The next sortie put Carroll against an F-7, and this time the jet looked bigger to him than he had earlier expected it to be. Taking the F-14 by surprise, it suddenly came back next to their wing line and was able to take a simulated shot. The F-14 lost the MiG mid-way when the jet suddenly dived towards the ground. By the end of this setup, Carroll and Truck were left surprised. The jets started the neutral setup at a speed of 350 knots, keeping a distance of three miles between them. When the F-14 started on offensive, it easily managed to keep up with the MiG and reached close enough for a possible gun kill. Carroll and Truck managed to force the MiG-23 to overrun by a max-g turn by their F-14 when the MiG-23 was on the offensive. The next step involved defensive and offensive maneuvers. Carroll learned there was no outrunning the Flogger. Soon Carroll’s F-14 found itself parallel to the MiG 23 and after the instruction “On my mark, go to full afterburner” the two jets zoomed in the skies in speed.īut the Flogger left Carroll way behind, as it flew in full throttle while Carroll waited for the TF30 engines of the F-14 to advance through stages. The first step of the flight plan was a speed demo. However, by the time he finished the sortie with the Flogger, more surprises were in store for him. The first glance surprised him, as the jet turned out to be much smaller than he had thought it to be. Till that time, all he knew about the Soviet-made jet was through unclear pictures circulated by the intelligence agencies. The first sortie put Carroll and Truck against the MiG 23 Flogger. Next came action based on a defensive set-up where Carroll and the adversary jets showed maneuver skills in a defensive-offensive manner, while the last involved a neutral set-up. The first step pitted Carroll and Truck against the speed of the Soviet-made jets. National Archives Public Domain Searchīoth the sorties followed a flight plan, with three steps. An air-to-air right view of an F-14 Tomcat aircraft from Fighter Squadron 154 (VF-154) firing an AIM-54 Phoenix Missile – U.S. Once the sorties began, Carroll and his pilot ‘Truck’ found themselves up against F-7 and MiG 23 in the sortie which lasted about 45 minutes. The cover designation of the MiG 23 Flogger was YF-113, whereas the Fishbeds and the F-7s were the YF-110. The pilots were supposed to use the cover designations of the jets instead. The pilots were given clear instructions not to use the real names of the aircraft they were up against. The Exciting Sorties of Ward & ‘Truck’īefore the sorties began, Carroll and his fellow pilots had a short briefing by the Red Eagles’ instructors, followed by a telephone call with the pilots they were going to fly against in the sorties. In 1985, when Ward undertook training under the program, the Red Eagles unit used the MiG 21 Fishbed and its derivative the Chinese-manufactured F-7 as well as two versions of the MiG 23 Flogger. MiG 17, MiG 21, and the MiG 23 were the preferred Soviet-made jets of the Red Eagles. Taking care of flight schedules for training, they also looked after the maintenance of the jets, even if it meant at times repairing the jets with spare parts from other crashed aircraft or even bringing spare parts by secret routes through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The entire program with its instructors, air force, and civilian technicians worked round the clock to ensure the availability of 11 jets at any point in time for training. The secrecy seems to be just one aspect of the program, and there were many more difficult aspects to be taken care of. While most lived at Nellis, they made a daily commute of 150 miles onboard C-12 transport planes from Nellis to Tonopah. The secrecy around the program was such that even the families of the instructors were in dark about their work. With around 3,000 flight hours in tactical jets under their belts, these instructors were the best in business. Right front view of a Soviet MiG-21 Fishbed fighter aircraft showing an UV-16 rocket The Red Eagles’ instructors were mostly the alumni of the Air Force Fighter Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, or from the US navy’s Topgun program. Using the Soviet-made jets, they imparted aerial combat training to the USAF, Navy, and Marine Corps pilots. The Red Eagles squadron was established as a formal USAF testing unit in 1977 by the Tactical Air Command. Reaching Nevada’s Tonopah Test Range Airport, Carroll not only found out about the secret program but also the secret MiG aggressor squadron, the 4477 th Test and Evaluation Squadron, or the ‘Red Eagles’. Like others, Carroll was also oblivious to the existence of the Constant Peg. In 1985, Carroll who was then deployed aboard the Forrestal class aircraft carrier USS Independence was sent to Fallon, Nevada.
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