Description
Officially Licensed USMC VMFT-401 Snipers Sticker — The Marine Corps’ Professional Bad Guys
They paint red stars on their tails, fly foreign camouflage, and spend every sortie trying to kill you. That’s the job, and they’re the best at it.
Marine Fighter Training Squadron 401 (VMFT-401) — the ‘Lucky Snipers’ — is the Marine Corps’ only dedicated adversary squadron, and the first reserve squadron in the Corps ever tasked to act as the opposing force in simulated air combat. Commissioned on March 18, 1986, at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona, VMFT-401 was created to fill a critical gap in Marine Corps readiness: providing dissimilar air combat training to active and reserve fleet squadrons so that American pilots would never face an unfamiliar threat in actual combat. The squadron’s first aircraft were 13 Israeli-built F-21A Kfir fighters, delivered in June 1987 after contractual agreements with Israeli Aircraft Industries. The Kfir was officially inducted into Marine Corps service on August 13, 1987, and VMFA-235 ‘Death Angels’ became the first unit to receive the Snipers’ adversary support. Within their first year of operations, VMFT-401 flew over 4,000 accident-free sorties supporting 59 different units across 16 major exercises, earning a Meritorious Unit Commendation from the Secretary of the Navy. In 1988, the Snipers deployed to support the Air Force Fighter Weapons School at Nellis AFB, attended the Navy Fighter Weapons School — TOPGUN — at NAS Miramar, and provided Red Air for numerous combined arms exercises. In 1989, the squadron transitioned from the Kfir to the F-5E Tiger II, and later upgraded to the F-5N with improved avionics including the AN/APG-69 pulse-doppler radar. The fruits of the Snipers’ training were proven in combat when the United States went to war with Iraq in 1991 and American pilots handily defeated the Iraqi Air Force. By 1995, VMFT-401 had accumulated over 35,000 mishap-free sorties and 31,000 mishap-free flight hours, and by 2010 the squadron broke the 50,000 mishap-free flight hour mark — recognized personally by the Commandant of the Marine Corps. Assigned to the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing under Marine Aircraft Group 41, the Snipers are a non-deployable unit staffed with a mix of active-duty and reserve pilots — many of them airline pilots in their civilian careers — who average 2,500 hours in fighter aircraft and hold Top Gun or Weapons and Tactics Instructor qualifications. They routinely train Marine F/A-18 and F-35 pilots, as well as Navy and Air Force units across the southwestern United States, and provide the majority of Red Air threats for the semiannual Weapons and Tactics Instructor course at MAWTS-1. Their F-5N Tigers may not be fifth-generation fighters, but in the hands of the Snipers, they make fifth-generation pilots earn every kill.
Perfect For: VMFT-401 Lucky Snipers pilots and maintainers, F-5 Tiger II community members, Marine adversary and aggressor aviation enthusiasts, MAWTS-1 and WTI course alumni, MCAS Yuma personnel, 4th MAW reservists, and anyone who respects the squadron that makes every Marine pilot better by trying to beat them.
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