The Inside Story of Flying Against the Air Force's Secret Soviet Fighter Jets

[rangerrebew]

The Inside Story of Flying Against the Air Force's Secret Soviet Fighter Jets

It's true: The U.S. once had a covert stash of enemy MiGs. Now, an American F-15 pilot reveals what it was like to fight them.
By Kyle Mizokami   
Oct 21, 2020
 

    During the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force acquired several Soviet MiG fighters for training purposes.
    The fighters were not only used to study Soviet tech, but also to train American pilots against the real deal.
    One former F-15 pilot describes his experience flying against MiG-21 and MiG-23 fighter jets over the Nevada desert.

The race for military supremacy during the Cold War took many unusual twists and turns, and one of the strangest was America's clandestine effort to acquire Soviet fighter jets.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a34427612/air-force-secret-soviet-fighter-jets-inside-story/

[PeteS in CA]

Evaluating and practicing with enemy planes dates to at least WW1. With the collapse of the Soviet empire some newer Soviet fighters became available for evaluation. How an individual fight will go depends in substantial part on the Russian pilot's style and the doctrine he follows, but no pilot can do things his plane cannot. Thus the importance of knowing the capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses of the opposing plane.