First commercially hired fighter pilots

[Turkpilot]

Anyone know about this? Apparently hiring ex fast movers to fly the SU27/30. Pay is 160,000 euro a year.
E.C.A. Program LTD - SU 27SKM (http://www.eca-program.com/)

[forget]

E.C.A. Program and the European Aviation Security Agency (EASA) have reached an agreement on the interpretation to ....

A little careless. :hmm:

[Turkpilot]

Careless? Why do you say that?

[forget]

European Aviation Security Agency. No such thing. Go on, prove me wrong.

[Cpt_Pugwash]

TP,
Any surviving members of the Flying Tigers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers) may take issue with your thread title :hmm:

"Flying Tigers was the popular name of the 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_Air_Force) in 1941-1942. They were mostly former United States Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Air_Forces) (USAAF), Navy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy) (USN), and Marine Corps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps) (USMC) pilots and ground crew, recruited under Presidential (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States) sanction and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Lee_Chennault). The group consisted of three fighter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_aircraft) squadrons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squadron#Aviation) with about 20 aircraft each. It trained in Burma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma) before the American (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_America) entry into World War II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II) with the mission of defending China against Japanese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Japan) forces. Arguably, the group was a private military contractor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_military_contractor), and for that reason the volunteers have sometimes been called mercenaries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercenary). The members of the group had lucrative contracts with salaries ranging from $250 a month for a mechanic to $750 for a squadron commander, roughly three times what they had been making in the U.S. forces."

[Gnd]

Yes, did you mean Ecclesiastical Architects and Surveyors Association (E.A.S.A)
(http://www.easanet.co.uk/)

Oh how perfect some of us are and woe betide any messtakes!!! The AH people 'sort' of do it with reservists?

[bobward]

Commercially Hired Fighter Pilots - is that newspeak for mercenaries?

[Two's in]

Sorry Gnd, wrong again...

EASA - Electrical Apparatus Service Association

[Turkpilot]

Looks like an interesting job...

[Buster Hyman]

I wonder if Chinese doctrine includes any reference to the Americans helping to defend the PROC? :hmm:

[TBM-Legend]

Flight Systems for example were using 'civilian' fighter jocks for years on their fleet of civil fighter types plus the A-4 mobs etc.

I think that there are many examples of Govts hiring 'civil' ex-mil fighter pilots etc including the Flying Tigers/Sultan of Oman/numerous African countries etc. What this mob are doing looks like a civil version of Top Gun or the like...

[GreenKnight121]

I wonder if Chinese doctrine includes any reference to the Americans helping to defend the PROC? http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/yeees.gif

Ummm...

I'm sure there is no mention of the event you describe... because it never happened!

There was no PROC when Chennault & his boys of the AVG were operating.

Mao and his folks were holed up in north-western China while the Republic of China, the only recognized government of China at the time [usually referred to by the name of its ruling party: Kuomintang (KMT)], was paying the AVG to fight Japan for it.

That way, the KMT could carry on with the (to it) far more important job of keeping the Communist Party of China properly isolated and cut off from support and resources.


Thus, I am sure the PROC has plenty of mention of the "Capitalist Tools of the Oppressive and Fascist KMT"... at least the older books would phrase it that way.



There IS a modern memorial to the Flying Tigers... approved by the PROC government, and which presents the AVG in a positive light:

People's Daily Online -- Flying Tigers Memorial Hall opens in central-south China (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200509/08/eng20050908_207199.html)

UPDATED: 08:12, September 08, 2005

A memorial hall for the Flying Tigers opened Wednesday in central China's Hunan Province to commemorate the heroes fighting at the anti-Fascist battlefields in China during World War II, known in China as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. The memorial hall, located at the Zhijiang Airport that used to host US General Claire Lee Chennault's Flying Tigers and the Sino-US Air Force, keeps a Sino-American Joint Air Force control tower and many relics and documents about the Flying Tigers.
About 100 Chinese, American and Russian World War II veterans visited the memorial hall on its opening day.
The veterans came to Zhijiang for the second China Zhijiang International Peace Culture Festival to mark the 60th anniversary of China's victory in the war.
The Flying Tigers were a voluntary flying group made up of 300 young US servicemen under the leadership of retired US Army Air Corps' captain and air advisor to China, Claire Lee Chennault.
Their main task was to protect the Burma Road, which linked southwest China's Kunming and Burma's Rangoon, the only land supply route open to bring war materials into China.
Source: Xinhua



Note the lack of political rhetoric... or any mention of who had hired them... they are simply listed as "Heroes of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression".

[Buster Hyman]

Irony. It's more than just crease less shirts. :ok:

[kluge]

My upfront apologies for thread drift.

Based on GreenKight121's contribution you might find this interesting and hopefully educational;

Nevada Journal: Little Cat Mountain (http://nj.npri.org/nj99/11/feature2.htm)

I found the little museum by accident a few years back while on a motorcycle ride through Southern PRC. It is dedicated to the crew of the B.24 "Tough Titti" that perished in August 1944.

At the centre point in the museum is a 2ft x 4ft ish glass cylinder containing the dog tags of the crew. These may be reproductions.
It is a shrine.

I was moved by the care and attention in this place and especially the reverence in which the details of this tragic story are told.

I have spent a lot of time in PRC and frankly was surprised to see this.
International relations arguments aside, I was humbled by it.

[green granite]

Then of course there were the RAF Eagle Squadrons in 1940, and didn't the Israeli Air Force hire pilots in the late 40's?

[kluge]

Eagle Squadron members were volunteers.

[GreenKnight121]

Unless the Eagle Squadron members were fighting at their own expense, then the fact that a nation not their own was paying them to fight in a war that their own nation not only was not part of, but had banned them from fighting in, makes them mercenaries!

[clunckdriver]

Oh dear, Ive flown for two airforces, was not a citizen of either nation, so I gues Im a "Merc", so be it, twas a lot of fun, meet every other year with the "Bad Guys', who of course are no longer "Bad Guys" but important tradeing partners, my cynical? No way!

[Al R]

<But Melville ten Cate, the company’s Dutch co-founder, insists that there is nothing sinister about his plan to buy €1.2bn ($1.5bn, £983m) of warplanes from Belarus and bring them to Iceland.>

FT.com / Europe - Iceland set to embrace war-game fliers (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f2a90054-b460-11df-8208-00144feabdc0.html)

<Several defence industry officials contacted by the Financial Times are deeply sceptical of ECA’s business plan, given the cost of buying and maintaining fighter aircraft.>

I wonder what 'ash' insurance would cost him, and I'm sure there'd be an opportunity somewhere, out there, for professional 'enemy' ground forces.