Comments on: Can we talk?

By: Idaho Joe

Idaho Joe — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 23:05:06 +0000

Jaon: My favorite part of the book was where they ask him how fast a Mig-25 could go. I don’t remember the figures, but we thought it could go about a Mach number more than the reality. He laughed and said we’d probably had one on radar (from Turkey) that had an engine runaway and blew up over the horizon.

Just too cool that you got to meet him.

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:48:17 +0000

Joe: Funny story about that book. I read the book while working at my job in college and someone, who saw me reading it,asked me if I wanted to meet him. Funny how that worked out.
Belenko is a super nice guy. I told him I was in college and hoping to become a Navy pilot and we spent hours talking hardware. It was an unforgettable experience.

By: Idaho Joe

Idaho Joe — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:43:16 +0000

In reply to Jason, about Major Belenko, his book, MIG Pilot, is kind of dated but is pretty neat. Is more a political discussion of the Cold war differences, but does talk about hardware some.

http://www.amazon.com/Mig-Pilot-Escape-Lieutenant-Belenko/dp/0070038503/sr=8-2/qid=1163695253/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/103-9545612-8103066?ie=UTF8&s=books

By: Mike Daley

Mike Daley — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 03:45:59 +0000

In the time frame noted in the post, the aggressor aircraft in Red Flag were, in large part, Israel’s version of the French Mirage: “25 of the upgraded Kfir-C1s were leased to the US Navy and the US Marine Corps to act as “F-21A” aggressor aircraft for “Red Flag” training.”
http://www.mirage4fs.com/review2.html
http://www.airtoaircombat.com/detail.asp?id=98
BTW, test program at Tonopah does not equal Red Flag flown from Nellis!

By: Bill C

Bill C — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:57:23 +0000

I was fortunate to have participated in both “Have Drill” and “Have Doughnut” flights in 1968 while a member of VX-5 out of China Lake. I flew both the A4F and A7. We would meet our AF F4 escorts at 20k on the Nellis 350 deg
radial at 30nm. They would lead us in and we would await the “test aircraft”. The A4 did ok below 15k, the A7 was awful. The -21 is really hard to see, the-17′s somewhat better. The test aircraft were gifts from the Izzies, thanks to the 67 war. We also had, at China Lake, from the same gentlemen, a complete SA-2 sam site. If you Google “have doughnut” there are some great photos and write-ups. By the by, Groom
Lake in those days was known as “Apex Tower”, but you were really forbidden from going near the place, hence the escorts in and out of the area.

By: The Wood Shed

The Wood Shed — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:21:59 +0000

Adversary Training – The Real Deal…

For you military aviation buffs, Lex has an interesting post regarding a recently declassified program involving ACM against MiG’s.
…you never quite get over that shot of adrenaline you get hitting the merge with an actual MiG-21 for the fi…