"We didn’t know what 90 percent of the switches did"

[Steak-Sauce]

Interesting insight about Soviet aircraft in US service during the days of the Cold War:

"We didn’t know what 90 percent of the switches did"

Posted by Bill Sweetman 12:18 PM on Aug 02, 2012


Earlier this week I met someone in person that I had first detected on an AltaVista search, so you know that this is going to be about history.

John Manclark was the commander of the 4477th Test & Evaluation Squadron from 1985-87. At the time, a few of us who took an unhealthy interest in such matters knew a bit about what 4477TES was, to wit: It flew Soviet aircraft, and it was secret. (Later, early internet searches started to reveal odd details of biographies, such as Manclark's claim to have flown the YF-110 and YF-113.)

Some details of the program were declassified in 2006. It was codenamed Constant Peg, Constant after the callsign of Maj Gen Hoyt Vandenberg Jr and Peg being the wife of Col Gail Peck, another of its founders.

Article continued @ Aviation Week's Ares Blog

[Meorom]

Very interesting story. Especially the flare one. Soviet/Russian weapons look simple/rough but they work very efficiently as always

[a.godumov]

No such affection was earned by the MiG-21's brutish follow-on. "The MiG-23 was a nightmare, maintenance was a nightmare. The guys hated flying it, and we checked people out when they had 3-5 months left.

That is an interesting opinion. I've heard a joke that a pilot slept with the daughter of Artem Mikoyan and he made MiG-21, then an engineer slept with the daughter of Michail Gurevich and he made MiG-23. That is - MiG-21 was considered an unforgiving and difficult to fly airplane but was loved by the engineers and MiG-23 was loved and respected by the pilots but was considered harder to maintain. From what i've read by people who serverd in the Bulgarian Air Force MiG-23 was very well respected aircraft.

[C.Puffs]

That is an interesting opinion. I've heard a joke that a pilot slept with the daughter of Artem Mikoyan and he made MiG-21, then an engineer slept with the daughter of Michail Gurevich and he made MiG-23. That is - MiG-21 was considered an unforgiving and difficult to fly airplane but was loved by the engineers and MiG-23 was loved and respected by the pilots but was considered harder to maintain. From what i've read by people who serverd in the Bulgarian Air Force MiG-23 was very well respected aircraft.

There's a picture of a US-owned Mig-23 out there with an F-106 radome.

[muck]

Thanks for the share S_S. An interesting read indeed. All the time I imagined techs with wrinkled brows sitting over strange Soviet gear and trying to figure out what it does...

That is an interesting opinion. From what i've read by people who serverd in the Bulgarian Air Force MiG-23 was very well respected aircraft.

So thought the pilots of Communist East Germany who praised their 23s over anything they had except the Mig-29... well, probably it took some time and specific training to become acquainted with the aircraft.

[TxAg94]

So what (adversary) countries have relatively frontline American aircraft? No real way to know, just an interesting question.

[Bloo]

The MiG-23 account does seem to fit the norm, unlike the old '21 the '23 isn't very popular or prevalent in the world today. Many air forces (India, Romania, Egypt, Bulgaria) have retired MiG-23's while keeping MiG-21's in service.

[Steak-Sauce]

So what (adversary) countries have relatively frontline American aircraft? No real way to know, just an interesting question.

The F-5 would be such a case, but this aircraft is pretty much outdated today. One example was tested in the SU, and received good critics, as far as I know. Pakistan flies the F-16, so does Egypt. Given the amount of cyberwar and espionage these days, I expect China to know one or two secrets of relatively modern US and European fighters. However, I don't think an equivalent unit to the 4477th T&E Sqd. does exist outside the US.

[[WDW]Megaraptor]

USSR captured a non-flying F-86 in Korea and examined it, but I don't think they ever flew it: http://mdoncall.wordpress.com/2007/1...eni-pepeliaev/

Did the IRIAF ever give the Soviets a look at American jets, or were relations between the two too poor?

Overall, though, most jets flown by Red Hat and Constant Peg came from defectors or were bought from countries defecting from the eastern bloc (such as Egypt) - two factors that almost exclusively flowed from east to west.

[muck]

However, I don't think an equivalent unit to the 4477th T&E Sqd. does exist outside the US.

One existed in Germany for a few months after the downfall of the Communist regime in East Germany. Techs and experts from all over the NATO world came to check out the Soviet gear.

[Steak-Sauce]

Oh, yes, of course. The famous Luftwaffe MiG-29 fighters.

[muck]

Well, they tested a whole lot of other stuff to see how it would perform against Western technology.

[C.Puffs]

Anybody know if the USSR got a Tomcat from Iran?

[Astaran]

One existed in Germany for a few months after the downfall of the Communist regime in East Germany. Techs and experts from all over the NATO world came to check out the Soviet gear.

I visited the Luftwaffen museum Berlin-Gatow last weekend. The amount of ex-GDR equipment there is quite amazing and impressive. It must have been a lot of work to evaluate all those pieces of equipment properly, although Germany had the advantage of personal who were familiar with the weapon systems.

[a.godumov]

Many air forces (India, Romania, Egypt, Bulgaria) have retired MiG-23's while keeping MiG-21's in service.

At least by a lot of people here the retirement of MiG-23 was too early and a wrong decision. Servicing the MiG-23 was more expensive than the MiG-21 but MiG-23 was also a lot more capable fighter and had higher upgrade potential - it was about the same generation (as in year of introduction) as the F-14. Also at leas in Bulgaria when the MiG-23 was retired most of the airframes had recently passed an overhaul and had a lot of service life ahead of them. What is even more shameful is how the airplane was treated in its retirement - for example Bulgaria had the very last MiG-23 to exit the production line and rather than sending this historic airframe to a museum they sold it to some African country (Angola or something) to rot in the jungle. We also had several ex-soviet MiG-23s who fought in the Afghan war.