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Defenders of the Sky of the Motherland
In early February of this year, pilots of the Tver air base of the ZVO participated in flight and tactical exercises. The crews of the aviation regiment of the Western military district were put on the highest level of combat readiness as part of a planned flight and tactical exercise in the Tver region.
Photos of Su-35S and MiG-31B from different angles

Sky, Wings, Combat Power...
This year, the Air Force Academy named after Professor N.E. Zhukovsky and Yu.A. Gagarin celebrates the anniversaries of universities united in 2012 in the Military Training and Research Center of the Air Force in Voronezh. November 23 will mark the 100th Anniversary of the Air Force Engineering Academy named after Professor N.E. Zhukovsky, and this month, March 29, will mark the 80th anniversary of the Gagarin Air force Academy. On the eve of these significant dates, the Aviation and Cosmonautics magazine continues a series of articles devoted to the history of our famous military universities.

Wings over Tikhoretsk
Probably, everyone who drove by car along the highway leading from the Central regions of Russia towards the resorts of the North Caucasus, in the area of Tikhoretsk, more than once paid attention to the camouflaged aircraft, rapidly passing at a low altitude. The fact is that here is a Training Aviation Base of the 2nd class of the Krasnodar Higher Military school of pilots named after Hero of the Soviet Union A. K. Serov. The history of this airfield is as follows…

Born to Fight
Work on new fighters in 1940 was not entirely smooth. On August 3, a Sukhoi I-135 fighter was seriously damaged, and on August 11, a Lavochkin I–301 fighter was damaged. Pashinin was doing better. The layout of the aircraft was approved on March 8, and the draft design was approved on May 25, 1940. On the I-21, as well as on the I-301, the installation of a 23 mm Taubina motor gun was provided, and the machine gun armament consisted of two synchronous ShKAS. Construction of the first prototype of the I-21 with the M-105P engine was completed in June, factory tests began on July 1, and the first flight took place on July 11, 1940. under the control of test pilot P. U. Fokin.

Desperate Times, Brave Women
As you know, the `flight` profession of stewardess in itself has never been considered absolutely safe. But the share of these brave women sometimes had even greater adversity associated with the hijacking of Airliners and hostage-taking on board. The world chronology of hijackings is quite comparable to the history of aviation as such. In no way claiming to be encyclopedic, we remind readers of only some of the most famous and interesting facts on this topic. At the same time, we would like to note the courage of many flight attendants who often found themselves in the epicenter of events.

Supersonic Passenger Aircraft of the XXI Century
The development of supersonic aircraft in the 1960s began almost simultaneously in three centers: in the USSR, in Western Europe, and in the United States. The Soviet Tu-144 and the Anglo-French Concorde were put into operation, while the Boeing 2707 remained only a project.

The Enemy Number One (The B-52 Story)
The loss of the Boeing b-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers in Vietnam confirmed the worst fears of the US air force command about their chances of overcoming the Soviet air defense. At that time, the situation in America was the same as in the USSR 10 years earlier: in government circles and among their sponsors in the military-industrial complex, the prevailing view was that a nuclear triad consisting of strategic bombers, as well as mine – launched and underwater-launched ballistic missiles was too expensive. And it was proposed to save money at the expense of aviation, whose chances of overcoming the air defense in the first strike were the lowest.

Aviation in the Vietnam War
The prolongation of the war in Vietnam in a certain way affected the development of the aviation industry. On the one hand, no one was going to ignore the emerging trend to gradually replace attack and reconnaissance aircraft with more powerful and modern ones (F-100s were replaced with F-105S, F-8s with `Phantoms`, reconnaissance versions of the `Crusader` – with `Vigilents` RA-5, etc.). But at the same time, the` strategic thought `of the top us military leadership once again` rushed headlong`, and once again there was a far from new idea – to create a single` super-plane `for both the air force and the Navy, which could at once replace the not so effective (as the first year of the Vietnam war showed)` Phantoms `and` Thunderchifs`.

Some significant dates in March in the History of Aviation