Fulcrum farewell USA 2003

[Gierasimov]

A bit of a history from: Philippe Colin

In May 2003, seven German Air Force MIG-29 "FULCRUM" fighters flew to North America for their last major deployment. This trip was their fifth and last ever as the aircraft will be transferred to Poland later this year. Code-named "Sniper", the exercise comprised seven russian-designed MIG-29 and pilots from 731 squadron, the only unit in the German Air Force flying the type. The squadron is part of JG-73 "Steinhoff", based at Laage Air Base, near Rostock on the Baltic Coast.

Fulcrum Farewell USA 2003 | Flickr

[Dragon1-1]

Well, it was their last trip as German planes. I don't know if Poland sends its jets to the US very often, but they're a NATO member and got a lot of mileage out of those MiGs. They added some pretty cool upgrades, too.

[F-2]

Want to know what they were doing?

 

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Having flown hundreds of sorties with the Russian HMS and AA-11 Archer I can say the combination works very well. The one limitation is that the MiG-29 pilot can't tell exactly what the Archer is tracking once it automatically goes into self-track. In the Spring/Summer of 2003 we (53rd Test and Evaluation Group and 53rd Weapons Evaluation Group) did a missile/aircraft exploitation at Eglin using seven German MiG-29s and fired several AA-11s and AA-10A Alamos provided by the Germans at full and subscale drones. The exploitation was called Project Grace. We initially called it Project Lusty after a WW 2 program to exploit captured Luftwaffe equipment. Lusty was an acronym for Luftwaffe Secret Technology and it seemed appropriate since we were using German MiGs and missiles. Unfortunately, after briefing Gen Jumper, the then USAF Chief of Staff, to get permission to proceed with the exploitation, one of his staffers decided "Lusty" was inappropriate, so we had to change the name. Most of the shots were instrumented so we could capture telemetry data. Within its kinematic envelope the Archer proved to be very effective and eye watering to say the least. I do agree with JBgator's statement; pulling the black out of the stick to be the first one to get to a HOBS WEZ and not having any energy for follow-on maneuvering can prove to be an unwise move. Missiles don't always work and can be defeated by countermeasures and defensive maneuvers.
If you've got access to the classified test report, it's an interesting read.

https://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=26829