Once upon a time I had a website with info on how it all began. The information posted was verified by a member of team TFC (or was it SSI?) whose name I can't remember. In fact, he posted a response in similar thread as this one saying there was once a guy who posted such info on his website. I responded that it was me. :D
Anyway, basically it went like this.
Early 1990s Eagle Dynamics was show casing their Su-27 Flanker simulation at an airshow somewhere on this planet. Obviously hoping to swoon and plug a few military contracts. This original team was made up of a bunch of Russian geniuses with degrees out their booty. Quite a few of them were scientists and engineers who actually worked on the real gas thumping, fire breathing hunk of beast. Now, this same gentleman whose name I can't remember happened to be at that very airshow and noticed Chizh thumbing his nose at passers-by, and decided to coaxed the man by way of pillow talk and moderate pistol whipping into making a PC version. It took Eagle D roughly two years to port their mil sim to PC, and somewhere in the U.S. in 1995, Gilman Louie, with a nervous grin, said to his team the Russians are coming. :D
Oh, yeah, I read that majority of the original team left ED. Not sure if Yo-Yo was part of the 'the' team, but I think Valery was, though, I haven't seen him around here for a long, long time. I'm almost sure I read somewhere that, think it was from Mr. Wags, the current team also has credentials such as master degrees and pom-poms out the poontang.