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F14s being tested by Moscow?


sublime

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Yes, I read the same thing in a book the other day on the Iran/Iraq war, that Russian Test pilots were allowed to fly the F14A in Iran, in exchange for some weapons deal IIRC. They never left the country, and I doubt they ever had a chance to employ the weapons.

 

 

 

Ive never seen anything official on it. For example, I didnt notice any documents relating to it on CIA FOIA website, and they usually note efforts to exploit allies weaponry. For example, there are some satellite photos of an Iranian Chieftain on trial in the USSR in 1982.

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its the first i heard of it

it makes me wonder - i once saw a soviet list of all allied and sov equipment with a number of effectiveness given for all. starting with like .5 for a t34

the highest allied jet was f14 with 2.0

i wonder if that was from the tests?

I wonder if it happened and what the Sovs thought

they apparently did have their equivalent constant peg program (theyd be fools not to) and we know they sent WSOs and RIOS from NAM to the USSR never to be seen again (or the PRC) we also know they went to great lengths in korea to get a downed f86 for example

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Yeah, the Soviets acquired a number of F5's from Vietnam that they tested in the USSR. It wasn't exactly comparable to Constant Peg, which was an ongoing effort to create a 'Redfor' as a parting of a training programme, for pilots to fly against. The Soviet effort really was comparable to US efforts to exploit the Mig15, Mig 17 and Mig 21 and learn the best way to combat it. Im not aware of them having acquired any other western types, but of course its possible.

 

I dont know how they would calculate that. It may even be as simple as putting a high figure to the side of the project they wanted a lot of resources to combat, which sounds cynical but its not so different from how the Pentagon worked. As for missing pilots, that may have happened, though its far more likely that it would be to learn atomic weapons procedures than just aircraft performance. Their information on anything else would go out of date very quickly in any case.

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thanks for your reply

how sure are you they had no constant peg equivalent? I know there was a aggressor squadron and the preview I read of the book Red Eagles implies heavily they had more than just the F5s, and did have a aggressor squad. maybe not as advanced as ours, but we teend to be snooty in the US twds soviet aviation. For example if anyone uses quora youll to this day find people claiming as fact that the soviets had to 'draw their gunsights on the glass' and other wonky propaganda myths.

The chart that listed literally every vehicle and plane in the world ( for like 1981 or whatever) I saw on quora. posted by an ex brit forces guy who'd come across it. we had no idea what metric the russians used either besides perhaps it seemed the T34 was the baseline for bottom of the barrel for hte time. an F4 was rated same as mig21, perhaps a little lower. F14 2.0 highest score of anything on it. ISTR some things they got wrong badly and some they got alarmingly right. the apache scored high as did the abrams. ironically the F111 scored fairly low, though in gw1 they destroyed the most tanks of any air platform. I also seem to recall b52s being rated fairly low, which i find ironic because even if b52s only could carry say a b17 payload, any plane we project gettng 100 years of use out of is legend status. sorry for the novel, I crashed my moto 2x this week and tore some ligaments up etc. Im a little 'off'

as to the WSO/RIOs sent to Moscow/Beijing/West (or 'the east') ISTR all the f4 jocks were convinced it was about the EW aspect of things. Im sure nuclear weapons of course figured heavily into the torture.

as an aside my father was a F4d wso. when stationed at Torrejone late 70s early 80s with TDYs to Incirlik (all before I was born) he later told me his job would have been to fly in NOE and drop tac nukes on 'Red Army troop concentrations' (his words) anyways, the one time he did discuss this, he basically said theyd fly in, pray to not get hit, and nuke Soviet tanks at preplanned chokepoints hopefully catching lots of them per plan. However he noted that the squadron felt that thered be absolutely nowhere worth landing as the world would soon end with nuclear escalation.

'worse' still, he said that immediately they felt it was a suicide mission not only because the insane airwar thatd be occurring and Soviet IADs, (he said he feared the ZSU 23-4 the most of all) BUT ALSO flying back to FRIENDLIES. remember thered be dozens of nations involved! apparently consensus was that if you somehow broke through the iron curtain, delivered your nukes and didnt die, and were flying back and successfuly reached the front youd probably be shot down by jumpy ground troops, or foreign soldiers.

thank god all that never happened. I also often think of my childhood in Germany, and what I know now. Id have been dead before people even knew there was a war, its near certain the Spetznas had tac nukes planted near every major NATO base in Germany, especially air bases.

nevermind the million other ways you could die.

ANYWAYS, sorry to ramble all.

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Which Red Eagles book did you read, the Steve Davies one, or the other one by the former commander? Ive not read that one so I cant comment.

 

The best guide you have is that there was no scheme is that none of its former aircraft have turned up in museums. And judging by the aircraft outside Soviet museums, they kept EVERYTHING. Many of the former USAF Constant Peg aircraft by contrast have turned up in museums. There is also a book by a Fulcrum pilot who defected in 1989 who gave a good description how the Air Force trained, and it was purely Mig against Mig. He describes a Soviet equivalent to Red Flag, even practicing atomic attacks, but not a mention of that. So if it did exist, it seems so few pilots flew in it that it has never received a mention in the literature.

 

Reading how the Soviets operated, its unlikely they needed something like DACT. Their tactics were cooperative until the Mig29 arrived, and even then there wasnt they kind of fixation on dogfighting we associate with western training.

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Which Red Eagles book did you read, the Steve Davies one, or the other one by the former commander? Ive not read that one so I cant comment.

 

The best guide you have is that there was no scheme is that none of its former aircraft have turned up in museums. And judging by the aircraft outside Soviet museums, they kept EVERYTHING. Many of the former USAF Constant Peg aircraft by contrast have turned up in museums. There is also a book by a Fulcrum pilot who defected in 1989 who gave a good description how the Air Force trained, and it was purely Mig against Mig. He describes a Soviet equivalent to Red Flag, even practicing atomic attacks, but not a mention of that. So if it did exist, it seems so few pilots flew in it that it has never received a mention in the literature.

 

Reading how the Soviets operated, its unlikely they needed something like DACT. Their tactics were cooperative until the Mig29 arrived, and even then there wasnt they kind of fixation on dogfighting we associate with western training.

 

I didnt even get to read it, Im looking for it thru libaries, igot to read part through google preview or somesuch. Im 99% it was the other book but it may have been Davies work, which Im also keen to read.

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Im familiar with the mig pilot youre talking about, his escape story is quite harrowing, he died in an aviation accident

however one must wonder - after all the soviets basically ran a couple AFs simultaneously - one for home defense the other for ops. hell I think there was even a third strategic one, not sure. Further the Soviets were very big on categorizing quality of units. The fact he was a mig29 pilot implies he wasnt in a shoddy quality unit, but on the other hand his base location is a half backwater. Not quite Siberia or Vladivostok, but definitely not some Class A unit in East Germany, Kaliningrad, Leningrad, or Poland..

oh well. Im inclined to believe you, though I have my doubts that they *never* did it. I think its quite possible in some area it happened or was conducted. Or perhaps during a few moments in the cold war when they acquired a western plane perhaps they didnt keep em going like constant peg, but perhaps they did fly and mock dogfight the living crap out of it.

I guess we'll never really know? I do know despite the reputation for total strictness and following orders the Soviets would simply sham or lie if they couldnt do what the superiors wanted.

The pilot in question also said he defected because hed been warned they may have to bomb soviet citizens. I dont know, perhaps Im looking at it wrong and only more trusted pilots would get such a mission, but to my american brain thats not hot shot ace work? And he obviously wasnt everywhere at everytime in the SU in all the airforces all those years. he could have missed a lot. look at the dearth of info on all the mig pilots rotated through korea. and as far as museum pieces.. I havent seen the F5s pop up. or any f4s. nor the F86.

matter of fact I have seen the sovs display US spy stuff and U2 stuff. thats it. Chinese and Vietnamese i know show off us equipment. The Russians love showing off german stuff though.

I could easily have missed a pic of their f5s or watever as a gate guard or at kubinka.

anyways cheers and id love to hear yr thoughts about davies version


Edited by sublime
thought of stuff
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