Warbird Information Exchange

I thought this was interesting. http://ru-aviation.livejournal.com/2563678.html

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Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

Great aerial photo essay of the Monino collection.

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Looks like the WWII aircraft are now for the most part indoors, although the American aircraft (A-20, B-25) remain outside.

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Kevin McCartney

1st & foremost russkie planes are mostly fugly!! ........ 2nd I never realized just how many aircraft & how much technology they actually ripped off from the west!! I new of many, but not to this magnitude!!

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

I think they would be quick to point to our F-14 as a rip-off of their MiG-25.

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Kevin McCartney

Really - I thought the F-14 was a ripoff of our own F-111?

My bad! Our F-15 and their MiG-25

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Kevin McCartney

Aside from the Tu-4 , which was an admitted rip-off, and the Li-2 which was license-built, the Soviets were otherwise at the forefront of aeronautical development from the mid 1920's on. TsAGI, the Soviet/Russian equivalent of NACA, was founded in 1918.

While Russian politics may have played a slightly (and only slightly) larger role in aircraft production than in the west, Russian R&D has never been a weak spot. After all these are the folks that put a retractable gear, enclosed cockpit monoplane fighter into production in 1933, when everyone else content with biplanes. They were also successfully experimenting with variable geometry aircraft already in the late 30's.
They had an air-droppable H-bomb before the west, Sputnik, Gagarin, Mir, and so on.


"Oh, they just ripped off the west" is a bit of left-over cold war rhetoric, and demonstrably false. It's equivalent of believing all Russian women look like Brezhnev in drag (Mila Kunis, Milla Jovovich, Anna Kournikova, Olga Kurylenko etc etc)

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Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

Everyone and their brother likes to use pics from Monino in their books, webpages, etc.; but they always show the aircraft individually and never the whole museum. As a result, it is impossible to tell how big it is - much less the layout or surroundings. Knowing the amount of pictures of different aircraft and outdoor setting but not the layout always made me figure the museum covered acres upon acres! Now I finally know it's much smaller than I thought. Thanks for posting these!

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Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster

Steam catapults on their aircraft carriers?

The Yak-38 "Forger." There's a real gem in the realm of Russian R&D.

If Russian R&D is so strong, then how come many of their fighter/interceptor aircraft of the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s had engines that were only usable for 150-200 hours before they were considered junk?



One point that I agree with you on. Had Russian equipment been up to par with Western equipment, the Cold War may very well have gone on for a bit longer than it did. Bottom line: our stuff worked.

More to the point, holy cow! I've seen countless Monino visits in other aviation photo forums but never have I seen one from the air. Too cool!

I think that is the most perfect & best observation of the entire soviet military
as an entity I've ever read!! cheerskies to you ........sorry no vodka emoticons

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!