F-22s Fly Alongside MiGs To Commemorate Founder Of America's Secret Soviet Fighter Squadron
Newly released footage records the unique formation flight over Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base last November, which brought together U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and Soviet-era MiG-21 and MiG-29 jets. The four-ship took to the skies to mark the passing of Col. Gail Peck (ret.), the former commander of the legendary 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron 'Red Eagles' that conducted highly classified missions using Soviet combat jets in the late 1970s and 1980s.
If you need a distraction..and I do..I just found out we can share this from last year. A memorial flyover for Col. 'Evil' Peck, first commander of the secretive Red Eagles. Mig-21 leading, I was flying the Mig-29 along w/F-22s. You will never see a formation like this again. pic.twitter.com/8ifY1ffvk1
— Jared Isaacman (@rookisaacman) June 8, 2025
The video in question was shared on the social media platform X by Jared Isaacman, the former CEO of the red air provider Draken International, a tech billionaire, astronaut, and, until very recently, the White House's nominee to be the next administrator of NASA. For the formation flight, Isaacman was at the controls of his MiG-29UB Fulcrum-B personal jet that once belonged to Paul Allen, and which served as the photo ship for the air-to-air sequence seen above.
The memorial flyover on November 7, 2024, involved a pair of F-22s, one with the 'OT' tail code of the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron and one with the 'WA' code of the 433rd Weapons Squadron, both resident at Nellis. Nellis is home to some of the Air Force's premier test and evaluation and research and development units, including the 53rd Test and Evaluation Group and the 57th Wing, to which these squadrons respectively belong.
As well as Isaacman's two-seat MiG-29UB, the formation included another privately owned MiG. This was the two-seat MiG-21UM Mongol-B with the registration N317DM, a former Polish Air Force example that was once owned by another red air contractor, Air USA.
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The special formation recognized the exceptional contribution made to the Air Force by Peck, who passed away last October 10.
In 1962, Peck graduated from the Air Force Academy at the top of his class and then served as an instructor pilot on the T-33 and T-38. He also flew 163 combat missions in Vietnam as an F-4D Phantom pilot.
Starting in 1975, Peck embarked on his (then) highly classified career under the Constant Peg program, in which he had a highly influential role. This program provided training for Air Force, Navy, and Marine fighter aircrews, putting them up against actual Soviet jets as part of a secretive advanced joint program.
Prior to Constant Peg, the Air Force was conducting more limited aggressor training with Soviet-origin fighters, including Have Drill, which pitted American aviators against an ex-Syrian MiG-17 captured in Israel, and Have Doughnut, involving a former Iraqi Air Force MiG-21 that the Israelis had acquired from a defecting pilot, an episode you can read more about here.
Peck, however, thought there was room for improvement.
'I was in General [Hoyt S.] Vandenberg's office [at the Pentagon] one day trying to get him to sign one of these test plans, and he says 'You know, I hate this,'' Peck recounted. 'You guys have to go through the pain of writing a test plan. We oughtta just be training with these airplanes.'
Meanwhile, as part of his cover for this task, Peck managed exercise Red Flag and other air combat exercises out of Nellis.
Under Constant Peg (the 'Peg' in the project name was Peck's wife), the 4477th Test and Evaluation Flight, the 'Red Eagles,' was stood up at Nellis in 1977. Two years later, the unit moved to the enigmatic Tonopah Test Range Airport, north of Nellis, with Peck now installed as commander.
'The whole idea of building an airfield was an overwhelming challenge,' Peck later recalled. 'I got to thinking about it, and so I pulled out a ballpoint pen and a napkin off the airliner, and I sketched out a little drawing of extending the runway and putting a pad there for three hangars and stuff like that. And I'd convinced myself that Tonopah was the right place for this project.'
According to an official Air Force biography, 'Constant Peg resulted in the enhancement of an airfield at the Tonopah Test Range and the initiation of jet fighter operations from that airfield with the 4477th Test and Evaluation Flight flying both MiG-17s and MiG-21s. The purpose of Constant Peg was to train Air Force and Navy fighter pilots to a degree of proficiency never before achieved.'
Peck, as callsign 'Bandit 1,' instructed on the MiG-17, and later the MiG-21 and F-5E, with the 'Red Eagles' meanwhile transforming from a flight to a squadron.
Peck features heavily in this documentary, titled Red Eagles — Constant Peg, 1977–1988, which first appeared on social media accounts linked to Nellis Air Force Base in 2019:
After moving on from the 4477th, Peck served as an operational F-15 pilot and commander at Kadena Air Base in Japan and flew RF-4C reconnaissance jets at Zweibruecken Air Base in West Germany. After retiring from active-duty service in 1988, he was an academic instructor for F-15 and F-22 pilots at the Weapons School at Nellis.
All in all, Peck's career was a remarkable one and was hugely influential in terms of Foreign Materiel Exploitation, or FME, a service that the latest incarnation of the Red Eagles continues to provide.
With that in mind, while we may never again see a formation of F-22s and MiGs in public over Nellis, covert flights using actual foreign airframes continue to this day.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
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