Warbird Information Exchange

Here's a few pictures of Soviet goodwill tour in Texas 92




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Cool pics! I saw one at Sheppard AFB in Witchita Falls a few years back for an airshow appearance. I believe it was in German markings. But it was really cool to see!

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Trae

Cool!

I was sitting outside the fence for the Friday afternoon demo. That was one heck of a show. I was amazed at the Cobra roll.

I never got as close to the airplanes as you did.

Thanks for sharing.

Zane

Isn't there a Mig-29 that is privately owned in the US?

N29UB
N6394G
N6394K

Wonder if any of them are airworthy?

Jim

Hmm...29UB has a pretty recent registration date.

The other two belong to Kirlin. The rumor is they are ready to fly, but the paperwork awaits. Don't know if I believe that. He offers them for contract work. www.redair.net

Wow! Sounds like they are like "guns for hire"?

Think I got a bit closer than either of you, just wish I could find my pictures.....I spent the week they were here turning wrenches on them. Spent half a day convincing them we could get the one drop tank repaired without any problem after the drag chute got caught on the relief vent on the arrival landing. Drug three of them and the tank over to a buddy's hangar over at AeroValley (Northwest Regional these days) and had it welded up in about thirty minuets and saved the crews from an all night unload/reload of the IL-76 to get to the spare tank.....Absolutely blew their minds at some of the tools and toys we had laying about. After that, I got to work on just about anything that needed to be done to the jets other than repack and install the drag chutes...serviced engines, changed tires, serviced cockpit cooling systems, and so on. Even got to sit in one and help run a couple of simple systems checks.. As to my welder friend....in return he was given tickets to the show, passes to the Mig Compound, a guided tour by one of the MIG honchos and was invited to watch the show from the compound. The MIG guys also presented him with a poster signed by all the crew.

All in all, they were a great bunch to work with as long as you understood that in some ways they were 40 years behind us. The one thing that I did find about them, wether they could speak any English or not, was that they were all airplane guys. Airplanes were their lives, their jobs and their fun. That to have been selected to go on this tour meant that they were the best of the best at the factory.

Personally, I belive the biggest suprize that I think they got during the tour was that the typical Americans that they had contact with didn't really care about political differences and treated them as though they were just found, long lost family memebers. All in all, a week of real fun.

Hee hee...sort of. Red Air (along with a handful of others like ATAC and ATSI) use the planes for various training excercises with the military. They use various aircraft (L-39, A-4's, Kfirs, Drakens, MiGs, etc...) from target towing, ECM platforms, cruise missle simulation, all the way to aggressor services. Pretty slick.

That's really interesting... I'm surprised I've never heard of that before. They say that they use retired military pilots.... seems like a fun retirement!