IAF practicing MIG-29/F-16 dogfights

"We tested them - we trained the IAF pilots against them," an unnamed IAF official said.

The IAF employs ten test pilots. The training of each costs about a million dollars, but the experience gleaned from the test pilots, the unnamed official said, "is priceless."

"You fly in places and in certain conditions in a way never attempted before," an unidentified test pilot said. "Once, a piece of the jet's body broke during an experiment but the crew managed to land it safely."

A test jet is just like a regular one, except for special sensors which cover literally every aspect of its mechanical and electronic systems and can be monitored from the ground for assessment.

An additional experiment conducted recently by the air force involved loading an F-16 with weapons to its utmost capacity, or "flight in a heavy formation," as the test pilot labeled it. The experiment was meant to measure the pilot's safety and the fighter's capability when it was carrying the maximum amount of armaments.

A jet so armed might be used in a long-distance sortie. The pilots interviewed would not name which foreign countries might be the targets of such sorties...

Hmmm... I wonder. Uruguay? Nepal? Switzerland? :)

Actually, I found none of this surprising. The one mystery, however is-- what country uses MIGs-- and allowed Israel to use them?

Looks like those "evil Zionists" just nuked "Evil Triplet".

Oh well...