Operation Buffalo Jump

Operation Buffalo Jump, colloquially known as the Red Wings Program, was a secret program by the Royal Air Force of Albion and the Alban Forces Intelligence Command that involved the acquisition, testing and combat trialing of captured Soviet aircraft. The program roughly paralleled American programs of a similar nature and in some cases drew from the same pool of captured airframes.

Originating in 1969, the Buffalo Jump program flight-tested a selection of top Alban pilots against a captured MiG-17 "Fresco" but was expanded during the Guyana War to test the MiG-21 "Fishbed." The program was important in disseminating pilot tactics during the Guyana War.

Program genesis
With the onset of the conflict in Guyana, forces from Albion found themselves contending with Colombian aircraft mostly procured from the Eastern Bloc, namely the MiG-17, MiG-19 and MiG-21 fighters. While the RAFA's AF-104 Archers were excellent high-speed aircraft, the slower-flying MiG-17s and -19s in particular proved challenging opponents, capable of exploiting their much lower stall speeds and better lower-altitude performance to defeat Commonwealth aviators at low altitude.

Groom Lake joint tests
Beginning in 1969, after an offer from the United States (which tacitly supported the actions against the Three Socialist Jaguars bloc in Latin America), a group of four top Alban test pilots were invited to a series of flyoffs at the US military's Groom Lake facility against a captured MiG-17. The unit, utilized by US forces as part of the HAVE DRILL test project, was delivered to the US by a defecting Arab Republic pilot of Jewish background, who had flown the aircraft to Salonika. The aircraft had been quietly sold off to the United States, given USAF cover designations and tested.

A series of flyoffs between the Archer and the MiG-17 would highlight key performance differences between the aircraft. On paper, the Archer had every advantage, being a high-supersonic aircraft capable of carrying guided missiles, while the MiG-17 was a subsonic aircraft armed with guns and cannons. The RAFA pilots considered the MiG-17 outdated. However, no RAFA pilot involved in the initial tests defeated the MiG-17 in their first engagement. Despite its older design, crude control system and lack of power-boosted controls, the MiG-17 could out-turn and out-maneuver the much faster Archer, especially in the low-altitude dogfights common in the Guyanese theatre, where tropical heat frequently fouled the sensors of dubiously-reliable Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles.

In subsequent flyoffs, the RAFA pilots discovered the Archer could easily accelerate out of range of the MiG-17s guns, and that so long as they remained about two kilometres away, they were effectively immune to anything the MiG could throw at them, while still being able to target them with missiles. Dogfight scenarios were also tested, in which the RAFA pilots discovered the Archer could easily out-climb the MiG. The Alban pilots quickly adjusted their tactics, adopting a strategy of "boom and zoom" attacks from the Archer's higher flight ceiling designed to force the MiG to climb, stall and fall prey to the Archer's cannons.

Tenene Field MiG-21 tests
In late 1969, Commonwealth forces in Guyana received an intelligence coup when a Colombian MiG-21 "Fishbed" experienced an engine failure over Guyanese territory and made a belly-landing not far from the front lines. The aircraft, which landed mostly intact save for damage to the belly and landing gear, was quickly captured by Army of Albion troops, who found the pilot had broken his neck upon landing.

The MiG-21 was quickly secured, loaded aboard a ship and sent back to Albion, where it was stored under guard at AFB Comox and restored to flight-worthiness. Designated the AT-116R for reasons of reporting confidentiality, the repaired MiG-21, now painted in RAFA insignia, was shipped by April 1970 to AFB Tenene in central Yukon. The airfield, a former Second World War training airstrip, was then in use by AFIC as a classified testing range for various sounding rockets, but was quickly repurposed as a discreet testing site for the captured Fishbed.

From 1970 onward, Alban pilots equipped with the Archer engaged in classified flyoffs against the MiG-21. Pilots found that, again, they could out-speed the Soviet aircraft and accelerate much faster to full military power. However, the MiG-21 was a much simpler aircraft with easier-to-maintain systems and controls, and it could easily turn with the Archer in a maneuvering engagement. The Archer retained superior performance at low altitude rather than high, owing to the tendency of the MiG to experience buffeting under 15,000 feet that limited it to subsonic speeds - a problem not experienced by the more sophisticated Archer.

The flyoffs established the MiG-21 and the Archer as well-matched in the dogfighting arena. Classified intelligence exchange with the United States would see Alban Archer pilots frequently seconded to the TOPGUN program to act as dissimilar adversaries playing the role of MiG-21s, owing to their fast delta-wing aircraft offering an excellent comparable in a dogfight.

The Guyana MiG would be used in flyoffs until 1977, when it experienced engine failure just after takeoff and crashed into a hillside. The pilot was able to eject successfully.

Tenene Field would be closed down in 1983.

MiG-27 tests
In 1987, the Buffalo Jump program was reactivated following the defection of a Czechoslovak MiG-27MF "Fletcher-E" pilot, who made landing at AFB Baden-Soellingen with a fully intact aircraft.

Officially denying any knowledge of receiving the aircraft, Albion quietly shipped the MiG to AFB Comox, then leased it to the United States, where it received the code name HAVE DINNER. Two RAFA pilots equipped with the AF-14 joined US test pilots at Groom Lake for a series of flyoffs against the captured aircraft.

The MiG-27, initially thought to be relatively comparable to its MiG-23 origins, was found to be more maneuverable than anticipated, once again demonstrating the tendency of the Soviet brain trust to design excellent dogfighters. While slower than the big Tomcat or the F-15 Eagle, the American-built superfighters could not turn with the Fletcher in a maneuvering fight owing to the MiG's tailed-delta design. The Fletcher was found to be very simple to maintain compared to the complex variable-geometry wing and esoterically-designed landing gear of the MiG-23, with exceptionally high uptime and very low operating costs per hour. Beyond-visual-range combat was found to be somewhat lacking, mainly owing to the MiG-27MF being an export version without the most current radar equipment available. While the US and Alban aircraft could defeat the MiG-27 reliably from beyond visual range, it held the edge against most of them in a dogfight.

The HAVE DINNER aircraft was ultimately returned to Albion in 1992. It is currently on display at the Alban Air and Space Museum in Peterborough following the declassification of the Buffalo Jump program.

Program closedown
The Buffalo Jump program was quietly terminated in 1994 following the Caucasus Crisis. At the time, the Alban government believed the total breakup of the USSR was imminent, and the program did not have access to more current Soviet-built aircraft like the MiG-29 or Su-27, making the program's value fairly negligible.