Flying the Red Flag

The Korean War had been a successful period for the US Air Force but a decade later in the Vietnam war their success rate had gone from 10:1 down to 1:1. Something had to be be done.  This is the story of the creation of the USAF Fighter Weapons School and Exercise Red Flag!

 

The F86 in Korea

 

The F4 Phantom II

Wreckage of a B52 in Hanoi

 

The Weapons School graduate patch and an example of dissimilar combat between an F16 and Mig21

 

A Soviet Surface to Air missile system

 

A captured Soviet Mig in USAF markings

 

The F5 Aggressors

 

Richard Suter

 

The Nellis Ranges

 

A ‘Smokey SAM’

 

IAF F15s, one of the many nations that are invited to take part in Ex Red Flag

 

 

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, Mark Limb, US DOD, US Gov, US Defence Imagery, USMC, Finlay McWalter, National Museum of the Air Force and Srđan Popović.