The Secret MiGs at Area 52 | Behind the Wings
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 18 май 2024
- Watch Part 1 • America's Secret MiG-2...
Join Wings' curator Chuck Stout and Wings' President & CEO John Barry for PART 2 of our series on Constant Peg, a first of its kind adversary training program.
American MiG-21 and MiG-23 pilot John Mann is back to help us dive into some of the most popular questions. This one is going to be cool!
Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum:
wingsmuseum.org
Behind the Wings Podcast: wingsmuseum.org/resources/pod...
A film directed by Cray Novick.
Who’s here because of the short?
Guilty as charged.
@@ottonormalverbrauch3794 me too
Present
🫡
😂me
As a Navy F/A-18E/F/G maintainer, I cannot overstate how much I appreciate the mention of the maintainers that were crucial to this program. I've always found the acquiring and maintaining aspects of Constant Peg to be the most intriguing.
I was wondering the same thing - how did they know what lubricants were needed, were did they find spare parts, etc. Somehow they must have gotten service manuals, as well. Or maybe not?
@@Tubes12AX7k Reverse Engineering on everything i guess? (including fluids)
but surely through intel work they got hold of manuals too.. right?
@@Tubes12AX7k❤😊
Check out the “10 percent true” channel. That guy wrote the book on Constant Peg. Has lots of videos about it. The book is crazy, what the mechanics had to do to keep those aircraft flying is truely above and beyond!
It has to be a real challenge to keep those aircraft flyable, I guess they did an incredible job. Same happened with the IRIAF F-14, but in my opinion their project was more focused on cannibalization of other aircraft but still incredible how ground engineers could copy and manufacture real components or manufacture HYD fluid through an analysis of the real fluid. As a ground engineer it blows my mind 😂😂
Soviet pilots did get to fly American aircraft.
If you want to know more about the tests and to see how the F-5 also held up against the MiG-23M, you can read this excerpt from the book Life-Long Runway written by Soviet Air Force test pilot Vladimir Kondaurov.
"In the summer of 1976 a disassembled American F-5 fighter jet was delivered to our base at Aktubinsk. To be correct, it was F-5E - the latest variant with increased engines thrust. By the size it was smaller than MiG-21, had two engines installed side-by-side in the fuselage, a sharp swept-down nose and short tapered wings. The war in Vietnam had finished, and the United States Air Forces were leaving this long-suffering country, hastily abandoning several aircraft of this type on one of the airfields. One of them was handed over to the USSR together with its pilot manual. There were no technical descriptions, but our engineers figured everything out, assembled it to the last bolt and made it flyable, bringing not only the foreign hard pieces together, but also tons of electric wiring. A test brigade was formed to conduct special flight tests, and a program was written, which assumed 35-40 test flights. I was one of the test pilots, our lead was Nikolay Stogov."
theaviationgeekclub.com/soviet-pilot-who-test-flew-captured-f-5-against-mig-21-mig-23-explains-why-the-tiger-beat-the-fishbed-flogger-in-every-engagement/
nice read.
I mean it was just an F5 though. The mig 23 and 21 was top ussr spec at the time whereas the f14 and f15 would've been the top US spec
When Iran changed governments, the Russians had access to Iranian F-4s, F-5s, and the F-14s.
@@stevetobe4494 sure but by then the US were on to f16s f15s and fa18s which there is no evidence they aquired
@@dennisa7784Agree, its just not the same. By the time Russians had access to F5s F4s and F14s (most likely not) US was already done with them and switched to superior aircraft which Russians never had access to. Meanwhile US had access to 21s 23s when Russians and USSR relied on them heavily.
I was a brand-new USAF 1Lt and had been flying the F-15 for about 7 months when my squadron was headed to Nellis for my first Red Flag. During the predeployment briefing the squadron's deployment project officer put up a slide showing the calendar of events for the two weeks. The first Monday was fam day where we would fly across the Nellis ranges and familiarize ourselves with the geographical references. Day two showed I was scheduled for something called Constant Peg. My reaction was what's up with this? I want to go do Red Flag. The person sitting behind me leaned forward and told me not to worry, I was going to like Constant Peg. On the Tuesday after fam day, I and my flight lead went to the Red Eagles' facility at Nellis, which was a single-wide trailer. I got in-briefed and flew two sorties against MiG-21s that day. My thought was "is this a great country or what?" My next assignment after the F-15 was to fly F-5s as an Aggressor pilot. The two Nellis-based F-5 squadrons and the Red Eagles made up what was called Adversary Tactics, meaning that the commanders of the three squadrons worked for the same colonel. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted, I never got a chance to join the 4477th. I was probably too young in the fighter pilot business anyway. The 4477th shut down in 1988 and over the next year the F-5s went the way of the dinosaur. I did, however, get to fulfill my dream of flying MiGs when in 1995 I was selected as the first of three USAF pilots to fly MiG-29s as an exchange pilot with the German Air Force, which I did for 2 1/2 years from Jan 96 until Jul 98. Germany inherited 24 Fulcrums with the reunification. My last job in the Air Force was as commander of the Red Eagles from 2002 to 2004 in the unit's then incarnation.
Mustve been an incredible experience getting hands on with the real threat! Im sure you put that first-hand Fulcrum experience to good use when you got back to Nellis ;)
I'm sure you have some awesome stories!
Username checks out
Absolute legend, I envy your life. Lucky/hardworking man
I was expecting to read some reviews of the MiG, not biography... 😐
I have flown AN-2s and I love the design philosophy. Really rugged, self sufficient, we were carrying a 1400 kg load out of a 600' rough, dirt strip. It has an onboard electric fuel pump so someone can leave fuel drums out in the middle of nowhere, and you can fill up the plane with no ground facilities. If the battery goes you can crank up the starter by hand to get yourself started, Pneumatic system for brakes, and to pump up tires, struts, and to blow out the cabin after working; it has no registered stall speed at all, and are available all over. Perfect bush plane for Alaska, but Cessna lobbied our congress to not grant certificate, because they want you to buy a 5M dollar Caravan that does less.
I'll take Antonov over Caravan. Put a turbine on it if you want to work with it, and it's a beast.
Annies have been around for eeeever and their reputation is thoroughly justified. Some tech crosses political lines and the AN-2 is absolutely one of them. I'd love to have one! Would have been a fabulous bush plane here in the Canadian North.
Would have been fascinating if they wouldn’t have told them the aggressors were going to be actual migs, then get the adrenaline going by being unexpectedly being approached by actual migs while they were unarmed for training.
The problem with that is they were not to blurt out the words , "Mig-17, 21, or 23" over the radio for security reasons and had other names to designate their new identities over the radio..That is why they were told in advance.
I did hear on another interview from an F-14 pilot that they actually didn't tell them what they were flying against for the first sortie and they only used call signs over the radio.
And the F-14 pilots were shocked at how much faster the Mig-23 accelerated than the F-14. They would fly next to each other and go full throttle at the same time and the Mig-23 would leave the F-14 behind fast.
The US always was the aggressor
@@sgsheffThe MiG-23 was just a large engine with Variable Sweep wings attached after all
One of the most sincere shout-outs to the maintenance team. 👍🏼👍🏼
Thanks for this second episode. Would love to hear more about Constant Peg and the MiG-21s.
Speaking about aircraft maintenance people, my late father-in-law was a maintenance Staff Sergeant in the Air Force until he retired. He worked on B-52s and later several types of fighters.
I was a civilian tech at the tonopah test range.I was on range, talking to a AF lcol and we stopped talking to watch a b52 fly by at about a thousand feet. From behind us a mig 17 comes over makes a simulated flank attack on the buff and flies off.
I"m standing there slackjawed and said "holy crap, that was a freaking mig".
The AF officer says " What?? I didn't see anything!!!!!
The fact that I didn't see anything was emphasized by a series of more important civilian and military types.
This was f117 time and despite being on the same test range we never had a clue about it.
I remember that mig sounding like a high time vacuum cleaner being dragged through the air sideways.
Great video you guys. For part 3 can you also bring in a person from the maintenance of Constant Peg. I'm curious about the technical hurdles these guys must have gone through to keep these planes up and running.
Love from Romania ❤
This was an amazing interview! Please thank everyone who participated, I absolutely loved this
Listening to these guys talk is something else man, so much appreciation for what these men have accomplished
Thank you sir for this interview. I was at TTR July 1982 - DEC 1988. Supply 4450th. The first time i got off that airplane the first thing i saw was a few Migs on the runway. It blew my mind. The Red Hats could never beat us in softball at Nellis.
Haha!
I was just a young lad back then, But today in my DCS World cockpit and sim, it is the next best thing. Thanks guys great show, both of them. I salute you.
Seeing these videos of TTR is crazy, not a thing has changed!
One of the most interesting video and interview i've ever seen on the web. Many compliments to you and to mr. Mann, who gave us great and exhaustive answers without revealing more that he could really talk about.
Thanks from Italy
Declassified information on acquisition of Soviet/Russian aircraft is all out there. They came from Israel, Morocco, (East) Germany, Indonesia, Pakistan, Cambodia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Somalia, China, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, etc.
Its a american propaganda channel. No wonder they copy a lot of Russian technology, given everything they could steal.
But they still can't shoot down a Chinese weather balloon 🤣🤣
@Phantom-rb8yv it is better to be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
No doubt there. US cares so it obtained few MiGs 29s but also SU 27(few variations of it). But never MiG 31 or its derivatives. Also, this kind of thinking and actually make it real is expected from a superpower country like the USA. Military, economy, technology and all that means superpower. That does not mean that it's best in all those fields, but probably it is. Of course that US learned something(much)through industrial and high tech espionage(Soviet Phasotron engeneer who saved US probably 15 years in super advanced phased aray radar systems and countless more). What an impressive country ! That also shows how impressive and smart were Soviets(Russians) when they were far ahead od a gigant like Raytheon (or Hughes aviation and aerospace).
😎 Thank you for doing this interview.
Great interview.
Fascinating to hear the accounts of DACT and the various models of MIG and how they flew.
Greetings from across the pond! 🇬🇧
Thanks to John Mann for coming back for MORE Constant Peg. We couldn't cover everything, so leave your questions and comments and Watch Part 1 ruclips.net/video/0H3NfLNu6z4/видео.html
I have a question for any info as to what had happened to around 14 MiG-29s(bunch of 29As, one 29UB, and bunch of 29Cs) acquired by the US under the CTR program, purchased from Moldova around 1996, are they still around? Are they being used to now test US munitions on them to help Ukraine deploy HARM'S?
No secret I heard about these jets I live next to Nellis AFB IN LV NV NOT NEW MEXICO NEW MEXICO IS WHITE SANDS AFB AND TEST SIGHT
Hell we even have a hind 24 and hind 25 helicopters along with the other helicopters of Russian manufacturing
Colonel John Mann is a great pilot , mentor and friend. His career reads like fiction!
Great video. I love hearing first hand stories of pilots and soldiers.
Thank you so much for this episode!
This was absolutely fascinating! Thank you for sharing!
God this is an amazing conversation.
Another amazing video! I’d love to hear more about constant peg and another episode.
A truly wonderful interview. Thank you.
I actually had the pleasure of sitting inside a MiG-21 cockpit when I was in high school. I was in JROTC and for a history class film project, the colonel in our JROTC program got in touch with the Threat Museum folks on Nellis Air Force base to let us film a short video. They were even nice enough to lend us a fighter pilot helmet. It’s incredible to see this same magnificent jet all these years later
This was so amazing to watch. Thanks for the great content !!!
3:42 Nellis is in Nevada, not New Mexico....
29:20 you have Draken, ATAC and Top Aces. Proof has also been provided of Su-27's spotted over Groom lake, take that how you want.
So true I heard about that Russian pilot back in the 80s bringing I think a mig 25 or was it a su27 one of the top Russian fighter jets to America
Wow what a fantastic interview, such an informative and interesting video. John is a great guest!
Great interview ....the Mig 23 from what I have heard is not easy to fly....hats off to the pilots that did that job
What a well produced show awesome!
Reason number 194874 why the USAF is so far beyond the scope of its nearest competitor. Props to the air force for actually wanting to and not being afraid to put their aircraft to test against our soviet adversary.
-old army sergeant
you really think they were not also doing the same thing? they got a mountain of us technology when they pulled out of vietnam. they were playing the exact same spy games
I love the MiG-21 and MiG-29. Such beautiful aircraft and impressive performance.
Expandable engines 😅
@@JoJo-vm8vk Mig 29 is super interesting since the engines give absolute insane amounts of thrust and many pilots say they are a dream to fly in that aspect
As Marine EOD our team was invited by Nellis EOD to do some bombs and bullet training out at Tonapah, after clearances and official stuff we were granted acess to training areas very few ever see was witness to some high speed low drag stuff pertaining to the subject of this video, it was a blast no pun intended. Military pilots a cut above, God Bless America
good times in those dorms, and cheep drinks at the bar.🍻
What a great video i always knew about the agressor squadron but this was completely new to me. Left a follow and ill watch every video from now on.
Love the idea of some Soviet MIG pilot standing on the tarmac trying to remember where he left his plane.
I remember driving past and marveling at the big hangar at Lowry in Denver.
Ben Rich in his Book about the Skunkworks talks about how they would roll aircraft into hangers to keep them from being seen by Soviet spy satellites. They found out that the Soviets were using infared photos, so if an aircraft was parked in the sun and removed, they could still see a thermal shadow and identify what might have been sitting there. They could also see the after image of the heat from a power plant and make useful estimations from that. With that knowledge in hand, plywood shapes and kerosene heaters were put together to fabricate wing shapes and heat signatures to give Soviet intelligence annalists something to look at and puzzle over.
Great episode. Really enjoyed it.
Awesome very interesting just love watching your show thanks to the pilots for there service 🛩❤️🇬🇧
That was great, thank you.
The graphic said Nellis AFB in New Mexico. It’s actually Las Vegas , Nevada. I was assigned to TTR in the late 80s-1992 with the 37th TGW. Some of the best days of my life. Also some of the harriest flights from Nellis to TTR haha.
Outstanding!!!
Terrific. What a great story.
The more you know about, What you're flying. "The Better Pilot You Are". thank u CL JOHN MANN & CHUCK STOUT for this grt episode.
What an excellent interview! Two gracious hosts, and Col. Mann is such a great interviewee, not a single superfluous word from him and so spot on with everything. As a UK citizen saddened to see the current state of the Royal Air Force, it's good to know that at least somewhere in the West there is a top notch Air Force that manages to run such advanced programmes and learn things that benefit the West. And Constant Peg proved that the Russian design and training philosophy was a long way behind in 2nd place to Western design and training philosophy. For me the best line from Col. Mann was this one: "I wonder why people even buy their equipment". Yes indeed! These MiGs, compared to Western designs, were clearly not in the same league. Why would any non-Russian air force want to use them?
Back when I was in at the end of the first Gulf war I think we had a mig 21 in our Hanger, I can't remember but I think it was Chinese. Our squadron went to Red Flag at Nellis. The let us go into the war room and see the battle unfolding. The ACMI PODS were pretty neat.
Exceedingly interesting!
Was there for a Runway Show- pretty cool. ✈️
Awesome Video, Thanks!
Love the videos.
Very, VERY informative session... what a great speaker- like maintainers another underappreciated asset as the masses flock to youtube to produce all manner of webcasts!
Super cool!
Flew against the MIG-21/23 in 1987 out of NFWS. Awesome, and a pretty cool looking bird up close in the air.
Great video, had never heard of this until now, and thanks to RUclips for recommending this video to me about 10 times in the last few days so it knew I'd like it I guess!
Also the vid makes me want to take a trip to the USA and see the museum, as it looks a great place!
We hope to see you soon in beautiful Denver, CO
fantastic
Awesome video guys very informative
From 1977 to 1981 I was a USAF Aircraft Maintainer (Jet Engine Mechanic.) Glad to be of service.
This was a solid interview with solid men , absolutely loved it !! Thanks this was fun to watch ❤
Perfect!
Very impressive presentation.
BTW you mis-titled Nellis AFB in you video. It is in Nevada outside of Las Vegas.
So where is area 17? This is like ranger battalions having large numbers when few exist. To mislead foreign intelligence. Unless there really is area 1-50-something but me thinks not the case. I’m really curious how we ever learned the name of Area 51. Leak or was it always posted?
There is a book called "Red Eagles" that talk about this program. In the end, book strongly hinted that program hasn't been ended.
Thanks for this👍 we have a MiG-21 here in NZ ✈️🇳🇿
There is an excellent book about these MiG's and operating them called "Red Eagles". Worth a read.
I have seen those Migs on old satellite photos sitting on a dry salt lakebed due west northwest of Area 51.
Very cool program - never knew the US actually had adversary aircraft to train with.
Interview is GOLD. That last point about stovepipe is key. Its why WE are ahead.
Interesting. How the opposing sides took different routes from the Vietnam experience.
The U.S. went from powerful aircraft (including F4s, crusaders, and Starfighter) to agile aircraft and the Soviets went from maneuvetable MiGs (incliding MiGs 17 and 21) to pwerful engines with wings.
They took it from Bulgaria and Romania, they accualy said it in one of the episodes, so there u have it its not a secret.
I was at macdill in77 78 working in red shack on F 4s
Really like this channel and should be a bit longer..I would also hold a bit back on the word *cool* Too much cool can freeze the lot up😮
My question revolves around the other program at TTR about the same time frame. Did the "Red Hats" know what the "Black Hats" was doing or working on? I.E. the F-117. As one of those "Black Hats", getting a Red Hat was a prized trophy. Enjoyed the viedo.
I'd like to know what car is this superb pilot driving, please ...?
Area 52. Been there. Saw those MIGS daily.
Area 51
Probably the reason they can discuss details about how they acquired the planes, is because they are probably still doing the same thing to this day with newer planes and obtaining them them in similar ways.
Not sure if the MiG-21s (genuine Russian ones, not the Chinese version) came from Algeria or Indonesia. The MiG-23s came from Egypt. The Chinese version of the MiG-21 might have come from Egypt as well.
Did you know Canada purchased 30 Mig 21s in 1960...designated CF-121 Redhawk...they were trialed for 1 yr and sold back to the Soviets....deemed unsuitable.
That's awesome the small simulator bits you guys used. Was that on Digital Combat simulator or Microsoft Flight?
25:10 - in the seventies, the Soviets found the F-5 and conducted training battles
They got former South Vietnamese Air force F-5s and A-37s.
Exactly, not sure how that's a "I don't know" answer among three experts.
The only replica that's better than the original. Wait there's also Valmet.
DECLASSIFIED!😂 The Mig-23s came from Egypt. It's not like it's top secret anymore...
O boy what I’m salivating, just started the video.
Not disappointed, it was great!
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
them are fast from what i understand but todays jets are better but how they got them there is only two ways they could obtain them i know of great videos keep up the great work
Hold on - learning about Taosim @ 3:14?
Pretty sure we were trying to understand the enemy at their core.
This is bad ass
Wow!!!
There is a current program still believed to be running and flying more current Russian Sukhoi aircraft. Within the last decade a story came out of a USAF pilot that was killed flying an SU-27 derivative (su-30,su-33 etc) and trying to perform the Cobra maneuver in it but instead he crashed in the desert near one of these bases(I can't remember which one). It's possible that the decision has been made to move on to more advanced aggressors with more near peer technology like stealth etc using USA aircraft only.
Correct, the second su-27 used in that program recently went back to the airforce museum in Dayton Ohio. The USAF has recently started flying the f-117 out of Tonopah more and more in an aggressor role as a stealth aggressor
@@v1_rotate638 very cool. Do you know anymore info about all of that?
All pure speculation. No official report ever came out confirming any of this
I saw a MiG-27 on the footage, so I would like to know about what part it had in this program as it is not a dedicated fighter airplane
It should be noted Constant Peg operated early Mig-23MS Flogger-E. This was an early Mig-23 that struggle in turn fighting, the Soviets made the later second-generation light Floggers with the Flogger-G which was designed to counter F-15/16, and was far better at turning than the earlier Floggers. Its a common misconception to lump all the Floggers as poor turners but it was only the early versions.
In reference to video, at least two planes were Mig-27s. More of a ground attack airplane. No radar that 23 had
Question after this clips and reading 'red eagles' Did US got other east planes than Mig? Tupolev? Yak? Only found sources for MIG. And: After 1989 when you are able to talk to east german or russian pilots.. did you learn something new about MIG 21/23 you could not figure out self? Thank you. Greeting from (east) germany.
It is good to see a mig in USAF markings
@Wings_Museum 18:40 after the collapse of the USSR the US bought a squadron worth of MIG-29s from Moldova, formely part of the USSR, for studying and dissimilar training.
I'll be very interested to hear, once the Ukraine-Russia war is over, the Ukrainian pilots' reactions to flying F16s vs their Soviet/Russian craft.
"What the hell is this Ivan, where is Vodka dispenser"
Air Power!!! ✊🏿✊️✊🏻✊🏾✊🏼✊🏽🫡
Maybe couldn't slow at landing because wing sweep was stuck. Well didn't almost all of those factory mig's have parachutes for landing, in case of something like that?
3:42 Nellis is not in New Mexico. It's in Nevada.
So, with the aggressor squadron, most our modern planes are fly by wire, we probably have pretty good ideas of how modern Russian jets fly, hell dcs is to people's knowledge pretty accurate so the only question is the su-57, that being said there's only a few of those. We could probably program these modern jets to fly pretty similar to Russian, use Russian strategies, and have a pretty good dissimilar training. In the age of using a hud to see threw a plane using cameras I don't think we really need to aquire the actual jets
Youd be surprised