Soviet F-5

yep..while the USAF had their secret Red Eagles flying out of Groom Lake, the Soviets also had their own top secret dissimilar air force.
 
Interesting!

Kind of puts a different perspective on things when you consider the US Aggressor schemes on the F-5. Here's the real deal!
 
Always fun to test-fly something your air force has never had before, like this B-17D in Japanese Army service.
 
Saburo Sakai, in "Samurai," makes reference to flying several captured Allied aircraft, the most prominent being the B-17. He did not mention the type of B-17, but as I recall he said it was captured in Java, so there's an even chance he flew the aircraft in the photo - quite a few "D"s were used in Java.
 
Interesting. I knew about the Soviets reverse engineering WWII aircraft, but did not realize they did the same with more modern aircraft. Makes sense, I just never thought of it or saw anything on it until now.
 
Interesting. I knew about the Soviets reverse engineering WWII aircraft, but did not realize they did the same with more modern aircraft. Makes sense, I just never thought of it or saw anything on it until now.

They didn't reverse engineer the F5..it was a captured example that was shipped to the USSR from Vietnam for evaluation by Soviet test pilots...much the same as the USAF pilot's flying MiG's from Tonapah.:)
 
Saburo Sakai, in "Samurai," makes reference to flying several captured Allied aircraft, the most prominent being the B-17. He did not mention the type of B-17, but as I recall he said it was captured in Java, so there's an even chance he flew the aircraft in the photo - quite a few "D"s were used in Java.

Wiki says that 3 B-17 were captured. A "D" already posted and a later "E" 41-2471. It looks lihe the 3rd was a "E" or newer.

http://www.j-aircraft.com/captured/capturedby/b-17/captured_b17.htm

B-17d-captured-clark-1941.jpg


B-17E 41-2471


Yeah, they had enough captured P-40's to use them operationally in the defense of Rangoon. I'd be interested to know the details on what was going on here (see below), with a B-17 in the mix...

View attachment 62000

Think I saw that on Wiki too. I was looking up the P-40E.
 
Back
Top