In 1953, the US Air Force secretly flight-tested an operational Soviet fighter jet at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base under the codename "Project Alpha."
Meet the Yakovlev Yak-23 (NATO reporting name: Flora)—an ultra-lightweight, straight-wing interceptor powered by a reverse-engineered British Derwent engine. While it boasted an astonishing climb rate of nearly 7,000 feet per minute, the rapid rise of swept-wing transonic fighters like the MiG-15 made it obsolete almost overnight.
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