241. squadron "Tigers"  - Serbian Air Force© www.dimitrijeostojic.com

The Tigers

On the first day of the 1999 Kosovo War, while the bombs were falling onto Serbia, commander of 98th Aviation regiment, colonel Sreto Malinović, held a short speech for the pilots of 241st squadron “Tigers”, which will one day probably go into history textbooks. After the speech he sat behind the commands of one of the aircrafts and led the formation of “Orao’s” in action against the terrorist’s positions in Kosovo.
This is just one of many stories about the “Tigers”. Sadly, these stories about the heroic actions of defenders of our country are not welcome by the politicians in these years, and they are slowly slipping into forget. During the ’99 war members of this squadron had the most flight hours and were involved in numerous combat missions. In one such mission colonel Života Đurić, the commander of the squadron from that period lost his life.Today, 241st Fighter-bomber squadron “Tigers”, is the only “attack” squadron in ViPVO (Serbian Air Force), with the primary mission of close air support to the ground units. It is a part of 98th Airforce brigade stationed at the airbase Lađevci, near Kraljevo. “Tigers” fly the domestically produced aircrafts, attack aircraft J/NJ-22 “Orao” (Eagle ) and trainer/light-attack G-4 “Super Galeb” (Super Seagull).During the past few years, I had opportunity to photograph “Tigers” at several occasions. Some of that photos you could see in the issues of magazine “Odbrana” and other publications, some of them on the various forums and just few on my blog. This is my chance to compensate that, I hope you’ll enjoy about 40 handpicked photos in this blog post…

click images to enlarge

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Lined up Orao’s (J-22 Orao) at Ladjevci airbase.

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NJ-22 during the lowest and craziest low pass that I ever saw!

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Orao J-22 firing from GSh-23 cannons above the “Čenta” proving ground. .

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© www.dimitrijeostojic.com

© www.dimitrijeostojic.com

J-22 attacking ground targets with the 57mm unguided missiles.

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© www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

-22 Orao with its deadly arsenal. On the far right you can see the missile AGM-65B “Maverick”, seadly the only “smart” weapon in our Airforce’s A2G arsenal.

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

Preparations for takeoff. Pilot in the back seat of the G-4 “Super Galeb ” is the colonel Dejan Joksimović – commander of the 98th Airforce brigade.

241.lbae "Tigrovi" // www.dimitrijeostojic.com

Commander of the 98th Airforce brigade – colonel Dejan Joksimović.

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

Replacing the empty IC decoys from IC dispenser.

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

“Orao” J-22 at the runway of the airport Niš. Even though it is not home base of the “Tigers”, lately they can be seen there more often because of the construction works at the Ladjevci Airbase.

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

241. lbae Tigrovi // © www.dimitrijeostojic.com

text and photos copyright © Dimitrije Ostojic

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This work by Dimitrije Ostojic is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at www.dimitrijeostojic.com/blog

17 thoughts on “The Tigers

  1. Odlične fotografije! U Lađevcima sam služio 1983. No tad nije bilo Orlova. Sad čujem da je to velika baza. Onda je bio sam jedan preletni aerodrom s dva jastreba u pari…

  2. Služio sam vojsku,klasa jul 1993-1994 i bio avio specista u ovoj eskadrili.
    Secam se da je tada komadant bio Sreto Malinovic.
    Lepe me uspomene vezu za to vreme.

  3. Моја браћа – синови СРБИЈЕ јаки духом и вером. За Видовдан, за страдање србије у време турака да дају по њушци. И пиндосам дати по носу……………………. војник Русије

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