Tuesday 21 August 2007
Kurumoch Airport, Samara
'Our' aircraft - a Tu-134 of Aeroflot Nord.
Tu-154 of 'Rossiya' Airlines - note the old Poltava Airlines colours.
Tu-134A-3 of UTair taxiing past - I wonder what the passengers were thinking as they saw this bunch of nutters photographing them?
Another Tu-134 - this time in the colours of Cosmos.
Resident Samara Airlines Tu-154B-2 on the hot ramp.
Tucked away off the main ramp was this Il-76 of Iranian cargo airline - Payam Air.
Another Payam Airlines Il-76TD
Samara City
In the middle of a busy traffic island was this immaculate Il-2 'Shturmovik'.
I risked life and limb crossing busy Russian traffic to bring you these photos of the Il-2!!
Samara State Aerospace University
MiG-17 being worked on in the baking heat by the Unversity students
Su-7UM instructional airframe.
The remains of a PZL-11 'Belphegor' jet biplane crop sprayer.
Su-15 'Flagon' interceptor.
Il-28 'Beagle' bomber.
Amongst the huge collection of airframes and structural specimens inside the buildings was this MiG-21.
Ejection seat from a Yak-28.
In yet another building we saw this MiG-23 - the cockpit of which I photographed.
Another airframe alongside - this time a MiG-29.
I was taking an interest in this KM-1 ejection seat...
....so they forced me to sit down and be strapped into it !!!
Smyshlyaevka Airport Site & G.A. Field
Czech built LET-410.
Yak-42
One of Russia's first jet airliners - the Tu-104.
Derelict witness to the Soviet Union's foray into the supersonic airliner market - the Tupolev Tu-144.
Try as we might, access into the Tu-144 was just a step too far.......!!
.....although I did climb the steps to take this photo.
Never one to miss an opportunity, I opened the door and - with great difficulty at my age - climbed into this Mi-24A.
Antonov An-14 'Pchelka'.
Mi-8 of 'Barkol' on the GA ramp next door.
Immaculate Mi-8 with Kazakhstan-based 'Tulpar Air' titles.
After scaring off the resident crows, we photographed this An-2 of 'ROSTO'.
A closeup of the ROSTO badge - successor to DOSAAF.