Now in hindsight and with additional knowledge the opinions/ ‘facts’ that were derived ‘professionally’ at the time may be incorrect or themselves deficient.

From there we need to be very careful in making a judgement on the level of professionalism of the test pilots who evaluated these a/c and established a basic POH and the maintenance crews/ engineers who developed the maintenance procedures.

These are key points.

It is all very well and good sitting down with manuals 30 years after the event and suggesting that the Red Eagles’ pilots and MX opinions were not professional, but such a view is not reasonable. Indeed, citing the manual here and trying to use that as a basis from which to discredit these men means little to me.

For example, regardless of how the fire warning system in the Flogger works – and as interesting as it is to go to the technical source – the *fact* of the matter is that the Red Eagles had a spate of false alarms that they couldn’t fix. As a result, they installed their own system, because their objective was to expose the threat to the TAF, not gain a full technical understanding of exactly what was causing the issue. Such an approach makes their opinions no less professional because one has to consider the context in which they were formed.

From Stephan Anastasovich Mikoyan in comparision to the experiences of the Red Eagles with their Egyptian Floggers.

Looks like a great book – just ordered it from Amazon.co.uk.

Thanks for the heads up.

If these particular exchanges are representative of the C-model Eagle, that would be a true statement.

IIRC, the F-22 called Fox twice. I did not hear him call “kill”.

At least one example for each claim would be helpful without overtaxing you.

Just a couple following a quick scan:

He doesn’t mention RIVET HASTE, which preceded HAVE IDEA.

He gets the formation date of the 4477th TEF wrong.

He says that it was called CP from 1980 onwards. It was called that all along.

He intimates that the Floggers were acquired after 1980. They were acquired before then.

I have yet to see evidence that the J-7s sourced through the company named CCCP were used by the Red Eagles. I would like to see a source for this.

The 4477th flew its last MiGs in March 1988, not 1990.

There would probably be lots more errors I could point out if I took the time to really cross-check the article, but I think this list proves the point.

The only reason to destroy a few documents may be linked to a foreign source like Egypt. Otherwise it is a crime or a lame excuse.

I am told that lots of records were erased a long time ago because they physically ran out of space – I don’t think that this is an excuse, as it comes from a source who is passionate about preserving history, but acknowledged that it was a genuine reason. Others were destroyed for more sinister reasons. As you say, it is a very sad state of affairs.

PS What is the link to the Red Eagles forum?

http://fjphotography.com/constantpeg/forum/

No one can possibly see through the intent of that verbiage. No matter what they smoke….

Part of the problem here is that he seems to view this as a game of international one-upmanship: America exploited MiGs, so discredit them by saying they don’t know what they are talking about and/or calling them senile/reckless/unprofessional/crap/.

In another old thread here he said that they would never have used the MiGs to develop NCTR algorithms for the F-15 and AWACS (they did, as declassified records show); and he also said that flying Flankers or Fulcrums at Groom would be a waste of time and that there is no proof they are doing so (they are; it is not; and there is if you know who to talk to and where to look). So, it just seems that the game is about discrediting American FME and sources.

Against someone who has their own definition of logic – one defined by nationalistic ego – there is little point of debate or trying to reason.

If the tables were turned and someone wrote a book about Soviet FME activities, I would be enthralled to read it and would be most forgiving of any mistakes they made or non-standard nomenclature used to describe things they were not intimately familiar with. And if the book were about tactical exploitation efforts, I certainly would not get hung up on technical issues. At the very least, I would hold short of calling their anecdotes crap, or calling them senile, and appreciate the conditions and influences under which they may have formed certain views. Personally, I simply call that ‘being reasonable’.

Again, someone else has already answered this (Michelf) very well, but I would like to add:

You seem to be mixing two terms here – professional and honest. I certainly believe that the pilots did their best in order to describe the behavior of the MiGs as accurately as possible. So much for the ‘honest’ part, which I don’t doubt for a second.

I am not confusing the two, and neither are they mutually exclusive.

Most of the pilots selected to go to the Red Eagles have been unscientifically categorised as in the top 50 of the tactical aviators in TAC. With few exceptions, they were initially from the Aggressors, where only the best air-to-air guys went, and we later almost exclusively graduates of the Fighter Weapons School. In both cases, these guys had the best stick and rudder skills in the Air Force, and were probably amongst the best in the world.

As such, their views were professionally as valid as you could hope to hear, irrespective of where they had learned to fly the MiGs. Their question was: ‘How do you kill this MiG if it is being flown to the absolute limits?’, and the answer was tailored to the individual fighters that would come up against it. In this case, the answer also had to be honest.

I would add that a select number of these men were heavily involved in still-classified intelligence gathering activities that included clandestine trips to WP nations, and flying MiGs with Soviet-trained satellite countries (both of these i touch on briefly in the book), so there was actual hands-on time with more advanced MiGs, and with pilots of countries that had been trained by Russian pilots.

To my mind, I think that this makes their views – from a tactical perspective – both professional and honest. It was in their interests for this to be so.

At the same time, I do believe that their skills in handling a type they were never trained for were greatly inferior to the skills of an average EastPac pilot who has been through the complete training procedure. If any jock could simply sit in, make a dozen flights and claim that he already has mastered the aircraft and is entitled to judge its capabilities, then why train the pilots, at all? So much for the ‘professional’ part.

I think that if you read the book these questions will answer themselves.

I can’t comment on how good the American pilots were compared to their WP counterparts, and frankly, there is no way to empirically compare the two. However, I can say (as is outlined in the book) that when the Red Eagles flew with other nation’s MiG pilots, they were unimpressed. Regardless, I think that the point is something of a diversion, not least of all because the Red Eagles were concerned with emulation and exploitation.

As for pilots declaring opinions based on a dozen flights, the book makes clear that this is absolutely not the case. At least one pilot outlined in explicit terms that it took him a long time to master the MiG-21 in a full-on, no holds barred BFM arena, and that prior to that he kept his mouth shut and simply immersed himself in the considerable task of becoming a great Fishbed pilot. I don’t know where or who has given you the impression that these men suddenly declared themselves experts overnight, but that is simply not the case.

MiG-23MS was indeed an unlucky downgraded type. While the airframe was a typical Flogger designed for hit’n’run tactics, the whole weapon aiming system was simply taken from MiG-21, which completely negated any meaningful use of the mentioned tactics. The outcome was slightly more than a sports fighter aicraft. I don’t think that Soviets ever used this type, at all.

This is a valid point, and one recognised by the Red Eagles pilots. If you are to believe one of the posters here, the book if full of pilots saying the Flogger was rubbish. The truth, as any reasonable person can recognise, is that their comments are concerned only with the marques of Flogger that they exploited, and solely within the context of using it to engage TAC’s fighters – that is the basis of the book, and thus the basis on which their remarks are made.

So, I don’t think that a single one of the pilots would have an argument with you on this, and they certainly acknowledge that the later variants of the Flogger were much, much better; addressing as they did several key technical and electronic issues with this interim version.

Cheers

Steve

Soon, I hope. Definitely by the end of the month.