The Infamous 'How to Steal a MIG' manual
This fascinating Air Force technical report is specifically focused on how a pilot, behind the Iron curtain or enemy lines, could know just enough to start up and fly home a stolen MIG-15 fighter.
Finally declassified in 1988, and only released to the public in 2015 via a FOIA request by Governmentattic.org, this unique look at Cold War Air Force intelligence product is a must-read for student's of Soviet era aviation.
Informally as the "How to Steal a MIG" manual, it was interestingly, published by the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson AFB in 1955, a mere two years after the U.S. obtained a functioning Mig-15 from N. Korean defector No Kum-Sok who defected to Kimpo Air Base on 21 September 1953.
His MiG-15 was minutely inspected and was test flown by several test pilots, including Chuck Yeager. It is now in the collection of the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio.
"This manual has been prepared specifically for the purpose of providing USAF personnel with operating information on the MiG-15."
"Only the information the pilot must know is presented,"
"Some procedures which might be considered unorthodox for operational flying of this airplane are recommended because they represent the simplest means of assuring safe flight."
