Malaysia Shows Interest In Russia's Mig Aircraft

On Tuesday the 6th international show of aerospace and marine technology, Lima 2001 held on the Malaysian island of Langkawi, opened with demonstration flights by Russian Mig-29 planes, flown by pilots of the Malaysian air force. One of the first exhibitions inspected by Malaysian Prime Minister Dr.Mahathir, together with the Malaysian defense minister and the air force commander, was that of the Russian aircraft-making corporation Mig. The RIA Novosti correspondent quotes Victor Kozlov, Russian chief delegate and deputy general director of the Mig Corp., as saying that this year its specialists have brought with them four finished projects which Malaysia was earlier interested in -- plan for updating the fleet of Mig-29M, in service of the Malaysian air force; multipurpose two-seater Mig-29M2; export version of the Mig-31 warplane; as well as the in-flight pilot monitoring system. To Kozlov, earlier Malaysia several times showed interest in the two-seater fighter plane and at Lima exhibition last year the Mig corporation promised Malaysian specialists to demonstrate top flight performance of the new Mig-29M2 plane. This machine is better than the American F-18 in, for example, controllability. Control of the machine can be passed from the first to the second pilot for the first to wholly focus on hitting ground and surface targets.