New material covering a little known aspect of USAF ops. Heavy coverage on personalities. Would have liked a little more technical coverage particularly on the MiG-23 ( )

Interesting book though it follows the history of a squadron with people coming and going. So it does not have the same cohesive storyline one usually has with a biography or something along those lines.

It is interesting to think that we acquired a number of Russian fighter planes and were able to fly against them in training scenarios so that our fighter pilots were ready to go against them if we needed to. Also interesting that the people that flew in this secret program had better info on their abilities than some other agencies in the US giving the Air Force info on the MIG.

Perhaps the saddest part of the story is at the end when you find the reason this squadron goes away is because of military cutbacks in funding. Also, the books points out that it is unlikely that we have anything like this now for the same reason. That is a shame because flying against enemy air tech in training could certainly cut down on losses on our side and ensure we understand the capabilities our foes have. I guess America is just betting no one will go up against us with high tech fighters our Air Force would have to take out. Hope that works out. ( )

Davies dives into a multi-decade history of the various programs that flew Russian aircraft in order to train American pilots. It bogs down some about two-thirds of the way through as he provides vignettes for every "bandit" who flew with the red eagles, but the opening and closing portions (addressing the start of the program and the intelligence analysis dimensions of the program) will delight military affairs buffs as well as professional policy wonks. ( )

On the whole, this is an entertaining book about an opaque subject, as the author appears to have written as much of a detailed narrative as the anecdotal material available to him would allow. What would have made the book a bit stronger is to treat the "Red Eagles" as more of a case study of how a "black" program is handled; though Davis is careful to place the "Red Eagles" in the context of the wider "aggressor" community in the USAF. Actually, a lot of the material to do this is in the book, it just needed to be a bit better organized. ( )