The USAF MiGs - someone here must have seen one!

[Jackonicko]

In the midst of all the furore surrounding the declassification of the USAF's Constant Peg programme, operating real MiGs in the adversary training role as well as for OT&E, John Manclark, the US Air Force's director of test and evaluation, said that as many as 25 MiG-17s, MiG-21s and MiG-23s were used in the programme, killing two pilots in the process!

He also said that: "If you talk to any general officer in the Air Force that is still on active duty and he flew fighters, he flew against the MiGs," Manclark said. "It was that big of a program."

This would infer that any fighter pilot of a certain rank (a General now would have been a Colonel then, presumably, or even just a major?) would have been exposed.

[brickhistory]

Many, many line pilots went through Nellis and did true DACT with the MiGs,from Lts on up. And of course the maintenance guys having to work on the jets and handcraft, in many cases, replacement parts.

[scroggs]

This would infer that any fighter pilot of a certain rank (a General now would have been a Colonel then, presumably, or even just a major?) would have been exposed.

Imply. Imply! Or 'It could be inferred [from this]'... For goodness' sake, Jacko, call yourself a wordsmith? ;)

Scroggs

[Jackonicko]

Ah, yes, but it's written into my contract that everything that I write must include a certain percentage of grammatical errors, misspellings and sheer bollocks, in order that I do not jeopardise the earnings of editors and sub-editors.

Many of my colleagues are extremely grateful that I take care of their allocation of errors and bollocks as well.

But Brick, do you know any of them?

[stickmonkeytamer]

I saw a MIG15 crash in 1990 in the US... Who need afterburners... easier to outturn instead of outrun. :ok:

[soddim]

I worked with the USAF in the immediate aftermath of their withdrawal from Vietnam and was fortunate to be able to share their concentration on DACT - no doubt spurred on by the fact that the US Navy had fared better in the war. At that time no expense was spared in order to achieve the best air-to-air capability that money could buy and it showed in the procurement of new aircraft.

There was procurement of real opposition aircraft and a great deal of experience gained using them. The aggressors also simulated their capabilities and the USAF had a very good realistic training programme that achieved impressive results.

I have no doubt that the use of Soviet aircraft continued long after I left.

[GPMG]

Is there any evidence of the Russkies snaffling any western airframes for the same purpose?

[The Helpful Stacker]

Is there any evidence of the Russkies snaffling any western airframes for the same purpose?

Didn't they nick an F2 a few years back because they were running out of concrete?:}

[L J R]

Apart from being the current home of Elvis, and the Roswell spacemen from 1948, Dreamland (lay men refer to Area 51), some of us call it the Big Box (or Container for the USAF types) was the home of the MiG 'squadron', that the data was extracted from. The Threat 'Museum' at Nellis was for a while a Secret NOFORN place. It contaids (and still does - although no longer classified) some of the earlier versions 'acquired' for this purpose.

[West Coast]

Jacko
Did you see the article in this or last weeks Aviation week&space technology about the USAF Migs? If not it may provide a few tidbits for you.