Nice! But if I had a large fortune and a private air strip I'd still rather have this Tank Killer.
Posted on 03/17/2011 6:17:16 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Paul Allen buys restored MiG
Russian-made jet carefully restored, flown over county
By Debra Smith, Herald Writer
EVERETT -- Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is the new owner of a restored Russian-made fighter jet.
Vulcan Warbirds Inc., a corporation associated with Allen, closed the sale on the MiG-29 on March 9.
The jet is temporarily on display at Allen's Flying Heritage Collection at Paine Field.
As soon as the weather is right, paperwork is completed and a qualified pilot can travel to the area, the jet will be flown to an undisclosed location, said Liz Davidson, manager of the collection.
The MiG-29 is the same former Ukrainian air force jet that entrepreneur and aviation enthusiast John Sessions purchased and painstakingly restored with Morgan Aircraft Restorations in Arlington.
The Herald chronicled the yearslong project and first flight of the iconic Russian warbird over Snohomish County in Feb. 6 story.
"I think it's fair to say the purchaser is Vulcan Warbirds and behind all that is Paul Allen," Sessions said. "They've been interested in a MiG-29 for a long time."
Allen followed the progress of the jet through its restoration and recent test flights. Those test flights resulted in "no squawk" -- in other words, nothing needed to be repaired, Sessions said.
The Flying Heritage Collection filed a lien in 2009 on the aircraft through the Federal Aviation Administration so they would know if it was sold to someone else, Davidson said.
Allen started collecting aircraft in 1998 and the collection's museum includes mainly World War II planes. He became interested in MiG-29s around 2002, when it became possible for private citizens to purchase them on the open market, she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldnet.com ...
I was stationed at RAF Mildenhall during Air Fete when a former East German Mig-29 and 2 RAF Lakenheath F-15s were chasing each other.
As people have mentioned, the Mig-29 is closer to the size of a F-16 or F-18 and the Mig-29 does not have a greater than 1:1 thrust ratio. When the three planes at the air show went vertical, the Mig eventually flipped over and had to fly straight again. The 15s just kept on going straight up.
And again, just saying there’s those stories out there regarding the similarities/looks of the two planes. I know the Eagle is a better plane. The stories “suggest” the uncanny look between the two. And that the Eagle came out after the MIG. I’m just relating.
Check out tank killer, SU-25.
collage ?.......
Duh.....proof reading has never been one of my strengths.
Wonder what that plane’s carbon footprint is....
Not to the US. It was designed to criss-cross Russian airspace in an attempt to catch the B-70 Valkyrie which was the mach 3 bomber that inspired its creation. We canceled the program in the prototype stage because of the increasing capabilities and cost effectiveness of our ICBM and SLBM fleet.
The MiG-25 was a rocket with wings designed to race like a bat out of hell in one direction to get its missiles within range of a B-70 or B-52 before they could drop nukes. The air combat abilities of the MiG were very suspect.
It’s mostly in differing accounts of the MIG that’s hard to figure out what that plane really was. But thanks for that info.
Nice! But if I had a large fortune and a private air strip I'd still rather have this Tank Killer.
That is a much better picture than I had. They had to stop using anti tank missiles as several planes destroyed them self, firing some type of anti tank missile.
He's got one. He's also got a Curtiss Jenny, a P-40 Tomahawk, a Grumman Hellcat and a P-47 Thunderbolt. And that's just the American planes. He's got some very nice German WW2 planes including the only surviving "Dora" version of the FW-190, an ME-109 and an ME-163 Komet. From Japan he's got a Zero and an Oscar. He's got a Spitfire and a Hurricane and a couple of interesting early WW2 Russian planes, too. It's a fairly tasty little collection.
Cool.
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