After the end of the Second World War, Bulgaria fell in total
dependency upon the Soviet Union as a direct result of the 1944
Yalta agreement on the 'spheres of influence' division of Europe.
The Bulgarian Air Force was radically reformed in the Soviet style
and rapidly re-equipped with huge numbers of front-line aircraft.
The strengthening of the Bulgarian air arm became a high priority
as the Cold War in the Balkans gathered speed, and small incidents
near the southern and western borders of the country began to occur
with increasing frequency. The extensive 'Sovietisation' of the
Bulgarian air arm led to the eventual change of its official title
in late 1949, becoming identical to its Soviet counterpart, the
Voennovazdushni Sily (VVS), featuring a structure identical to that
of a Soviet front-line air army. In April 1951, the Bulgarian Air
Force entered the jet era with the delivery of the first batch of
Yak-23 fighters, followed not after long by the MiG-15. The hot
period of the Cold War in the early and mid-1950s saw frequent
night overflights by US aircraft ferrying CIA teams to be delivered
by parachute to Bulgarian territory, and often to Romania and the
southern parts of the Soviet Union. This tense situation required a
constant high alert state, but the Bulgarian jet fighters and
anti-aircraft artillery proved largely unsuccessful in countering
the night intrusions. They were more successful, however, in
countering the flights of high-altitude balloons with photo
reconnaissance equipment launched by the US intelligence in an
effort to gather information on the countries behind the Iron
Curtain. The only occasion of a foreign aircraft being shot down
was El Al Flight 402, a Super Constellation on a regular passenger
flight between London to Tel Aviv via Vienna and Istanbul. The
ill-fated airliner, known as one of the greatest victims of the
Cold War tensions, nervousness and distrust, was attacked by
Bulgarian MiG-15 fighters on 27 June 1955 after it erroneously
strayed off course into Bulgarian territory, killing all 58 people
onboard. The formation of the Soviet Union-dominated Warsaw Pact
Treaty Organisation on May 14, 1956 heralded the beginning of a new
era in the VVS' development. As one of the most enthusiastic Warsaw
Pact members, Bulgaria was readily supplied with huge numbers of
combat jets, anti-aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missile
systems and early warning radars in an effort to boost up the
pact's southern flank defence.
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