Secretly Red

Between 1979 and 1988 - during the Cold War - the Americans flew with Russian MIG-17, MIG-21 and MIG-23 aircraft to train USA-pilots. Under the secret and classified project Constant Peg almost 6,000 pilots (in table: 5,930 exposures) learned to fight their enemy in air-to-air combat. This project was declassified in 2006.

In the book 'America's Secret MIG Squadron. The Red Eagles of Project Constant Peg' (2012) one of the 'Gang of Three' pilots who got things going for this secret MIG squadron, this is Gaillard Peck (callsign Evil), writes about its history:

1. Goal of Constant Peg was to give pilots ten missions that would be as close to combat as training would permit. Based on the notion that, "if a fighter pilot could survive his first ten combat missions of a war, he had a highly increased probability of survive his entire combat tour." Training to manage the rush of adrenalin and overcome "bug fever" that comes during actual combat with MIGs.
2. Maintenance was the true key to the success. "Tech data for [aircraft] parts, as we knew it, was almost absent, so our folks were in a constant cycle of identification, reverse engineering, reconditioning and substitution."
3. The product of this training contributed to the combat success of 170 kills by F15 and F16 pilots without a single loss in return to enemy aircraft.
4. After the Cold War the project was ended due to cost and reduced percieved need for the program.

 Another book with a lot of lovely details. Nothing beats a history book. Nothing beats the real thing.