5th Fighter Air Base (Ravnets)
Ravnets Air Base housed a squadron (flying MiG-21s, later MiG-29s) of the 17th Fighter Air Regiment - an integral part of the 2nd Air Defence Division. Later, as 5th Fighter Air Base it was put under the newly established Air Defence Corps and its squadron was named "Sharks"(although unofficially, but still because of its patch and its geographical location close to the sea this is how it used to be called). The base was considered elite because of its proximity to the Turkish border and its task to protect the oil refinery near Burgas, which is deemed of strategical importance to the country. That is the reason for the squadron to be the first (and only) transiting to the MiG-29. As the base deactivated the air unit was moved to Graf Ignatievo, where it is currently residing as 2nd Squadron of the 3rd Fighter Air Base.
Read more about this topic: List Of Bulgarian Air Force Bases
Famous quotes containing the words fighter, air and/or base:
“A pleasant smell of frying sausages
Attacks the sense, along with an old, mostly invisible
Photograph of what seems to be girls lounging around
An old fighter bomber, circa 1942 vintage.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“The air split into nine levels,
Some gift of tongues of the whistler”
—James Dickey (b. 1923)
“What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
And draw you into madness?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)