Click on this video to watch the Russian Knights perform with their Sukhoi Su-27 jets
Today the MAKS 2007 Air Show drew over 500,000 visitors to Zhukovsky Air Base forty kilometers outside of Moscow.
During the Nineties, Zhukovsky (Ramenskoye Airport) became known around the world for offering rides in MiGs and Sukhoi fighter jets to foreigners at $10-$25,000 a pop. Now the base is once again a showcase for Russian civil and military aviation and is drawing representatives from major aerospace firms around the world.
A Russia Today TV news clip about the USAF and Chinese delegations at MAKS 2007
According to President Putin's remarks at the opening ceremony, 780 Russian and foreign companies representing 110 countries were presenting their wares at the air show. Russia Today TV reported that 200 of these firms hailed from the Moscow region. The air show represented a coming out party for the Russian government's newly formed United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), created from the merger of the Sukhoi, Mikoyan Gurevich (MiG), Tupolev, Ilyushin, Irkut and Yakovlev design bureaus.
The largest foreign delegation came from the People's Republic of China, but the U.S. Air Force brought several C-17 airlifters, F-16 fighter jets and B-52 bombers to the show, and the American planes on static display proved to be very popular with the Russian public. One USAF pilot, evidently impressed with the quantity and quality of the crowds, declared that "Russian girls are beautiful". Apparently even with the resumption this month of long range patrols by Russian bombers, no one at the show seemed too worried about the threat of a "New Cold War".
Charles,
What a way to end an article on the new 2007 MAKS, with the words "New Cold War".
I'm a fanatic for video on aerospace... As a child, my father worked at NASA for 14 years in Spain where I grew up and anything associated with aerospace influenced my later years.
And for that, to name a few, Russia and the CIS have special place in my heart.
They make fantastic space systems, fantastic aviation, and I firmly believe this creativity is propagating down to energy and consumer spheres.
The US needs to remember that this isn't personal, it's just business.
It's not a cold war, it's just competition - deal with it - grow up America - get a life. Competetion makes EVERYONE BETTER.