Word: mig
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...offer from the Soviet barnstormers is for the well heeled, not the fainthearted. For a mere $10,000, the American air-show buff can now buy a few minutes of thrills as a passenger in a MiG-29 Fulcrum, the U.S.S.R.'s hottest jet fighter. A few intrepid customers have signed up for rides ranging from a gentle swing around the airfield to a serious workout at 1,500 m.p.h. The thrills start this weekend at Massachusetts' Westfield-Barnes airport and then continue at shows in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Texas, Kansas and California...
Amid the desolation of economic collapse, the Soviet aerospace industry has come up with an apparent winner. Flown by a crack new aerobatic team from Moscow, MiG-29 Fulcrum-D jet fighters dazzled spectators at a French air base last month with demonstrations of the Soviet-invented "cobra" maneuver. In a chilling imitation of a striking snake, the aircraft rockets upward from a standing start, slows to a near standstill as the pilot pulls its nose just past the 90 degrees point, flies backward in that position and then snaps forward again and resumes normal flight. U.S. military officers dismiss...
...sign reading FORBIDDEN ZONE -- sprawls the Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute. Employing 10,000 scientists and technicians, the research center combines the theoretical study of aerodynamics with practical experiments on airplanes and spacecraft. In one hangar-size workshop, stress- testing sensors cling like barnacles to prototypes of the new MiG-31 fighter and the next generation of Soviet civilian airliners, the Tu-204 and Il-114. Nearby is the T-128 transonic wind tunnel, where the space shuttle Buran and the Energiya booster rocket were tested with airstreams driven by a 1,000-kW compressor. The center is also adjacent...
Long hidden from the eyes of foreigners and ordinary citizens alike, the complex is the reason the Soviet Union can produce better MiG fighters than passenger cars and outproduce the entire globe in missiles while coming up short on light bulbs. It is also the reason the U.S.S.R. is nearly bankrupt and economic reform has stalled. The leaders of the military-industrial complex have long been accustomed to having things their own way, and are trying to ward off change...
...Force replies that the Soviets remain a threat, if not as an actual combatant, then as the chief arms dealer to Third World nations that the U.S. may someday have to fight. Many of these countries are already equipped with Soviet planes, such as the MiG-23, MiG-29 and SU-27, that are "aerodynamically competitive" with the F-15. Being as good as the Soviets' best is not good enough, especially when flying against an enemy that may have its entire air force at its disposal. "When you're a pilot, you don't want equality," says Ben Lambeth...