Russia’s biggest air show MAKS 2007 welcomes 100,000 visitors daily

Russia’s largest air show in post-Soviet history, MAKS 2007, opens for the general public for three days. The show actually started working three days ago, but it was opened only for specialists. A general admission ticket for the show costs up to 350 rubles (about 15 dollars).

Photo: Russia’s biggest air show MAKS 2007 welcomes 100,000 visitors daily

Forecasters predict fine weather for the remaining days of the show. Meteorological aviation will be used to disperse clouds in case the weather worsens.

The air show enjoys immense popularity with common people. The number of passengers departing from Moscow’s Kazansky Railway Station to the town of Zhukovsky, where the air show takes place, has tripled. Many line up for train tickets willing to travel to the Moscow region with their families and friends.

Visitors will have an opportunity to watch Russian and foreign aircraft performing demonstrative flights. MAKS 2007 also offers a rich exhibition of military and passenger planes. The exhibition was organized on a runway several kilometers long.

World’s most experienced pilots will demonstrate their skills in the sky above Zhukovsky. The pilots will fly Su-26 planes. Each of them will fly for five minutes; all the performances will be accompanied with music. Every jet is outfitted with video cameras to transmit images from the cockpit to large video screens installed on the ground.

The air show will close on August 26. The admission of 100,000 people is expected daily.

Russia’s Air Force is represented at MAKS 2007 by more than 20 models of aircraft, including Tu-160 Blackjack and Tu-95MS Bear strategic bombers, the new Yak-130 light fighter, the Su-34 Fullback strike aircraft, and the Ka-50 Hokum attack helicopter. Over 700 companies from 39 countries are participating in the international air show in Zhukovsky, according to head of the Federal Industrial Agency /Rosprom/ Boris Alyoshin, Interfax reports.

"Russia will be represented by 130 companies more than at the air show MAKS-2005, and number of foreign participants increased 1.5 times,” Alyoshin emphasized.

Russian producers presented state-of-art aerospace equipment at the show. The Irkutsk aircraft factory displayed its latest jet fighter Su-30 MK, the amphibian plane BE-200 and the rotorcraft A-002 M. The rotorcraft takes on the board 300 kilogram of cargoes or two-three people. Using the rotor propeller that revolves around vertical axis under pressure of the airflow, the craft flies at 200 kilometers an hour within a 500-kilometer range.

Omsk ’s production association Polyot showed the light rocket Kosmos-3 M, multi-mission planes A-3T and An-74, as well as light spacecraft.

The Urals optic-mechanical plant displayed round-the-clock tracking station for MiG and Sukhoi warplanes.

Aircraft makers of Buryatia put on display at MAKS-2007 the helicopter Mi-171 for the Russian customs service. The helicopter is intended for terrain patrolling and landing of operative groups. The craft can be also used in search and rescue operations. It is equipped with a searchlight with an infrared filter and with a night vision system. Its navigation complex uses the global positioning system.