Red Eagle Squadron - The United States is known to have top-secretly test-flyed a series of captured Russian warplanes in the late 1970s and 1980s as part of a program called Constant Peg. The 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron "Red Hawks" conducted these highly classified operations, leading the United States. The airport operates from the secluded Tonopah Test Range (TTR), a corner of the Nevada Test and Training Range used by fighter pilots. Valuable "asset".
The project, founded and directed by Colonel Gale Peck, was previously reported in a video clip showing extremely rare footage of a Constant Peg-era Red Hawk MiG-23 in Tonopah. A longer version of this post is now available
Red Eagle Squadron
The film offers new insights into the Red Hawks' operations during this period, but also includes candid reactions and commentary from the two pilots who flew the planes.
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The video provides incredible insight into the day-to-day operations of the Red Hawk, which are at the highest level. Russian MiG-21s, MiG-23s and Chinese Chengdu F7s perform operations as they take off from Tonopah and recover from an attack on U.S. frontline fighter pilots. These missions are designed to give these pilots a taste of what it would be like to encounter real enemy aircraft in combat.
The footage shows the scale of Red Hawk fighter activity at fixed-hook altitudes, with one sequence showing no fewer than seven MiG-21/F7s conducting mass launches on the flight path, and another sequence showing the hangar packed with people . More than a dozen "fish beds". Another exit sequence shows another mass launch of the MiG-23 and MiG-21, presumably to participate in a mission in support of the U.S. Air Force Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.
The video includes never-before-seen footage of the Redhawks in action around the original hangar Tonopah built for Constant Peg, which still stands today. Three of the Red Hawk hangars are the largest on the base, with doors 160 feet wide.
The Red Eagles are part of the United States' mysterious Foreign Material Exploitation (FME) program dedicated to training. The unit's presence led to Tonopah Proving Ground Airfield, which eventually housed the F-117A Nighthawks of the 4450th Tactical Group in complete secrecy. The FME program also includes the 6513th Flight Test Squadron "Red Hats," a unit dedicated to testing and evaluating assets captured from nearby Groom Lake, known as Area 51.
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While the original 4477th TES and Constant Peg programs were discontinued in 1988, Red Hawk continued to fly advanced models such as the Su-27 and MiG-29 flown by American pilots. Reports on the unit's activities indicate that covert operations continue today at the Air Force's secretive flight test facility at Groom Lake.
Meanwhile, Tonopah continues to receive semi-retired F-117s, as well as several other classified programs. Numerous FME "assets" are stored, including everything from ballistic missile launchers to enemy radar systems.
Videos like this of Tonopah in its formative years and the Redhawks' covert activities are still extremely rare. It provides an interesting insight into the extent to which the U.S. military will provide accurate, threat-representative training for its troops.
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