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

[111E]

IIRC German air force unit WTD-61 at Erding operated a long time ago two former Egyptian Su-20s. One of them is now preserved at Leeuwarden air base in the Netherlands the other at the museum in Gatow-Berlin

http://jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=7409063&nseq=0

Regards

[Hellfish]

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

Venezuela has F-16As, Iran has F-4s and F-14s.

[gaz]

The PLAAF have S-70s.

[Szarko32c]

Bulgarian MiG-23UB in US, polish outsiders help to restore it to flyable condition.

[Elbs]

Here's a great set of declassified pictures from the Constant Peg program in good quality.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53995653@N00/sets/72157601630296104/

[C.Puffs]

Here's a great set of declassified pictures from the Constant Peg program in good quality.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53995653@N00/sets/72157601630296104/

No Flanker?

[Steak-Sauce]

Here's a great set of declassified pictures from the Constant Peg program in good quality.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53995653@N00/sets/72157601630296104/

Top notch, Elbs. Many thanks.

[Andy_UA]

No Flanker?

And no Mig-29 too, I don't know why Bill Sweetman wrote about Mig-29 in the 80-s. Looks like they got the first glimpse of it only in Germany. Later US bought a squadron of early MiG-29's from Moldova, but without proper maintenance IIRC they werent in flyable condition in under a year of their US operations, and turned into scrap. So their life in US was very limited.

[Elbs]

And no Mig-29 too, I don't know why Bill Sweetman wrote about Mig-29 in the 80-s. Looks like they got the first glimpse of it only in Germany. Later US bought a squadron of early MiG-29's from Moldova, but without proper maintenance IIRC they werent in flyable condition in under a year of their US operations, and turned into scrap. So their life in US was very limited.

Maintenance wasn't an issue - money was. By the late 90s there was no way the US was going to waste huge amounts of cash to keep a tiny fleet of foreign planes flying since -- A.) the US knew just about everything it wanted from the basline FULCRUM by this period, and B.) the Luftwaffe had plenty of well-kept MiGs available to play with.

The budget reality of the 1990s USAF was a galaxy apart from the cash flow of the Cold War.

[Hellfish]

No Flanker?

I took a tour of two Flankers when they were still owned by a civil air company in Rockford, IL. The USAF (IIRC) bought them a couple of months later.

http://prideaircraft.com/flanker.htm

Also, both these books are worth reading if you're interested in the subject matter.

[Hellfish]

Maintenance wasn't an issue - money was. By the late 90s there was no way the US was going to waste huge amounts of cash to keep a tiny fleet of foreign planes flying since -- A.) the US knew just about everything it wanted from the basline FULCRUM by this period, and B.) the Luftwaffe had plenty of well-kept MiGs available to play with.

The budget reality of the 1990s USAF was a galaxy apart from the cash flow of the Cold War.

That, and we're friendly with a lot of countries that fly pretty advanced aircraft. We're exercising with Indonesian SU-27s and 30s right now in Australia; we've had India at Red Flag, etc.

[James]

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.

I wonder if the American pilots had a different perspective because they were comparing the Migs to American aircraft.

[Zorro C9]

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.

Actually, initially, most of them came from Indonesia and later Egypt. Some of the airframes came from secret sources, true, but IIRC only one MiG pilot defected with pilot (the MiG25) and that wasn't even kept...

[G-AWZT]

Fascinating article! I had no idea that the -23 was such a pile. It must've been something for any residents to have seen Soviet fighter bombers appear in the sky.

[kato-a]

IIRC German air force unit WTD-61 at Erding operated a long time ago two former Egyptian Su-20s.

Manching. The Egypt connection was never admitted btw.

USAFE also operated at least one such unit in Germany in the 80s.