May 17, 2000

Supersecret Area 51 is revisited

http://www.flatoday.com/news/columnists/milt/051700milt.htm

By Milt Salamon

A FLORIDA TODAY column

No green men responded. In mid-April we invited comments from anyone familiar with the Air Force's supersecret Area 51. That's the Nevada test site known as Groom Dry Lake Air Force Base, whose very existence was kept under tight security wraps until recently.

Lots of folks think there are UFOs stashed there. Neither they nor ETs contacted us. We did hear from retired Navy commander and Melbourne newcomer John Nichols, a 23-year fighter pilot who was instrumental in starting the Navy's Fighter Weapons School, "Top Gun."

Our April 24 column quoted John as saying, "Area 51 was used to train Navy and Air Force fighter pilots to fight USSR MiGs. Israel captured many MiGs in 1967, and they gave us a bunch of them.

"We were flown in secret from (Nevada's) Nellis AFB," he told us, "and, after a short trip, landed at Area 51 . . ."

 

 

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April 24, 2000

Area 51 hosted Navy fighter pilots

http://www.flatoday.com/news/columnists/milt/042400milt.htm

By Milt Salamon

A FLORIDA TODAY column

Sorry, said Melbourne newcomer John Nichols III, he saw no green men in Area 51, "just a great bunch of fighter pilots."

He was the first to respond to our invitation Thursday for comments from folks familiar with Area 51, the super-secret Air Force test site freshly unveiled to the world on TV. Photos of it, taken by Russian satellite, can be viewed free.

. . . AS STATED in an Associated Press story, "The Air Force only recently acknowledged that Area 51 -- the Groom Dry Lake Air Force Base -- even exists.

"The 8,000-square-mile base is 75 miles northwest of Las Vegas, in the rugged Nellis Range. Beginning with the U-2 spy plane in the 1950s, the base has been the testing ground for a host of top-secret aircraft, including the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117A stealth fighter and B-2 stealth bomber." UFO fanciers know captured alien vehicles are hidden there.

. . . "I'M A RETIRED Navy commander, and a fighter pilot for 23 years," wrote John Nichols, pictured at left in 1968, climbing down from his F-8 Crusader ("aboard the carrier USS Ticonderoga after a shoot-down of a MiG 17").

John told us: "In 1969 after two combat tours, I was assigned as an instructor at Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego. We began what later was called Fighter Weapons School, or "Top Gun.' "

. . . CONCEDING he was "instrumental in starting Top Gun," John said:

 

"Area 51 was used to train Navy and Air Force fighter pilots to fight USSR MiGs. Israel captured many MiGs in 1967, and they gave us a bunch of them. We were flown in secret from Nellis AFB -- with the windows covered -- and, after a short trip, landed at Area 51.

"It was very secret. They'd put sand along the major runway so that surveillance cameras would see short runways that couldn't accommodate fast jets.

"Many of our pilots flew the MiGs and evaluated their capability. Then we had both Navy and Air Force instructors fly our fighters against them in mock combat. We soon learned that CIA information was dead wrong. They'd led us to believe the MiGs, especially the MiG 21, was far superior to our F-4 Phantom and F-8 Crusader. And we found it was just the opposite. We were very much better."

 

The single-seat, single-engine F-8, he added, "was one of the longest used and best fighters in the Navy history."

. . . JOHN HAS written about Navy tactics in his 1987 book, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, published by the Naval Institute Press. The Institute had asked him to write it, he said, because of his piloting reputation and experience as commander of Fighter Squadron 24 on the USS Hancock.

 

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THE HISTORY OF AREA 51

http://www.area51researchcenter.com/area51/history.html

 

MiGs and Sukhois at Groom Lake
Soviet aircraft had been ocassionally 'aquired' for inspection for years before the Groom Lake facility became involved. The first captured Soviet aircaft was a Yak-23 that was tested at Wright-Patterson AFB in 1953. The armed forces found it was the ultimate way to recieve an upper hand on the enemy; somehow secure their equipment and test it to better your own equipment and train your personel to defeat the enemy in combat. The majority of the Nellis Range today does just that, the test and training range simulates several threatening countries and their equipment. During the Six Day War in the Middle East, Israel captured several Soviet-designed fighters, namely the MiG-17. These aircraft were sent to the Groom facility for test and evaluation, especially flying against America's F-4 'Phantom', who at the time had been faring poorly over the skies of Vietnam. Those tests performed over the Nevada desert were classified as the "Have Drill" program, and led directly to the F-4 'Phantom' turning around it's losses in Vietnam to a 14 to 1 kill ratio. They found the MiG's weaknesses and exploited them.

mailto:don@area51researchcenter.com

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  In August 1966 an Iraqi fighter pilot, Captain Munir Redfa, flew his shiny new MiG-21 to Israel after being ordered to attack Iraqi Kurd villages with napalm. This fighter found itself in the deserts of the western US within a month.

In 1968 the US Air Force and Navy jointly formed a project known as Have Donut in which they flew this 'acquired' Soviet made MiG-21F-13 (designated a YF-110) in simulated air combat training at a top secret facility in Nevada known as Groom Lake. Groom Lake, also referred to as Area-51, was the birthplace of the SR71 and F117 as well as other projects that remain to be discussed. In 1969 two ex-Iraqi MiG-17s transferred from Israeli stocks were added to the operation and it was renamed Have Drill. These aircraft were given US designations and fake serial numbers so that they may be identified in DOD standard flight logs. At least one more MIG-21 was captured in Vietnam and a MiG-25 flown by defector Soviet Pilot Viktor Belenko was turned over but had to be sent back. In May 1973, Project Have Idea was formed which took over from the older Have Donut, Have Ferry and Have Drill projects. In July 1975, the 4477th TEF (“Red Eagles”) was formed at Nellis AFB and in December 1977 the 6513th Test Squadron (“Red Hats”) was formed at Edwards AFB to continue testing these craft. Some aggressor training was done where the units went head to head against USAF fighters in mock dogfights at this time to find out and exploit possible weaknesses.

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