MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Viktor Litovkin)
- U.S. fighters F-16 A\B Fighting Falcon and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet landed at Zhukovsky airfield near Moscow over the weekend.
Together with a USAF strategic bomber B-1B expected later, they will take part in the 7th Moscow International Air Show MAKS-2005, opening on August
16.
At the air show, which will last until August 21, more than 600 firms from forty countries will demonstrate their products, Federal Agency for
Industry head Boris Alyoshin told RIA Novosti. This, of course, is less than at the 46th International Air Show at Le Bourget in France a month and a
half ago, which was attended by 1,900 companies from 44 countries of the world displaying 240 civilian and military planes, helicopters, and unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAV).
But, as distinct from Paris, the Moscow air show will have a more varied program of demonstration and exhibition flights by both Russian and foreign
combat, passenger and sports planes. American pilots, the French aerobatic team Patrouille de France, and the Italian Frecce Tricolori plan to show
their skills at Zhukovsky. The Russian Knights and the Swifts will fly the Su-27 (NATO classification: Flanker) and MiG-29 (NATO classification:
Fulcrum) combat fighters, and the Rus group, the training L-39 aircraft. Sukhoi and MiG test pilots Pavel Vlasov and Sergei Bogdan and their
colleagues from the Gromov Flight Institute (known from its Russian acronym LII) will perform aerobatic stunts flying the modernized multi-role
vectored-thrust Su-27SKMs and MiG-29OVTs.
Only in the skies over the Moscow region can one see twenty-ton warplanes somersaulting, stalling in the air, diving nose first or nose last, or
turning over the right or left wing. No other fighters in the world are capable of doing that. And no other air and space show has such a
demonstration program of aerobatics as MAKS at Zhukovsky.
*( please use following link for full article
en.rian.ru... )
see also
Russia to exhibit new satellites at air show
Russian space shuttle's launch set for 2011
*(mod edit to reduce excessive copy paste)
[edit on 18-8-2005 by pantha]