Forgive me if I'm wrong but it seems that when I read Chuck Yeager's book about 20 years ago he talked about taking an F-86, I believe it was, out across a dry lake bed at Edwards. He was at speed and couldn't get the plane to descend out of ground effect. I believe he said he had both feet pushing on the stick and it wouldn't descend...like I said it's been a long time.
I saw the Russians fly the Su-27 at the OKC airshow in '89 and then the Mig-29 a year later at the Alliant airport north of Ft Worth. The planes and pilots were the best I had ever seen!
They could really fly!
JLK