LAST ITEM HELD MATCHING THIS TITLE STATED:

Oxford Ox2 0ph United Kingdom: Osprey Publishing, 2008. 352 pages, index, glossary, appendices, colour photographs. When two Navy F-14 Tomcats engaged and shot down two Sukhoi Su-22 jet fighters in 1981, they drew on experience and tactics that they had learned from a previous encounter with Russian-made MiG jet fighters. The difference between the two encounters was that in the first, the enemy fighters were flown by American pilots assigned to a top secret squadron hidden at a remote airfield in the ultra-secret Tonopah Nuclear Test range, Nevada. In the second, the Sukhoi fighters were flown by Libyan pilots attempting to enforce Colonel Qadaffi's 'Line of Death' over the Gulf of Sidra. In all, more than 1,600 American fighter pilots would train against America's secret MiGs between 1974 and 1989. The squadron of MiGs - the 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron - was perhaps the single most important US Air Force unit in the Cold War not just because it operated clandestinely acquired MiGs, but because it took the concept of an Aggressor training force to the ultimate in fidelity. It allowed American pilots to validate their tactics and techniques, and many of these men went on to apply them to great advantage in real combat situations. Declassified in winter 2006, some 17 years after the unit flew its last sortie, there is much more to the 'Red Eagles' than meets the eye. This is their story.. First Edition. Hard Cover. New/New.