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Mar 23
2009
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Dreamland, circa late 20th century...Posted by: Webmaster on Mar 23, 2009   |
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Steve Davies has put together a well-researched history of the 4477th Red Eagles from early concept to final operations in the late 1980's. This book is a fantastic read and runs through the evolution of the USAF and USN Aggressors, the early "HAVE" programs, and offers some great insight into how all those black 'compartmentalized' programs are put together and made operational. It also gives an insider's view into the politics and personalities that ran TAC during this era, including some real dicks like Creech, Kempf, Dugan and Russ, who eventually shut the whole CONSTANT PEG operation down.
We all knew the Red Eagles existed and while some of us were lucky enough to fly against them, I'd be willing to bet there's also a few Dooferbook members who have logged some MiG time in their careers. Don't be afraid to chime in on one of the coolest things to come out of 'Area 51'!
Red Eagles: America's Secret MiGs (General Aviation)
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Rock
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... What I distinctly remember was, if you absolutely HAD to VID one of these guys, (which was required on my sorties), you would be inside min-range for everything but the gun, (no weapon too short for a brave man). This was great because apparently the visibility out the front sucked as bad as trying to see something from the back of a Smurf, they never saw us ever with close control GCI. I was expecting multiple adversaries so I (newbie in a C-model Eagle) decided to fight the Mig 21 in mil power. Even as a 2 LT, it took 2 leafs of a scissor to gun it, (6K defensive perch set-up), then, you guessed it, BINGO! The Mig 23 was fast but in the acceleration demo against a Block 30 small mouth, (Mau's, Lau's no center line tank), the Viper walked away from it. All in all good clean fun, but really, they, (and their suck-seser's, up to the Mig 31 MLU) are pieces of shit. Rock |
Spike
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... Every one of the guys who flew it said the same thing - on top of it being a piece of FOD, it was also a very dangerous jet to fly. I would have liked to fly the Flogger - once. At Mach 2.5 plus, think of how many cows you could knock over in Beak Alpha before you ran out of gas  |
Beaver
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... OK.... her goes. The Mig 21 was fairly impressive in it's ability to point it's nose at slow speed, but really didn't present too much of a problem if you didn't pork away your energy. The Mig 23 was a real piece of junk... all it could do was accellerate really, really fast. I recall a 6k defensive setup, it required a break turn for about 45 degrees, then an immediate reversal, and maybe a fade away jumpshot with an AIM 7 - because an AIM 9 was already out of range what with the 250 knots opening speed differential! You literally could not reverse too soon! Both aircraft had very limited fuel, and bingo-ed out really quick. Oh, and this was flown in the station wagon (F-15B)! Circa 1983 I recall. All in all...pretty cool! Unofficially |
Steve D
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... Gents It is true that the programme was finally declassified in November 2006. The rules prescribed by the Air Force that I have emailed to Spike, are two-fold: no talking about the container, and no talking about MiG sources. Beyond that, Constant Peg is declassified and you can relate your exposures to the programme at will and in detail. Looking forward to hearing some great tales. Cheers Steve Davies |
Spike
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... It was declassified in 2007, hence the book. There were a ton of the old ex-4477th guys interviewed in the book, speaking freely on performance data, etc. According to the author, some parts of the program remain classified, mainly to do with where some of the Mig's came from. I'll email the author just to make sure ;-) The website is: http://www.constantpeg.com |
Beaver
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... Is this officially de-classified now.... can I speak freely? I can neither confirm nor deny...... |
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