Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada—a 20-minute drive from the Las Vegas Strip is home to some of the Cold War’s most iconic secrets, accumulated over the years from forgotten battles, arms dealers, and hard-cash-hungry foreign governments.
The Threat Training Facility at Nellis Air Force Base houses a collection of Soviet weapons, many of which lie idle in the desert heat. It offers visitors a closer look at the MiG-29 jet fighter, which was once one of the most dangerous aircraft in the Soviet Union because of its air-to-air combat capability. Visitors can also crawl into the SA-13, a mobile Soviet surface-to-air missile system that threatened Western aircraft in the first Gulf War. And then there’s the Mi-24 Hind, an attack helicopter that the Soviets used extensively in their war in Afghanistan, where it became a CIA-supplied target. sting missile,