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Russian Army Week 2017, August 22-27, 2017 |
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| Location: Kubinka Air Base , Russia |
| Admission: free |
| Parking: Outside airfield, Park & Ride |
| Value:EXcellent |
| Rating out of 10: 8 |
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MiG 17 memorial to Russian pilots at Kubinka AB.
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This year's Russian Army week involved all services of the Russian forces. Our reporter, Joe Ciliberti, covered the aerial aspect of it which was mainly based at Kubinka airfield, about an hour and a half out of Moscow centre.
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| For such an array of aircraft in the static display it was a pity that people only really showed up on Sunday afternoon at Kubinka. It could well be that the public chose Sunday afternoon because the whole event was spread over two other locations where one could see live firing as well as an exhibition of a lot of Russia's armour. |
| Focusing on Kubinka, the static display line-up included some really interesting and at times rare aircraft, from trainers to all types of Flankers as well as bombers, ASW aircraft and others. Indeed, the long row of aircraft was impressive, including the only known A-50 AWACS aircraft painted in the Russian grey color scheme. The public was only allowed to tour about one third of the long taxiway that runs parallel to the only runway at the field. Inaccessible to the public but still visible were (4) An-30s Open Skies as well as a lot of MiG-29 and Su-27/30s belonging to the country's national aerobatic teams. Also in the line up were two Il-20 ELINT aircraft and a good number of helicopters and fast jets that were part of the flying display programme for the week. |
| The flying display programme was rather disjointed and not helped by lack of commentary in English, there was little non-Russian visitors could do to follow the sequence of events. Most of the time it was hearing a jet roaring down the runway and scrambling to get a decent picture of whatever was about to take off. There was also some flying unconnected with the display at Kubinka, mainly helicopters that went up to do live-firing demonstration at the Alabino target range, to the East of Kubinka and close enough that most performers could be seen performing from Kubinka itself.. |
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The Russian Bear Tu-95MS Bear H |
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| Report and photography by Joe Ciliberi for |
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