In October 1996 I flew a MiG-29 and flew in a MiG-25U (Foxbat-C). More pictures and better text are on their way, but here are a few notes to start with. Individual pictures and references here lead on to further pages with one or more pictures.
It's difficult to be objective about what is happening in Moscow and, by extension, the rest of
Russia. For a start, it was not particularly warm when I was there in late October: Moscow had
its first snow of the season on my last day. The city runs on two distinct currency
systems--roubles and dollars. The last time I passed through, around 1989, I spent my time locked
into the duty-free area of Sheremtevo Airport with a set of people who very carefully
stole all my coffee by opening the vacuum packs and ladelling it into their pockets.
One rouble was officially equal to one British pound (about $1.40), but the black market rate was 6 roubles
to the pound. This time, I got 5500 roubles to the dollar. Things had changed...
It's possible to use either dollars or roubles in Moscow. Not all shops take dollars,
and not all take roubles. There is some overlap. The huge mass of people get paid in
roubles and have to live off them. The luckier ones get paid in dollars. On a dollar
salary, Moscow is expensive: about the same cost of living as Japan. Since I live in
Japan, it felt like home (as opposed to the USA, which strikes me as cheap and so
provokes a spending frenzy whenever I am there). On a rouble salary, the city is just
incredibly expensive, with many shops simply unapproachable.
Several young soldiers approached me for cash while I was walking around. At first, I felt threatened but then noticed that other Muscovites simply handed over 1000 or 5000 roubles. So I did the same, realizing that I was only giving them 20c or $1. Try that in Boston, the only other place where I've got experience of being accosted by beggars. Although the conscripts get monthly paychecks, the amount is insuffucient to feed them. When I was approached, and after understanding their plight, I didn't feel threatened and paid gladly.
There were three dressers responsible for getting me into the G-suits for the two flights.
The older one, as I discovered, has met all the famous Russian cosmonauts and pilots
including Yuri Gagarin. She and her co-workers had not been paid since April, so I left a $200
tip for them. After my final flight, I was treated to chocolate, home-made apple jam and
vodka. Down the vodka in one gulp, grab a spoonful of apple jam. Until I tried it, I'd
never realised what a good combination it was.
In the MiG-29 I wore a lower-body G-suite, but in the MiG-25 I wore a full-body suit called a VKK. It needed two people to lace me into the thing. As well as the laces there is a pneumatic skeleton linked across the shoulders which stiffens the suit up at altitude. There are zips down the front, back and across one shoulder which speed the process up after the first fitting. I don't know what all the external piping is for, but from email: "Well from what I remember from my USAF instruction - and I was not a flying type, so this was incidental - is that these are called "full pressure" suits. They told us that up to 40,000 feet altitude you could breathe normally through an oxygen mask. Above 40,000 the pressure is so low that your blood will boil and oxygen has to be forced into your lungs under pressure. ("pressure breathing"). So if you lose cabin pressure the pressure suit and pressure breathing keep you alive until you get to lower altitude."
There is not much of a forward view from the back seat, so the instructor (or, in this case, me) has to use a periscope to see forward. I couldn't tell whether Ural was controlling this or whether it was automatic, since while the engines were running up it pointed backwards, and during the takeoff roll it pointed forwards before retracting when we went WOG. The relatively short takeoff roll was without burners. We left the ground, almost immediately entering clouds before clearing them at 3 km. altitude. We carried on climbing to 11 km, where we levelled off for some fun. I'd already been told I couldn't touch anything below 6 km.
First of all, Ural showed acceleration from M0.8 to M1.4 using reheat, then I got to do turns to the left and right before taking the MiG back down to 6 km. Ural took over again, doing a split-S and the highlight, a Cobra. It was the only time I could hear much noise inside the helmet, as the wings went perpendicular to the airflow. Ural then did a roll, I did a worse roll, and it was time to land. We did a fast pass of the ground camera with a roll followed by a tight turn to the left and back for a landing. We were in the air for 30 minutes, but it felt like 2.
The next day it was the turn of the MiG-25. I'm rather partial to this particular aircraft: it
uses brute force to get the job done. It's much bigger than the MiG-29, with huge engine inlets
and tailpipes. I sat in the front this time. This particular version was the MiG-25U or Foxbat-C, the two-seater trainer version of
what is normally a single-seater aircraft. The pupil cockpit looks very much like an after-market
accessory but I suppose the things never drop off. The first impression was of the commonality in
controls between the MiG-25, MiG-29 and, from my simulator, Su-27. I don't think it would take a
pilot long to transition between the various aircraft.
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