red eagles...

…a book by Steve Davies is a very interesting coverage of USA pilots testing Russian Soviet-era MiG 15s, 17s, 19s, 21s and 23s at Tonopah range. the same that was used to test Lockheed F-117 and launch to simulated sorties with F-4, F-14, F-15, F-16 and F-18s coming in from Nellis AFB as part of Top Gun training.

there’s next book on the same topic waiting for me in stack. recently, i was digging through a lot of air combat material, mainly because of getting hold of Osprey Combat Aircraft series. that included Vietnam-era series on MiG-17/19/21s, on F-14 in Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, F-15C, F-15E and F-117 during Desert Storm and SR-71 operating over Europe and middle East. on top of that, i recently read Skunk Works by Leo Janos, Flying the A-10 in the Gulf War and Flying the F-15E in the Gulf War. i highly discourage you for even trying to get hold of “Bandits Over Baghdad”. it contains a lot of errors, wrongly described photos and it seems - a lot of other content from both Skunk Works and F-117 books.

“Red Eagles” is worth recommending also because of massive number of anegdotes. like for example, how Good Year produced worn brakes for MiG-21 for 200k$ (Air Force requested ’exact copy’ they got with plane… and they got it), and how the wing orchestration system in MiG-23 was repaired by US Air Force.

given it’s possible right now to buy MiG-21 in flying condition from Polish Air Force by spending 95k$, who knows what kind of ideas i’ll have in future? (once i get an idea from where to get 95k$… ;) ).

as it’s not challenging to imagine, having read that post - my desktop right now has Falcon 4.0 with BMS pack installed. and i’m doing guns-only sorties with MiG-21 and MiG-29.