Highlights of the 2005 MAKS Airshow

The Russians are aiming to make the MAKS airshow the Russian equivalent of the Paris Air Show or the British Farnborough Air Show.   This means making it a showcase for the Russian aerospace industry, and a place where business deals are made, or at least signed.   This Tupolev-334 airliner is one of the aircraft on display for prospective customers, though I doubt if this is the way they'll normally be used!   Aeroflot has already ordered the Tu-334, which is a 100 seat successor to the 76 seat Tu-134.

Each day's show was started by a trio of Sukhoi Su-25 ground attack aircraft, which have the unfortunate NATO code name of "Frogfoot", which raises the question when there are more than one of whether they're "Frogfoots" or "Frogfeet".   The Su-25 is the Russian equivalent of the A-10 Thunderbolt II.   Like the A-10, the Su-25 has titanium armour for the pilot and it has also been used in combat in Afghanistan, however the Su-25 is faster than the A-10 and, somewhat surprisingly, is said to be more maneuverable.   Nicknamed "the comb" because of all of the stores racks which extend out the front of the wing, the Frogfoot has a 30mm cannon and can carry 4000kg (almost 9000lb) of ordnance.

The Zhukovsky Air Field where the show is held is also home to the Gromov Flight Research Institute, which is the Russian equivalent of NASA.   Here's one of their test aircraft, a Sukhoi Su-27P.   Like the Su-27SMK in the previous photo, this particular aircraft has appeared at several airshows throughout Europe, including several trips to the UK.

The MiG-29M2 is more advanced than its predecessors, but this MiG-29OVT is even more sophisticated, and the company insists that the improvements are great enough to merit a new designation, the MiG-35.   This version of the Fulcrum was demonstrated in public for the first time just before the show and has a new thrust vectoring system, which you can clearly see in operation in this photo.   Unlike earlier versions of thrust vectoring on aircraft like the Su-27 and the American F-22 Raptor which can only pivot up or down, the MiG-35 can vector up, down, left and right.   The MiG-35 can also move the nozzles further than earlier versions, up to 18 degrees, to allow even greater feats of maneuverability like the "double somersault" and "boomerang".

The helicopters which displayed were one of the highlights for me.   It would have been great to have seen an Mi-24 "Hind', the large helicopter gunship which became so familiar in Afghanistan, but we had to make do with this Mil Mi-8 "Hip", one of the most successful helicopters which has ever been produced anywhere.   It dropped a parachute display team from altitude and picked them up afterwards.   This photo was shot from the crowd side on Friday afternoon, from where you could see a tantalizing collection of MiG 25 Foxbats and other aircraft on the other side of the runway.

My favourite Russian helicopters are those designed by the Kamov design bureau, which specializes in helicopters with contra-rotating rotors, which don't require the tail rotor needed to counteract the torque created by a single main rotor.   The tail rotor requires a significant amount of power, anywhere from 10% to 25% of the total, so a contra-rotating design is inherently more efficient, potentially allowing great lifting capacity and speed, and the lack of a tail rotor is also a significant benefit from the point of view of safety of people operating around the craft.

Two different configurations of the Kamov Ka-226 Sergei light multi-purpose helicopter were shown, this one hauling some drums and another one with a rear cabin occupying the space behind the cockpit.   The Ka-226 is an update of the Ka-26 "flying chassis" first delivered in 1965.   The detachable cabin can be used for medical evacuation or transport of personnel, or other equipment can be fitted for agricultural or other commercial work.

For only the second time, the US Air Force sent a contingent to the show, this time consisting of two F-16 Fighting Falcons, two F-15 Eagles, a KC-10 tanker, a KC-135 tanker and this B-1B Lancer bomber.   The Lancer gave a pretty ordinary display, but it was certainly an interesting sight to see it flying over the Russian countryside.

Russ were good, but there's nothing better than a display team flying modern military fighter jets!   The "Swifts" fly MiG-29 Fulcrums in 6-ship deltas, 4-ship diamonds and various other arrangements.   The formations might not have been as tight as the US Navy Blue Angels, but the novelty of seeing them fly and the raw noise and power from their very smokey engines more than made up for it.   The Russian crowd were very vocal and enthusiastic, as they had been for other displays both local and foreign, and it all  worked together for a memorable show.