Restoring and Flying the Mig-29 (February 4th)
On Saturday, February 4th, HFF will host the quarterly meeting of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots from 1-3 p.m. Members of the flying public are welcome. The presentation will address the restoration and test flight program of Mig-29 N29UB, restored in 2008-10 and successfully test-flown in January and February of 2011. In a tale rich in anecdotes, HFF founder John Sessions will describe the cast and critical path to restore and fly a front-line, Mach 2.4 fighter. Test Pilot Doug Russell will share his experiences flying the Mig-29 as a U.S. Air Force exchange pilot in West Germany and more recently, as the lead pilot of N29UB. For tickets and other information, please contact Visitor Services.
Navy Piston Fighter Pilots (February 11th)
On Saturday, February 11th, spend the afternoon with a panel of Navy fighter pilots from the piston age. Beginning at 1 p.m., five of our favorite octogenarians will tell their stories and offer flying tips. Among the featured types will be the Hellcat, Bearcat and Corsair. The event will be recorded as part of HFF’s program to preserve first-hand accounts of those who flew between 1927 and 1957.
Beauty and Duty (February 25th)
“Beauty and Duty” is a living history presentation by Alice Miller featuring women’s military uniforms from World War I to Vietnam. Beginning at 1 p.m., Alice will discuss the time periods surrounding the uniforms and how fashion trends affected their design and construction. She will present the histories of the women who wore the uniforms as live models walk among the audience. There will be a display of rare women’s uniforms, memorabilia and posters. Photographs and questions will be encouraged.
- Mustang in the Air
- Bad Kitty (Grumman Tigercat)
- Four Ship Formation
I added some pics of your P-51 to may page of airplane pics and videos, and also put together a video of the 2 P-51′s + B-25 fly-by.
Here’s the link to the page of pics that has links to fly-by videos:
http://www.pointshooting.com/1aflyby.htm
Below are links to P-51 + B-25 video’s. I made two. One is 15 megs with good quality, and one with 22 megs of better quality. If you like feel free to download the videos and add them to your site. You can also edit them as you wish. Lastly, I have put together a HD video that is very big and needs to be cut down and edited. I may work on that later. I plan to upload the smaller video to U-tube.
http://www.pointshooting.com/kilo6a.wmv
http://www.pointshooting.com/kilo6b.wmv
I just love history. I’m 20 years old and looking into aviation maintenence at EvCC. I hope to build and old plane that brings some history back to life
Congratulations on the recent flight of your beautiful MiG 29UB!
I’m from a small town east of Toronto, Ontario and remember when the Ukrainian MiG’s came to Canada. I was fortunate to fly in a C-130 Hercules and remember so well the MiG slipping out from below us and pulling lead on our left wing. I hope you don’t mind my asking a couple of questions. I’m curious about the weight balance with the removal of the “gun” and the IRST System from the Windscreen area. Was it difficult to compensate for this? I remember when the first MiG 15 was brought into the United States, I got a chance to speak to the pilot/owner and he mentioned that his aircraft actually still had the armament installed and he had to contact the Federal Authorities, which removed them.
He says he actually had a machine shop make replica’s of the guns to actual weight and size so he could keep the C of G.
Again I hope you don’t mind the questions and really do compliment you on acquiring a beautiful aircraft.
Kindest Regards,
Michael Mettman
Bowmanville, Ontario
P.S. Your Tigercat is outstanding too!
Good to meet you at HFM Saturday! Thanks again for bringing up the B-25 Mitchell and also allowing Greg Anders to fly in the P-47.
The MIG-29 is a beautiful restoration! I keep going back to your video on this site of the first flight – just awesome!
John,
You and Tim did some great work here. It all came together and the MiG looks awesome. The video was fun to watch. My kids and I loved it. This is the kind of thing that gets the boys thinking about what they want to be when they grow up.
I have been told that among your other accomplishments you let a young 13 year old boy fly in your planes and actually handle the controls while in flight over the past two- three months. Isn’t that illegal!?
The lad was a passenger in a two-seat trainer. The pilot-in-command is retired Navy and a veteran of perhaps twenty Reno Air Races. Between the two of them, they figured out the T-6.