Monino Russian Air Force Museum

Dave & I were lucky enough to meet one of the PPG pilots (Andrew) on Thursday whose father is a retired Russian Air Force pilot who was stationed at Monino Air Base during his career. Andrew heard Dave & I talking to Dmitry about making a phone call to Monino as translator to get permission to visit the museum there. Andrew's father just happened to be there watching his son's first solo, and they had a discussion that resulted in a couple of phone calls to officials at the base. Andrew pulled me aside and said "I will be your guide." I looked at him and said "What?" He said, "I'll pick you up from your hotel, and take you to Monino, get you in and serve as guide / interpreter." WOW! How cool was that! I told him we could take the Metro (subway) from downtown out to meet him, but he insisted on picking us up, easier that way.

Andrew met us in front of the hotel at 7:30 am on Friday morning and we headed to Monino. It seems Andrew was on a week vacation and it was somewhat of a treat to practice his English and visit his childhood home.
As we got to the base entrance, Andrew told us to lose the sunglasses, and ball caps, etc. Don't smile so much, and try to look more Russian. I guess it was just easier to get us into the base without explaining so much. We stayed in the car and Andrew got our permit to enter. We then drove through the base to the museum area.

Andrew went in to get us tickets to tour the museum but returned just a few minutes later. He asked if we had our passports, (we did) and rushed us into a hanger. A middle aged Russian woman took our passports and visas, talked to Andrew in Russian, asked for about 1500 rubles, (about $64 U.S.) and sent us on our way. Right about then an older gentleman approached with some booklets. He talked with Andrew and then Andrew told us he was a retired Air Force colonel pilot that had personally flown in a lot of the planes to the museum. He walked us out to the museum area and talked to us a bit using Andrew as a go between. (See photo, he's in the middle between Dave & I with the giant helicopter behind us.) We were like kids in a candy store taking picture after picture and getting the translation from Andrew about each plane, helicopter, and aircraft.

If you saw the movie "Firefox" with Clint Eastwood about stealing a Russian super fighter plane you'll see in the other photo above, there really was a plane that looked like the one in the movie. We saw so many planes, including the Russian Concorde, a space shuttle test vehicle, the first all metal Russian airplane, and many more. It was an incredible day! I'll be posting more photos and video later, and I'm sure some of this experience will make it into ITW II.

More info about the museum...

The Central Museum of the Air Forces at Monino, Russia is located approximately 38 kilometers (24 miles) from Moscow along the Gorky Highway in a lovely wooded area. It is the largest and best aviation museum in Russia. The museum was formerly known as The Russian Federation Air Force Museum and, prior to that, The USSR Air Force Museum. The facility was an operational air base from 1932 through April, 1956. The museum was founded in 1958 and opened in 1960 at the original airfield location and in the original airfield structures. The area was off-limits to civilians during the Soviet era so it has been neither easy to find nor easy to access. Advance permission to visit the museum was recently required for non-Russian citizens. The facilities are largely unimproved and the majority of aircraft are exposed to the harsh Russian weather. Many of the Russian aviation Design Bureaus (Tupolev, Ilyushin, Antonov, Mikoyan, etc.) have contributed exhibits and resources to the museum and its maintenance. Despite these conditions, the aircraft are in surprisingly good shape and most are sitting on the original tires they landed at the Monino airfield with. This is a testament to the museum employees who have a great historical legacy to preserve.

Here's a link to a photo album logging most of the aircraft at the museum...

http://www.moninoaviation.com/ix.html

More to come...

CP & DG