Robert M. Bond

Robert M. Bond (16 December 1929 – 26 April 1984) was a lieutenant general in the United States Air Force (USAF). He saw combat in Korea and three tours in Vietnam, before becoming an instructor and then vice-commander of an organization which developed and evaluated weaponry for the USAF. He was decorated for his combat service and his peacetime role. He died in an accident in Nevada while flying a Soviet-built Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 jet fighter-bomber.

Early life and career

Bond was born on 16 December 1929 in Trenton, Tennessee, and attended Marion Military Institute in Marion, Alabama, and the University of Mississippi.

He joined the USAF in 1951 and flew 44 combat missions in the F-86 Sabre during the Korean War. and stated that Bond was flying "an Air Force specially modified test craft", When Time magazine reported on the accident and the rumors of the U.S. MiG program, the USAF was forced to reveal that it was flying Soviet aircraft. There were fears that the publicity would also lead to the exposure of the F-117 program, which was still secret and was also based at Tonopah, but this did not happen.

The accident investigation was chaired by General Gordon E. Williams. The investigation report was kept secret, but one pilot who had seen it commented unsympathetically: "He should have read the flight manual." The report was required reading for American MiG pilots in years to come. There was some annoyance that Bond had written off an irreplaceable national asset. Work continued to make the KM-1 ejection seat used in the MiG-23 safe and reliable; another USAF pilot, Mark Postai, had been killed in an attempted ejection from a MiG-23 in 1982. Maintaining the Soviet ejection seats included reverse engineering the pyrotechnic cartridges which fired them, as these had a relatively short life and had to be replaced regularly as the chemicals degraded. Pilots over the age of 45 were not normally supposed to fly solo in fast jets, and Bond was 54 at the time of his fatal crash. Lieutenant Colonel James Tiley, commander of the Red Hats, was reassigned in July, though it is a matter of debate whether this was related to Bond's death.

Bond was buried in Ashland, Mississippi. A memorial stone to him was placed in the desert where he crashed. Major Thomas E. Drake, an experienced MiG-23 pilot who frequently said "This airplane will kill you today if you let it", emphasized the importance of good preparation to Colonel James Evans, who was preparing to learn to fly the Soviet types, by referring to "the General Bobby Bond Memorial Checkout: two take-offs, one landing, and a fatal ejection." The 4477th was inactivated in July 1990 but it is likely that the USAF continues to operate Russian aircraft clandestinely, including MiG-29s and Su-27s.