Maintaining America's Secret MiGs - Episode 73

About this episode

Jim “JB” Bell shares insights from his experience in Project Constant Peg, detailing the maintenance of MiG fighters during the Cold War.

Jim “JB” Bell shares his story from inside one of the Air Force’s most secret Cold War programs, Project Constant Peg. In this episode, Host Rick Crandall talks with Jim, a retired crew chief of the legendary 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron, about what it took to keep MiG fighters flying in the Nevada desert. From maintaining MiG-17s, MiG-21s, and MiG-23s at Tonopah Test Range to flying on unmarked C-5s into China and bringing home F-7 fighters, Bell offers a rare perspective on one of the most classified adversary air programs in U.S. Air Force history. This one is going to be cool! 🎧 What you’ll hear: How Bell got recruited into Constant Peg: From a chance meeting in a bar at Nellis to joining the secretive 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron From F-4 Phantom to MiGs: Why working on Soviet fighters was completely different from traditional Air Force maintenance What Constant Peg was built to solve: How Vietnam exposed the need for American pilots to train against real adversary aircraft Learning to fix MiGs with no manuals: Trial and error, machine shops, scrounging parts, and building solutions from scratch MiG-21 vs. MiG-23: Why the MiG-21 was reliable and rugged while…

People in this episode

Host: Rick Crandall

Guest: Jim “JB” Bell

Topics covered

• Cold War aviation
• MiG fighters
• aircraft maintenance
• U.S. Air Force history
• Project Constant Peg
• adversary air training

Keywords

• MiG-17
• MiG-21
• MiG-23
• Project Constant Peg
• aircraft maintenance
• Cold War
• U.S. Air Force
• adversary air

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: U.S. Air Force, 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron

Products: MiG-17, MiG-21, MiG-23, F-4 Phantom, F-7

Places: Nevada, Tonopah Test Range, China

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