Cuban Pilot defects in AN-2

Found ENSA’s Facebook (?!) page with a slightly retouched AN2 glamour shot.

Looks a bit different than the real thing.


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At 30 feet and being fairly slow, the clutter filter probably classified the target as a ship and the Eastern AD controller probably has those deselected. I would forever have problems with the system classifying semis on the interstate as a low slow flyer. That is probably why our displays had major highways as a display option though.

I can see how the next Pearl Harbor attack on US soil could overcome radar. Drones flying at 30’ over water, then a bit higher near major highways.
 
I can see how the next Pearl Harbor attack on US soil could overcome radar. Drones flying at 30’ over water, then a bit higher near major highways.
Iranian suicide drones!!!!
 
Off-topic, but how is it a suicide drone if there's nobody in it? Do robots have feelings now? Was 'Bladerunner' non-fiction? Do they get special pronouns?
 
Off-topic, but how is it a suicide drone if there's nobody in it? Do robots have feelings now? Was 'Bladerunner' non-fiction? Do they get special pronouns?
This is kind of the opposite of my thoughts when I was looking at the two seat kamakaze plane at the Pima air and space museum. I mean, it makes sense, but it’s hard to wrap your head around training to be a kamakaze.

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Yeah, agree. And that reminds me of someone who wondered what wars would be like if the minimum age was about 40. A lot of discussions would start with "you want me to do what again?" Not suggesting there wouldn't be any conflicts, but they would be different.
 
Yeah, agree. And that reminds me of someone who wondered what wars would be like if the minimum age was about 40. A lot of discussions would start with "you want me to do what again?" Not suggesting there wouldn't be any conflicts, but they would be different.
We were off to fight the Hun
Though hardly anyone
Had ever read about a battle
Much less seen a Lewis Gun
We were off to fight the Hun
And it looked like lots of fun,
Somehow it didn't seem like war at all,
At all, at all, at all.
Somehow it didn't seem like war at all.


-Eric Peterson and John Gray, "Billy Bishop Goes To War."

Ron Wanttaja
 
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Defecting in an airplane model that was shot down by a Huey. Embarrasing.
 
Didn't read to see if it was brought up before in the thread, but read about Major Orestes Lorenzo Pérez. By far the most BAMF story I've ever read about. This dude gets street cred attending pilot training in the USSR, deploys on behalf of Cuba flying Migs in support of Angola's communist-aligned side, in their decade long on and off civil war. Has the opportunity to live in the USSR during a second deployment; comes back to Cuba to see his native land riddled in economic decay. Finally decides to defect on his MiG-23 into Florida, parks it in NAS Key West. Ol' Fidel starts playing hostage with the wife and kids in retaliation.

This dude then decides to go back in a piddly C-310, and with coded messages sent months in advance directs the wife and kids to a shoreside city hundredish miles east of Havana. Casually picks them out by their orange shirts he directed them to show up in, lands the thing in the middle of a freeway, boards them with engines running with traffic onlookers in disbelief, and blasts right back to the amazement of onlookers, closing the chapter of their family exodus for good. This mofo even did his own jailhouse intel assessment on anti-aircraft MEZ for the fire control radar and missile batteries of SAM sites around the city of Matanzas. Unreal. On a good day I can't get that actionable tac level intel briefing from the nosa f*ckos from my [build a thousand bridges but suck one...] days. Digressing.

I've read anecdotes of Cambodian and Vietnamese exodus into the US, and I still rank Lorenzo's story as the most incredible, especially the brazen risk to go back in such manner to rescue his family. Last I heard he made good money in real estate and construction, owns or co-owns a damn L-39. What's my excuse....lol. This guy has lives like a cat, and still going. Def one dude I wouldn't hesitate flying into combat with. Glad he ended up on our side.
 
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Shame he couldn’t get his family in it too, but leaving your loved ones to be tortured because you wanted to leave, not sure he’s the type of person we want here, I’d vote to deport him back to cuba
 
Shame he couldn’t get his family in it too, but leaving your loved ones to be tortured because you wanted to leave, not sure he’s the type of person we want here, I’d vote to deport him back to cuba
Confirmed….does live under a bridge. “What is your quest? What is your favorite color?….”
 
Confirmed….does live under a bridge. “What is your quest? What is your favorite color?….”

Yeah, because deserting your family to be tortured is a great trait, just like using hard drugs to overcome emotional problems
 
Shame he couldn’t get his family in it too, but leaving your loved ones to be tortured because you wanted to leave, not sure he’s the type of person we want here, I’d vote to deport him back to cuba
Didn't sound like they were tortured. After his escape, there was an apparent *threat* to torture them, but they were still free enough to go to a resort town. Apparently, they weren't being watched closely enough for the bad guys to stop them from getting on the plane, either, after a VERY obvious landing.

I don't doubt their life was uncomfortable after his defection, but his actions may have been taken with the full cooperation of his wife.

Sounds like Major Perez did an excellent assessment of the actual threat to his family, and it paid off.

Ron Wanttaja
 
It was consented, his wife Vicky knew of his discontent with the regime and (at least per his memoir book) consented to his defection. It was a PR nightmare for the Castro regime, more so than the Mariel boatlift imo. They weren't going to assassinate the children as a result. They would have killed him on the spot however, and oreste knew that.

As previously stated, the gamble worked for them, they now have lived decades of a very comfortable upper class lifestyle in the US. His two sons (my contemporaries) are married and live very typical Americans upper middle class lifestyles. Couldn't pick them for political refugees if you tried. Which was the point of emigrating to the US in the first place. Though i don't know the family personally, we have mutual acquaintances from the diaspora, to include fellow USAF pilots in that mix, one of whom who was my student two years ago.

Caribbean geopolitics is a topic I'm well read on a personal level for the obvious reasons. I have professional peers and personal acquaintances who are direct political refugees of the Castro regime exodus. Their stories can fill multi volume books. It's a fascinating conglomeration of stories of perseverance in the face of authoritarianism, which most US denizens are simply too fat and complacent to ever internalize. From marielitos, to high members of the communist regime, to everybody in between, such as the aforementioned major. The stories can be found in all socioeconomic stratas of former cuban society.

This forum is not attention span compatible enough to provide the expanded conversation of the Cuban diaspora. It does however lend itself to unnuanced flippant smears that fill the "TL;Dr" character limit of the chucklehead blindly bloviating on a topic he/she has no sincere understanding of in the first place. Not sure it rises to the level of trolling, but it's certainly not a well researched position.

In fairness to POA, sh"tposting is not limited to this message board. All's fair on the internetz. That's the opportunity cost of interacting online, no crying in baseball type of thing. I do recommend his memoirs if anybody is interested in the upbringing and context of what leads a Soviet trained white collar field grade officer to take such a pivot.

In a way, we share a lot in common with these adversary pilots, which I've always found fascinating and strangely brotherhood-inducing. Humanity can be paradoxical that way. Cheers.
 
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I had the honor to know a guy who didn't get out of Poland in time, in the 30's. In my mind I don't have the right to judge anyone for whatever decisions they made around escaping a bad regime.
 
Caribbean geopolitics is a topic I'm well read on a personal level for the obvious reasons. I have professional peers and personal acquaintances who are direct political refugees of the Castro regime exodus. Their stories can fill multi volume books. It's a fascinating conglomeration of stories of perseverance in the face of authoritarianism, which most US denizens are simply too fat and complacent to ever internalize. From marielitos, to high members of the communist regime, to everybody in between, such as the aforementioned major. The stories can be found in all socioeconomic stratas of former cuban society.

I have a very good friend who's family escaped with his Mom and the two kids simply getting on PanAM out of town. Their father was staying to work as a broadcaster (he translated all the US shows that came to Cuban TV) and was planning on joining them "on vacation in Miami" in a week. Che Guevara approached him and said "we would like you to be the voice of the revolution" He said "let me go home and ask my wife" Of course, no latin man every asks his wife anything :D and he packed and departed via the next flight for America. Their very nice house became the local commie headquarters and their 300SL mercedes Che's car.

My friend grew up, joined the USMCR and went to school, then AOCS and flew S-3 Vikings for 30 years (well, retired as XO of Aviation Schools Command).

The reality is those that have stared Communism in the face make some of our best citizens. I look at the folks advocating for it and Socialism today and think a year or two in Venezuela or Cuba might open their eyes a bit to reality from the indoctrination they've gotten.
 
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I had a great-uncle/cousin/or something on my mother's side who managed a fruit operation in Cuba in the late 1950s. Although he did not own the company, after Castro took over and threatened his family, he "signed over" the company to the communist regime. They let his family leave, but threw him in prison as a capitalist pig (although he was just an employee). In a few months, they let him board a plane with nothing except his tattered clothing on his back.

Yea for socialism!
 
Maybe he changed his mind and was heading back home...
 
Is it truly another defection? Or were the crew flying the Antonov back to Cuba?

Ron Wanttaja

Due to security at the TNT (Training and Transition) Airport, my guess is that this was an authorized crew from Cuba returning the aircraft; however, Mack's Fish Camp (near the reported crash site) is located about 26 miles to the ENE. If this had been an authorized flight to Cuba, it would have used the usual corridor across the Florida Straits, which is Marathon to Varadero (at least it was back when I flew it), and Marathon is located 80 miles south of TNT. It is possible that some of the extremist anti-communist Miami Cubans stole it to keep the airplane from being returned to communist Cuba. The mystery deepens.

... or maybe the authorized Cuban crew decided to defect to Miami ... or...

Curiouser and curiousererer.
 
It appears to be the same airplane -- registration CU-A1885. Curious.[/ATTACH]
Due to security at the TNT (Training and Transition) Airport, my guess is that this was an authorized crew from Cuba returning the aircraft;

That sounds likely, since it crashed near the same airport, TNT, where the defector landed it. Three weeks sounds reasonable for Cuba and the US to arrange the return of the plane.

The original defector was said to be the usual pilot for that aircraft, so it’s a good question whether the two guys who crashed it really knew how to fly it. I’d guess they were chosen more for loyalty to Cuba than for currency on this airframe.
 
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