were mentioning the training of American forces against Mi-24 that were captured and brought back to the US to test fly them. Shortly afterward General Chuck Yeager tweeted a quote from General Boyd saying

Because of Yeager, we now know more about the MiG-15 than the Russians do.

after he flew one in 1953 that was captured during the Korean War.

Research

This piqued my curiosity because as far as I know Russian aircraft have:

flight instrument in Cyrillic

I checked the page on Constant Peg program in the US to train aggressors and them flying foreign aircraft (like MiG 17, 21 and 23) as well as other aircraft. While I understand that this specific program is still classified, there are other occurrences of aircraft flown by "non-Russian speakers" or at least non-Natives.

While it is totally possible that General Chuck Yeager is fluent in Russian, I have some doubts about flying an aircraft where everything is written in another language from the fuel dump to the auto-pilot settings, and be able to operate it easily (on top of that without a manual).

Question

Now this led me to this question, how do you fly an aircraft without speaking the language and how do you read the instruments and their functions ?

I very much doubt that they just put sticky notes over all instrument panels with the label of instruments (but I could be wrong, who knows).

Ralph J
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Pierre Chevallier
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    It isn't like they jumped into the MiG and took it for a ride without any training. There was probably a team of people (who fluently spoke Russian) that translated the documents (or pilot information) and gave that information to the American pilots to fly it. They got training on the instruments before going up so they knew what they were looking at, even if they couldn't read it. – Ron Beyer Oct 01 '19 at 13:39
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    He did say to check his autobiography to someone who asked for details. – SMS von der Tann Oct 01 '19 at 14:01
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    Actually, they did just put labels on things. That plus the Korean pilot using hand motions to communicate the idea of a spin urgently followed by ones indicating ejecting. It's also not unlikely evaluation flights would be accompanied by a cooperating pilot in a plane with familiar instrumentation (and given the desire to measure performance, instrumentation of recent and known calibration). – Chris Stratton Oct 02 '19 at 00:56
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    Chuck Yeager wasn't just your average fighter pilot. – copper.hat Oct 02 '19 at 03:27
  • "I could be wrong" -- sticky notes weren't invented until 1968, so I think you're not wrong to doubt that they used them during flight tests that occurred a decade or more earlier. :P – Peter Duniho Oct 02 '19 at 05:48
  • It is easy to recognize most of the instruments. Many even for a non-pilot enthuziast. I'd be more concerned about the different way the eastern artifficial horizons work. – Vladimir F Героям слава Oct 02 '19 at 06:56
  • This is based more on DCS (which is a "study sim") than actual experience, but airframe-to-airframe idiosyncracies among American aircraft can be a bigger difference than moving from American to Russian. The F-14 flies more similarly to the MiG-21 (high power interceptors!) than it does the A-10 (put the throttles at 100% and chug your way to where something needs loitered around). – Erin Anne Oct 02 '19 at 09:15
  • @ErinAnne I doubt F-14 has such a deadly tendency to get into the second flight regime as Mig-21. Are you sure that the game simulates that? – Vladimir F Героям слава Oct 02 '19 at 11:01
  • US and Russian planes at least have a great deal of things in common, since they can both be traced back to common ancestors (you might have to go pretty far back, but there have got to be some commonalities). Now, Will Smith being able to competently fly an alien spacecraft in Independence Day - that stretches credibility, but hey, fiction... – Darrel Hoffman Oct 02 '19 at 14:15
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    Before "sticky notes" there were DYMO plastic tape labelers! – Mark Stewart Oct 02 '19 at 15:20
  • Even if you understand Russian and lot of thing are similar, there are some important differences like Attitude Indicators – Juan Carlos Oropeza Oct 02 '19 at 15:53
  • If the other answers would not work, it would be plausible to mandate that these test pilots learn Russian, after all astronauts going to ISS (and astronaut candidates that didn't go) were required to learn Russian. – Peteris Oct 02 '19 at 17:12
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    @MarkStewart and before those there was painter's tape. Paper tape you can write on. Heck, it's still used today. – jwenting Oct 03 '19 at 05:08
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    @DarrelHoffman I seem to remember John Rambo being able to fly a Russian Hind gunship without too much preparation in Rambo III. – Oscar Bravo Oct 04 '19 at 12:03

11 Answers11

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A couple of things come to mind that enable this:

  • you don't become a fighter pilot if you are not intelligent and highly motivated
  • you are not learning a new skill, just doing what you are already trained to do in an environment that just looks different (this would somewhat exclude Russian helicopters)
  • the list of things to learn is really not that long, I'm taking the liberty to throw in a guess of 100 items
  • you have a huge organization backing you up (translations as mentioned in comments, intelligence data etc.)

So: You are a person that is able to fly fighter jets, most probably you are damn good at it if you are given the opportunity to fly a fighter caught from the enemy.

You learn new stuff easily, and you are thrilled to do this, which of course helps in the learning process. Your organization provides you with pretty much every bit of information about the task you are about to undertake, translated manuals etc.

Regarding the cockpit language barrier, it's not that hard to learn the labels on switches and gauges. For example the picture in the question: I took a not-so-wild guess that it's an altimeter, checked with translator and yes: высота is altitude in English (pronounced something like vysota but that really doesn't matter). From now on, when I see text that says высота, I know it means altitude. On Russian planes the pilot just has to remember the altitude is in meters, but since the label looks "weird" I don't think there's much chance of a mix-up.

Anyways, when operating a fighter jet, you learn the location and operation of the critical switches and systems by heart, you do not browse around the cockpit searching for switches when you need to do something.

Once you've become familiar with the user interface, the basic flying will be pretty much the same as in any western fighter.

P.S. There's one thing that really helps: Cyrillic numbers are not used anymore :)

P.P.S. this short film on Air&Space Magazine website tells very nicely and in a compact package of the findings made by Chuck Yager (Major at the time) and General Albert Boyd during test flights of the MiG-15. Thorough testing gave USAF critical information of the capabilities and weaknesses of the enemy fighter, giving them strategic and operational advantage.

Jpe61
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    Sounds very reasonable to me (+1) and is exactly what I assumed. But that exclusion of Russian helicopters made me curious. Are they completely different or rather almost similar to western helicopters? – PerlDuck Oct 01 '19 at 15:40
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    Thanks that is what I was looking for, and indeed, numbers in cyrillic are... Well the same – Pierre Chevallier Oct 01 '19 at 15:50
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    @PerlDuck the Ruskie choppers main rotors rotate in the opposite direction compared to most western ones. – Jpe61 Oct 01 '19 at 16:12
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    And for the things where the labels actually matter (circuit breaker panels -- not something that lends itself well to brute force memorization), the low-tech but effective label-maker probably works just fine. Or, if really necessary, fabricate a new face for the particular instruments -- although I doubt that's actually ever needed. – Ralph J Oct 01 '19 at 16:22
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    Not just fighter jets, you learn the location of instruments & switches you need even in a GA plane. (Or at least I do :-)) FTM, if you're flying VFR in uncontrolled airspace, just how much actual need do you have for the instruments, anyway? – jamesqf Oct 01 '19 at 17:50
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    @jamesqf true about GA and knowing your switches, one should at least know the aproximate location ;) seriously speaking, even in GA you should find certain things immediately without looking: battery, ingnition, everything about fuel etc. Regarding VFR: you should always know your speed and altitude, be it in english or russian :D – Jpe61 Oct 01 '19 at 18:20
  • @Jpe61: I disagree, at least WRT getting that info from instruments in a GA plane. (Never flown fighter jets, so I can't really comment.) One can get altitude from looking out the window, speed from how the plane feels and sounds. Of course this isn't precise, but it would be enough to fly the plane if you had to, e.g. if someone has sabotaged all your instruments. – jamesqf Oct 02 '19 at 03:09
  • @jamesqf yes, you can operate an aircraft you know without gauges pretty safely in VFR, but when it comes to rules and regulations, you are not allowed to, see ICAO annex 6, part I, chapter 6, section 6.4, for example. Flying a fighter jet in combat training, you'd want to know your speed not to fly outside the envelope. – Jpe61 Oct 02 '19 at 06:04
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    Knowing that the picture was of a Russian aircraft instrument, even my untrained self pretty quickly thought "altimeter," what with the general shape and markings, the "mm" indicator and dial no doubt for that air-pressure-at-ground-level thing altimeters need, and especially a marking that looks remarkably like the word "meter" even if you don't know that Russian/Cyrillic "Р" approximates a western "R." – cjs Oct 02 '19 at 08:26
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    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_numerals exists. They just aren't used anymore. – Mołot Oct 02 '19 at 08:36
  • Whoa, thanks @Mołot, I had no idea, I'll update my answer. – Jpe61 Oct 02 '19 at 09:46
  • @Jpe61: But I'm not talking about flying in combat training, I'm talking about the test pilots who first get their hands on the new MiG-whatever, in order to determine just what the "envelope" happens to be. Then you can replace Cyrillic gauges with English ones, or just use a label maker.. – jamesqf Oct 02 '19 at 16:26
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    "now when I see text that says высота, I know it means altitude" I rather doubt that if you had five similar cyrilic words you'd really remember the exact notation for "altitude". Well you might have an eidetic memory, but at least the vast majority of people wouldn't. But then it's not necessary anyhow: I doubt that any pilot ever had to read "altimeter" to find the correct instrument, or that you would have enough time during a flight to start reading labels. It's all muscle memory. – Voo Oct 02 '19 at 16:32
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    @Voo a single word might be difficult to recognize from "a lineup" of five similar ones by an average person, but I stand by my claim that fighter pilots are well above average when it comes to intelligence, and test pilots profoundly so. I do completely agree with you on that it's not necessary (at all) to be able to read labels as long as you know where what you need is and how it works. – Jpe61 Oct 02 '19 at 16:58
  • this. The main difference is that things are labeled in metric instead of imperial. – jwenting Oct 03 '19 at 05:09
  • @Voo I disagree. It's not at all hard to learn to read Cyrillic phonetically (as in, it'll take you a couple of hours) and, at that point, it's no harder to learn a short list of Russian words than, say, a short list of Portuguese or Dutch words. But this is where I do disagree with something in the question: to me, the pronunciation (even if it's not accurate) is important. It's much easier to remember the sound of a word than some sequence of abstract symbols. – David Richerby Oct 03 '19 at 08:49
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    Ok, I'm Russian, so let me speak from the "aggressors" side. The language barrier is not a big problem as was mentioned. The real problem is the measurement system differs from your brain, reflexes and perception systems are used to. It's not enough to perfectly know that 1 meter = 3.3 feet, you need to feel this intuitively. Living with a "foreign" measurement system for decades, most people still convert values into the system they grow up with, and this conversion takes some seconds, which might be critical when you flying on a jet with gauges, graduated in a foreign measurement system. – Anatoly Nikolaev Oct 03 '19 at 09:23
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You don't need to speak(1) fluent(2) Russian(3):

  1. In fact you don't need to speak at all, just understand.
  2. You don't need to be fluent, just understand enough to not crash the plane.
  3. It's not about Russian, it is about Russian Aviation Jargon. (Think about English: if you walked up to a random person on the street and started talking about laminar flow, elevons, flaperons, flat spins, etc., then from their perspective, you might just as well speak Russian!) We are talking about a couple of dozen terms at most, and highly standardized technical terms at that. Also, physics and aerodynamics work the same everywhere, so there are going to be a lot less cultural differences and a lot more straightforward 1:1 translation.

Last, but certainly not least: we are talking about trained and experienced test pilots. It is literally their job to fly airplanes they don't know how they will behave, and figure it out as they go along.

Jörg W Mittag
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    This is so true. I speak effectively no Japanese, but I'm perfectly capable of having reasonably lucid conversations in little more than totally broken jargon with Japanese engineers working on niche industrial/scientific equipment that we're both experts in. We can barely say more than "hello" to each other otherwise, but if it's troubleshooting a torque overload on a servo motor, or tracing down an aberrent interlock in PLC ladder logic we basically speak the same language - jargon. – J... Oct 02 '19 at 20:04
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    @J...: Indeed, it has happened to me more than once that our customers discussed some technical detail amongst themselves and then wanted to explain their conclusion to me, only to find much to their (and my own!) surprise that I actually understood them. This has happened to me in Norwegian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Dutch, Flemish, and Polish, none of which I speak fluently. (In fact, the only one of those languages I learned at all is French, which I learned 5 years in school, but haven't used in 23 years.) – Jörg W Mittag Oct 02 '19 at 22:06
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    @J...: Conversely, I do read, write, understand, and speak English fluently, but I have no idea what you are talking about. (Well, that's an overstatement. I have a rough idea what PLC ladder logic is, but I wouldn't be able to converse about it.) – Jörg W Mittag Oct 02 '19 at 22:08
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Just to add: I was at an airshow in Australia once in the 90's and the radio announcer said the MiG-15 which was flying had labels on all the instruments to meet the CASA (Civil Australian Safety Authority) regulations to be allowed to be registered here. Sure enough, all the instruments had sticky-back DYMO labels (the old style, with the white stamped/embossed lettering on the coloured plastic strips). This is just what I remember him saying: I wouldn't vouch for it being part of the regulations as that's getting off-topic.

I can't guarantee it's the same aircraft I remember seeing, but this is exactly what I mean: enter image description here

Nathan
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Addition: In the cold war era, quite a lot of documentation for Russian equipment seems to have been available (well, existent) in German too (eg you can find training films for setting up antiaircraft batteries on youtube, in German), plus some export versions of Russian-made gear with German labelling. The reason is that the Nationale Volksarmee in East Germany was supplied with various Russian equipment, and obviously needed to be able to operate it.

This extends the circle of people who can help - also, there were friendly ties with the West German Bundeswehr (who did not use Russian equipment but could certainly help with anything labelled in German).

Ralph J
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rackandboneman
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    Good point, and welcome to Av.SE! After all, some of the aircraft that ended up as Constant Peg jets came not from defecting Soviet pilots but from pilots of other countries where they'd been exported. Those countries would be sources of the same sorts of things (in languages beyond Russian) you mention. – Ralph J Oct 02 '19 at 20:48
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    My guess is that all Eastern Bloc pilots were required to know Russian though, it was taught in schools and to officers. – Jakub Kania Oct 04 '19 at 09:58
  • BTW, there were a few MiGs gifted to the Bundeswehr after the wall fell, however they were gifted on to Poland several years later.... – rackandboneman Oct 04 '19 at 10:28
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As a non-native speaker for both English and Russian I can confirm that you don't really have to speak (or even read) some language in order to operate a more or less familiar machine labeled in that language.

Most people from smaller nations are used to this, those that were young in 1953 - even more so.

h22
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fraxinus
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In this part of his TED talk, Col. Chris Hadfield recounts his return from the ISS in the Soyuz spacecraft.

His speech is about how the experience could have been scary and overwhelming, but

"instead, twenty years previously, we had started studying Russian. And then once you learn Russian then we learned orbital mechanics in Russian, and then we learned vehicle control theory, and then we got into the simulator and practiced over and over and over again"

This is a slightly different situation since it was a collaboration between Russia and NASA, but it goes to show that pilots can learn to fly pretty much anything with instruments labelled in any language.

Aubreal
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It's not that hard to learn a language, certainly the technical parts. However it's a bit more than words; for instance Soviet attitude indicators work very differently.

You just need to think in Russian :)

Harper - Reinstate Monica
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    Are you sure that those word in the video: ruž'e, pripacy, orudie, charjady, vcpyška, komki... are meant to mean anything? – Vladimir F Героям слава Oct 02 '19 at 11:04
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    @Harper this would deserve +2 simply because Clint Eastwood! – Jpe61 Oct 02 '19 at 15:32
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    @VladimirF In fact, they don't :) Rifle (specifically, hand rifle), ammunition (боеприпасы actually), cannon (not exactly the right word, but possible), shells (as in cannon shells), flash (not sure what it means here), lumps (no clue whatsoever) – Aleks G Oct 02 '19 at 16:06
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That would not be required as an experienced pilot can find their way around the cockpit with relative ease. You can spot the basic flight instruments, navigation instruments and engine instruments with ease. Additional systems can be re-placarded as well by native language speakers. In addition most of these ‘acquisitions’ were turned over by defecting pilots who are generally happy to brief our test pilots on the system functions in question prior to flight. If you were a test pilot selected to be part of constant peg or similar reverse engineer program, you would receive quite a lot of briefings from the intelligence community and technicians who have worked on that aircraft prior to ever getting in and flying it. You will be fairly well-versed in the systems and their operation prior to your first flight.

Romeo_4808N
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I'm not a pilot or aviation expert but I think one point is missing. I think the majority of aircraft are designed to operate on ground without actually flying. That's because to make pre checks. It would be easily fatal if you need to check a critical system mid air to find out it's failing. Thus you can try out all basic systems to fly on ground in safety and without time pressure. After you figured that out you can at least fly by manual systems. Which likely most aircraft have as well as backup. Don't you think?

steros
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    I'm wondering who and why the downvote? Because @steros made a perfectly good and accurate point here. That is how anyone who is about to start flying an unfamiliar aircraft begins: an hour after hour, sitting in the cockpit running through switches and procedures. – Jpe61 Oct 04 '19 at 20:15
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It is not the gauges that are the problem.

Think of it as something you might be more familiar with, like a car from the 1950's

As long as you are traveling during the day and paying attention to the vehicle, they gauges don't really tell you anything you can't estimate on your own. They just give a bit more detail.

It is the switches that are difficult. Have you ever driven an unfamiliar car, and accidently turned on the windshield wipers? Same thing here. You need to know what switches do what, you can figure that out when your not moving, and re-label or memorize.

James Jenkins
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I don’t understand the difficulty here. Why would it have been difficult to learn just enough Russian. You wouldn’t have to know it fluently. You are not having a conversation on aerodynamics with the plane.

As far as the differences in the gauges, it would’ve been no different than transitioning from steam to glass cockpits now. Things look different and there may be a different perspective. Any pilot who learned the complexities of aircraft in general should be able to be trained on those differences.

It’s like an American driving a 15 passenger, manual transmission, right-steering van or truck through the London congestion zones. Or, driving through a non-English speaking country. You just adjust.

Dean F.
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