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In the pantheon of military aviation history, few stories capture the imagination quite like the secretive operations of the US Air Force's 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron, better known as the "Red Eagles." Established in the late 1970s, the Red Eagles' mission was to train US pilots against Soviet MiGs using actual aircraft obtained through…
From the mid-1960s until the end of the Cold War, the United States Air Force acquired and flew Russian-made MiG jets, eventually creating a secret squadron dedicated to exposing American fighter pilots to enemy MiGs. In this program, MiGs were secretly acquired and made air-worthy, before selected ace pilots were trained to fly the assets as they were flown by America's enemies. This book tells the fascinating story of the Red Eagles, using recently declassified information and firsthand accounts from the pilots who took part in the program.
Clandestine programs race to pluck foreign aircraft, missiles, and more in order to exploit them by reverse engineering and other means.
Hands on training in a captured enemy aircraft.
Pek described the wide-eye expressions he saw on the faces of pilots as they encountered a real, live MiG for the first time.