Busy day for aviation

Today, the new Russian president, Vladimir Putin, did a thing which is not only "very uncommon" among state presidents, but me, personally, I'm not aware of any other state president who ever did this during his mandate (George Bush was a fighter pilot on F6F Hellcat in the 1950s in the Korean war, but he became president in the late 1980s): Vladimir Putin flew in the back sit of a Su27B Flanker.

Invited to a peace-talk somewhere close to the Russian-Chechen border, the Russian president came with a flight...but surprize surprize for the people who were expecting him at the airport, because instead of seeing a single Falcon 900B or a Gulfstream, they saw 2 Su-27 Flankers, and from one of them, the president smiled to the press.

Some may argue that going so close to the conflict area in an unarmed Su27B Flanker might have been very dangerous. Yes, very true indeed, but the Russians have not forgot about security: flying in the front seat of the leading Su27B, was an excellent russian general major, famous in the West for he has been a few years ago to a Russian-American flight meeting, and he flew in his Su27 no less than 26 dogfights against usual american Air Force pilots flying on F15s and F-16s. He won all of them...
Also, in the back, a second fully-armed Su27 was staying close-by, "just in case".
Vladimir Putin is known to have even flown the plane for a long part of the straight-forward flight. Now THAT's my kind of a President !

Also, in the same day of March the 20th, 2000, in the United States, an F-16 crashed at an airshow all of a sudden. All investigations, as well as the very convincing images who I have seen in person showned to one single, but very old and deadly aviation killer: G-LOC...

©2000 Sorin A Crasmarelu

20th of march 2000

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