In the below video See how a Top Secret Program Helped U.S. Pilots Defeat MiGs
It’s 1977 and the Pentagon has just launched a top-secret pilot program. Its purpose: to train U.S. fighter forces in air-to-air tactics against the Russian-made MiG fighter plane.
The 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron (4477 TES) was a squadron in the United States Air Force under the claimant of the Tactical Air Command (TAC). It is currently inactive.
The product of Project Constant Peg, the unit was created to expose the tactical air forces to the flight characteristics of fighter aircraft used by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Related link: The most epic Dogfight in the history of naval aviation – F-4J Phantom vs MiG-17
The declassified history of the squadron shows that it operated MiG-17s, MiG-21s, and MiG-23s between 1977 and 1988, but it was not formally disbanded until July 1990
The mission of Constant Peg was to train Air Force, United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps pilots, and weapon systems officers, in air combat tactics against these foreign aircraft and was instrumental in the re-development of Dissimilar air combat training (DACT) methods developed after the end of the Vietnam War.
Today’s USAF Aggressor training squadrons can symbolically trace their histories back to the 4477th, as well as the paint motifs on their aircraft, which were used by the aircraft of the squadron in the 1970s and 1980s.
