Russia’s enormous International Aviation and Space Show, otherwise known as MAKS, takes place every other year and is one of the top aerospace spectacles and military gear expos in the world. The show will kick off on August 25th, and will be the first MAKS since Russia invaded Crimea a year and a half ago. As such, we can be assured that there will be some pretty awesome displays meant to showcase Russia’s military exports, intimidate its peer state competitors, and levitate nationalist sentiments. Apparently, this will include the display of the long-defunct MiG 1.44 fighter demonstrator, an enigmatic aircraft that has long captured the minds of military aviation aficionados.
link.
This was too cool to skip. lol. Broke my own rules on the first day. However, let's turn this into a real post.
Its obvious, now, from the pictures above a lot of online Russophiles were full of it when it came to the 1.44. Its plainly NOT a stealth aircraft. Those inlets alone! ouch! If anything it looks like Mikoyan took the Eurofighter design and Russianed the sh*t out of it. Its plainly not an F-22 killer. You can easily see why the Russian Air Force moved on to the PAK-FA design.
Amusingly, I have seen that design before. And I don't mean in fleeting picture online sort of way.
In ~1988 (!), there was an article called 'MiG 2000' which had an aircraft which was the spitting image of the above. So much so, I really want to find the article again. The inlets and canards were the most strikingly similar parts as I recall. However, its almost been 30 (OMG!) years.
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