Rob "ZMan" Zettel | Inside the USAF's Red Eagles
5/29/20261 hr 29 min
Rob "Z-Man" Zettel is a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, commercial airline captain, and author of American MiG Pilot who served as a top-secret Red Eagles instructor pilot flying Soviet MiG-21 and MiG-23 fighter jets during the Cold War program Constant Peg.
American MiG Pilot: Inside the Top Secret USAF “Red Eagles” MiG Squadron: https://amzn.to/4fLi2DA
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Clips
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First 90 secondsRob Zettel· Guest0:00
You know, Top Gun had been around, Aggressors, Red Flag, all those things are in place right now. Um, but what they didn't have is they didn't have the real thing, and the Air Force had had a handful, and when I say a handful, three airplanes. They had a MiG-21, two MiG-17s early on, have donut, have drill, the programs, things like that. But they were really in the, on the test side of the Air Force, Air Force Systems Command back in the day. And they did some exploitation, but, you know, it never really translated over to Tac or the, you know, the Navy. So in the halls of the Pentagon in the mid-late '70s, you know, people had been talking for years, "Hey," they knew they had a handful of MiGs, "Wouldn't it be cool if we get a real squadron?"
Speaker 2· Soundbite0:47
Tower, Delta Air six is released to you runway four left, wind zero, four zero at five. Cleared for takeoff. Seat's tied. Altitude's zero. Guys, we're cleared for takeoff. Cleared for the airspace. Climb protected. Climb protected. Mike program current, altimeter three five four. Turn the nav lights on. Roger that. Attention, 16, 17, ground element, return to base. Whatever 1-3.
Rain· Host1:10
Z Man, it's good to see you again. It's been a minute.
Rob Zettel· Guest1:12
It's been a little bit, uh, Rain, but, uh, thanks for staying in contact and, uh, glad to be here.
Rain· Host1:18
Yeah, absolutely. So today I'm excited. We're gonna dig into a little bit of the book that you finally published. Last time- [laughs] ... we did this, you were in the midst of writing it, and I was fortunate,