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Originally Posted by Llarry
It turns out that all these aggressor/adversary squadrons are not enough for U.S. fighter units. There are also contractor-operated aggressors flying various aircraft to train U.S. pilots.
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These contractor aggressor/adversary companies are big business; they've got contracts at a number of bases and fly a number of different aircraft to give U.S. and allied pilots experience with dissimilar threats. Who are flying these "enemy" aircraft? I suspect that U.S. fighter pilots are finding lucrative employment after resignation or retirement from the military with these companies. Here are a couple of more examples of simulated "bad guys" operated by Draken International and TacAir.
Note that for truly sophisticated adversaries, the services have to use their own latest aircraft, such as the F-35; none of these contracted aircraft have stealth characteristics.