First appearence og MIG-29 at Farnborough '88

[atb1943]

Heehaw, guess I asked for that! Well, I'd better get ahead and post those photos....

Possibly one of the worst burgers I've ever had...


MiG-29UB c/n 50903008134



MiG-29A c/n 2960522971





Yuri Ermakov, Dave Bennett and Roman Taskaev


same trio without hand


Anatoli Kvotchur joins the throng




охладить его (aka cool it)


we're off to the chalet for some borscht


5 Sqn Tornado GR.3


An-22 CCCP-09329 and An-124 CCCP-82007


found these two so added them




Hope this works
cheers
Alan

[BEagle]

John Farley wrote:

Right from the beginning of my contacts with the MiG team, I had reasoned that they had no more control over their political circumstances than we as pilots had over ours.

Undoubtedly! It was the same when we hosted the Gorbachev / Thatcher meeting at Brize. At the pre-meeting, with some Sov embassy people, MoD goons and senior Aeroflot aircrew, after one particularly anal piece of nonsense from the MoD goons ("Don't let them have the Lyneham ramp co-ordinates"), the Sov aircrew and I exchanged glances - "You have wanquerres in your air force too!" being the obvious unspoken message.

Come the day, it was great fun - apart, that is, for the poor sweating KGB chap who'd been left at the Gateway by his colleagues and had to huff and puff his way back to the Il-62 in his standard issue raincoat worried that someone might think he was a defector!

On the jet I was in, the senior hostie was a bit Rosa Klebb until we thanked her for inviting us to have a coffee. Whereupon she instantly transformed into a smiling prep school matron and ushered her lovely girls forward to serve us with some superb coffee and delicious Russian chocolate. Once the aircrew had worked out that we were just ordinary RAF aircrew and not some MoD spooks, we had a very congenial time in their nice warm aircraft. There was also a rather attractive Russian-speaking female USAF navigator, who was sent to help them with any US airspace queries. On hearing slightly raised voices from the flight deck after she came on board, I asked "Surely you have female aircrew too?". To which they replied "Da - but not like her!".

When the in-flight catering turned up from Heathrow, it came with 2 large poly bags containing greenery. "Bugger me", I thought, "they really do eat cabbage sandwiches!". But there'd been a c.ock-up - they'd been sent 500g of parsley for garnish, rather than the 50g they'd requested. Half a kilogram of parsley takes up a lot of space!

[chevvron]

On the friday of display week, I was asked to attend the airshow Ops tent (in my role as the person who wrote the draft of the daily flying display programme). There I met Anatoly who told me in slow English 'the Mig 29 will not be displaying tomorrow'. I gathered that after 6 days, he wanted a break and went off to London for a p-up!! He was back for the sunday display though.

[Flybiker7000]

Expansion of subject.

Reading on the subject, it seems that the '88 show at Farnborough was the in air debut of Dassault Rafale :-/
Rafale-A had been showed in Paris 1987, but apparently this was only on static display.
Anybody with the knowledge of this?

Additionally 1988 isn't to forget for the Rammstein disaster just weeks before Farnborough :-o

[Vzlet]

The Rafale did fly at the 1987 Paris show:
www.airliners.net/photo/Dassault-Rafale-A/0516447/L/

[Flybiker7000]

Well found Vzlet!

[Vzlet]

Well, in this case, I did have inside information!

[Flybiker7000]

Always nice to hear the words directly of the horses own mouth (as the old Danish saying goes) ;-)

[wonderboysteve]

As I remember, my childhood copy of T. Shia's 'Airshows 86' had images of both EAP and Rafale A flying at Farnborough that year.

[Lyneham Lad]

My shot of the Rafale at the '88 show. Somewhere I have the negs with static shots of the Mig-29 but as they are b&w cannot add anything to those already posted.



PS - maybe I can - just remembered I had uploaded some shots to Photobucket yonks ago:-

[Flybiker7000]

As I remember, my childhood copy of T. Shia's 'Airshows 86' had images of both EAP and Rafale A flying at Farnborough that year.

However it doesn't proof anything about the Rafale:



(Cracking the picture-barrier by the tinypic.com -tip!)

[chevvron]

Originally Posted by Lyneham Lad;9218247
PS - maybe I can - just remembered I had uploaded some shots to Photobucket yonks ago:-
[IMG

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f84/Lyneham_Lad/Aircraft/F002_800.jpg[/IMG]

Hmm the AN 124 in the background. It was parked on the main runway prior to the flying display and had to be towed to the 18 threshold after this. The tow involved a turn of about 160 deg onto what is now taxiway 'C' and one day, they managed to break the towbar. As AN124 towbars weren't too prolific in the UK in those days, this meant the runway was blocked and no flying display. After a lot of phone calls, the crew were traced (at lunch and downing vino) and were prevailed upon to go out and start up a couple of engines so as to taxy it clear!!

[Lyneham Lad]

Originally Posted by chevvron

Hmm the AN 124 in the background. It was parked on the main runway prior to the flying display and had to be towed to the 18 threshold after this. The tow involved a turn of about 160 deg onto what is now taxiway 'C' and one day, they managed to break the towbar. As AN124 towbars weren't too prolific in the UK in those days, this meant the runway was blocked and no flying display. After a lot of phone calls, the crew were traced (at lunch and downing vino) and were prevailed upon to go out and start up a couple of engines so as to taxy it clear!!

One of the highlights of the day for me was seeing this mighty beast in action. The majority of black specks in the second photo are clods of earth/grass as it rotated/lifted off. The third shot really shows the scale of the aircraft.

[Flybiker7000]

As the stories comes in I wonder wich other news on the '88 Farnborough might have been surpressed by the presence of the Soviet delegation :-/

[chevvron]

Originally Posted by atb1943

The excitement of the occasion increased a few days later with the arrival of the An-22 ostensibly with a replacement engine for the one that went kaputt on the 124. John Blake drew me a doodle of the An-22's sideways touchdown for my visitor's book, which I managed to 'retain' but can't put my finger on right now.

As the '124 started his takeoff roll on the first day after the usual 8 min on the runway winding up to takeoff power, it unexpectedly began to slow down again. What we didn't hear or see from the tower was the bang and flames caused by a compressor surge.
The AN 22 arrived on the wednesday I think with a replacement engine. Its sideways landing was, we concluded, due to the fact he lined up on the dayglo display line markers thinking they were the runway and only realised his mistake as he passed over the tower where I was outside on the balcony. The tyre marks indicated he touched town just off the left side of the runway on a taxiway turnoff and went over a bit of grass before regaining the paved surface. An MOD policeman stood next to me filming with a video camera and gave ATC a couple of copies which were still in our archive when I retired.

[BEagle]

An 'interesting arrival' by the An 22, it was indeed:

(See from 1:30 - 1:40)

[atb1943]

Very many thanks BEagle! I had forgotten that it was that - shall we say - unusual! Glad the engine was strapped in tightly, otherwise it might have ended up in the Flight chalet! IIRC they had a few problems with overflight permission, mainly from the Germans, which may have been the reason for the late arrival.

Question, completely off-thread: did the Shackleton provide the same type of reverberation/sound? I really can't remember when I last heard one. Anyone?

[Haraka]

I was in the Queens Hotel having a cup of tea when the sound of what sharply reminded me of a formation of Lancasters came louder and louder, heralding the An-22's approach . IIRC it was around for a few minutes before that highly individual final arrival.
A Shackleton normally produced a much quieter growl.

[chevvron]

Last Shack to display at Farnborough was an AEW2 c/s 'Gambia 08'; don't remember what year but it was between '88 and 2002 'cos we were still in the old tower.(may have been 2002)
An AWACS preceded the Shack to show what was replacing it; I told Gambia 08 to tuck himself in as close as possible behind the AWACS.

[bob809]

My up close visit with the Mig-29

I know I am posting into an older post, and that maybe no one will see it, but when I saw this, I had to subscribe and write the below from the perspective of my poor memory.

Hi, just a newbie here. My story about the visit of the Mig-29 at Farnborough in 1988 is a bit sketchy in my memory but I was there. Myself and our shooting team (for RAF Stafford) were at Bisley in competition. Our boss, who we had nicknamed 'Tackleberry' after the gun nut in the Police Academy film, asked if anyone wanted to go to see the airshow at Farnborough. Being an avid fan of airshows I and a few others jumped in the Land Rover and off we went. What we didn't realise was that he got us special access to the place. I recall we went through a crash gate and parked up next to a big old looking jet that I had only seen in pictures, the aforesaid Mig-29.

Needless to say, I was a little gobsmacked. Forget how long we were there, but we spoke to a few people nearby, I think the pilot was there too. I am assuming, as my memory is a little faulty, that this was the display aircraft. I ran my hands over different parts of the fuselage, and was quite surprised at how 'robustly' it was built. I thought the last time I saw rivets like that they were on the Ark Royal. It felt somewhat like the skin of the Buccaneer, very tough. The memory, despite it being so long ago, feels as surreal as the experience was.