On 8th April 1950, four Lavochkin La-11 fighters intercepted a US Navy aircraft, performing signal intelligence (SIGNIT) mission off the Soviet coast of the Baltic Sea. That aircraft, a Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer, was shot down […]
Ilyushin Il-18B (c/n 189001604, OK-NAA, formerly operated by Československé aerolinie), exhibited at Letecké muzeum Kbely (Kbely aviation museum), Prague, September 2021. In the mid-1950s, the piston-powered passenger aircraft were being slowly replaced by faster and […]
Sukhoi Su-31 (reg. LY-LJK, c/n 35125) and Jurgis Kairys at the controls, getting ready for departure, Lotnicza Majówka Iława, May 2019, Poland. A brief history of that ´aerobatic beast´ – which Su-31 undoubtedly is – […]
Ilyushin Il-78M-90A / Ил-78М-90А, NATO reporting name ´Midas´ (c/n 02-01, Russian Aerospace Forces RF-78741), prototype of aerial tanker based on an Ilyushin Il-76MD-90 strategic airlifter, static display at MAKS aviation fair, August/September 2019. The first […]
6 August 1941 – night-ramming of a German Heinkel He 111 bomber by V.V. Talalikhin. Viktor Vasilevich Talalikhin (Виктор Васильевич Талалихин) was born on 18th September 1918 in Tepolvka village, near Saratov. In 1934, his […]
First flight of Yakovlev Yak-50, aerobatic trainer aircraft. Between 1946 and 1965, Yakovlev design bureau created, under common designation Yak-18, a series of quite different training and aerobatic aircraft. It included a variant designated Yak-18PM, […]
Antonov An-26, a twin-engine, turboprop transport aircraft, performed its maiden flight. Antonov An-26 is one of the most-known aircraft designed by the Antonov construction bureau and, at the same time, stays among the best remembered […]
Beriev A-50 / А-50У airborne early warning and control aircraft, NATO reporting name: Mainstay (´41´ Taganrog / Таганрог), static display at International Aviation and Space Salon MAKS-2017, Zhukovsky, July 2017. The story of Soviet airborne […]
Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-152 experimental interceptor aircraft, Central Air Force Museum in Monino, July 2017. In the mid-1950s, the Soviet air defence forces were in a desperate need of modern interceptor aircraft. The perfect air defence fighter […]
On 29th April 1939, Soviet crew of Kokkinaki Gordienko belly landed at Miscou Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, concluding their transatlantic flight from Moscow. One day earlier, on 28th April at 4:19 in […]
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