{"id":53211,"date":"2023-09-27T06:02:26","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T04:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=53211"},"modified":"2023-10-01T21:18:54","modified_gmt":"2023-10-01T19:18:54","slug":"a-us-military-museum-will-exhibit-a-russian-made-fighter-that-disappeared-5-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/09\/27\/a-us-military-museum-will-exhibit-a-russian-made-fighter-that-disappeared-5-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"A US military museum will exhibit a Russian made fighter that 'disappeared' 5 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The National Museum of the US Air Force continues to increase <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/08\/29\/the-soviet-mig-fighters-that-ended-up-in-the-united-states-air-force-museum\/\">its repertoire of fighters built in the former USSR and Russia<\/a>.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/08\/29\/the-soviet-mig-fighters-that-ended-up-in-the-united-states-air-force-museum\/\">The Soviet MiG fighters that ended up in the United States Air Force Museum<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2018\/01\/09\/janet-an-airline-with-which-you-will-never-fly-to-a-place-that-they-claimed-did-not-exist\/\">Janet: an airline with which you will never fly to a place that they claimed did not exist<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p><big>The USAF Museum releases three photos without showing its insignia<\/big><\/p>\n<p>This Tuesday, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AFmuseum\/status\/1706756797372285115\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the museum announced its most recent acquisition<\/a>: <strong>a fighter Sukhoi Su-27<\/strong>which will be added this fall to its Cold War gallery. The museum has released three photos of this plane, and <strong>in none of the images can the insignia of this fighter be seen<\/strong>, which has a large number \"32\" painted with blue characters on both sides of its nose, next to the front of the cockpit.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53216460666_8d8f1d7855_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><big>A Ukrainian Su-27 sold to a US company in 2009<\/big><\/p>\n<p>Although its insignia have not been seen, it has not been difficult to identify this fighter. <strong>This aircraft was one of 70 Su-27s operated by the Ukrainian Air Force<\/strong>, a number that had been reduced to less than half before the start of the current Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. <strong>The exact number of these aircraft still operational in the Armed Forces of Ukraine is currently unknown<\/strong>, which has resorted to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/03\/17\/confirmed-ukrainian-air-force-will-receive-25-mig-29s-from-poland-and-slovakia\/\">MiG-29 fighters donated by Poland and Slovakia<\/a> to compensate the losses suffered during the war due to Russian attacks.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53216849179_39033d9a3f_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It must be said that <strong>the fighter that is going to be displayed at the USAF Museum has not been distracted from the Ukrainian war effort<\/strong>. It is a two-seat Su-27UB aircraft, that is, a conversion training aircraft for pilots who are beginning to train with this type of fighter. <strong>It was built in 1990 and is completely demilitarized<\/strong>, according to data published by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aircraft.com\/aircraft\/201100707\/1990-sukhoi-su-27\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aircraft.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53216460676_6bf56cce62_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As of December 2019, <a href=\"https:\/\/theaviationgeekclub.com\/a-quick-look-at-the-su-27-flanker-fighter-jets-evaluated-by-western-countries\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Aviation Geek Club<\/a> published an article pointing out that this aircraft, with construction number 96310408027, <strong>was operated by the 831st Aviation Regiment of the Ukrainian Air Force<\/strong>, based in Mirgorod, Poltava Oblast. At that time he wore the number 61, being identified as \"61 Blue\".<\/p>\n<p><strong>The plane, along with its twin the \"66 Blue\" (below these lines, in a photo published by <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190208102948\/http:\/\/www.prideaircraft.com\/flanker.htm\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pride Aircraft<\/a>), was sold to a US company in 2009<\/strong>, being transported from Ukraine aboard an An -124 from Antonov Airlines. <strong>Previously, all military and weapons control-related systems were removed<\/strong>, except for the sphere in the front of its cockpit, which houses the IRST\/LR aircraft identification system . <strong>In the US the two planes retained their Ukrainian camouflage<\/strong>, but their national insignia were removed and they were assigned new tactical numbers: <strong>61 Blue became 32 Blue<\/strong> (with civilian registration N132SU) <strong>and the 66 Blue was transformed into 31 Blue <\/strong>(with registration N131SU).<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53216849189_1185145e30_o.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><big>Five years ago its registration was canceled and its trace was lost.<\/big><\/p>\n<p><strong>Both planes were operated by Tactical Air Support Inc<\/strong>, a company in Reno, Nevada, that provides training to military pilots with aircraft that play the role of aggressors. <strong>The planes were later sold to the company Pride Aviation<\/strong>, of Illinois. These two Su-27s were in the news a lot years ago, for being the first fighters of this type in civilian hands in the US. However, <strong>five years ago the trace of these two planes was completely lost<\/strong>. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aerialvisuals.ca\/AirframeDossier.php?Serial=25441\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aerialvisuals.ca<\/a>, in January 2018 the civil registration plates of both. <strong>No images of both have been seen again until now.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><big>The possible link of these planes with Area 51<\/big><\/p>\n<p>In recent years, various stories have circulated about these two planes, some of which linked them to <a href=\"http:\/\/area51trips.blogspot.com\/2016\/12\/groom-lake-november-2016.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Russian fighters operated by the US at the Groom Lake test range, Nevada<\/a>, fighters obtained through former Soviet republics for evaluation. <strong>That polygon, popularly known as Area 51<\/strong>, is where Skunk Works (the advanced programs section of Lockheed Martin) has been testing its secret aircraft for decades (among them the famous SR-71) and is also one of the destinations of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2018\/01\/09\/janet-an-airline-with-which-you-will-never-fly-to-a-place-that-they-claimed-did-not-exist\/\">the mysterious secret airline known as Janet, which I told you about here<\/a> and which operates from an exclusive terminal at McCarren Airport in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The National Museum of the US Air Force continues to increase its repertoire of fighters built in the former USSR and Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19534,11546],"tags":[9520,20216,12941,20215,16152,10431],"class_list":["post-53211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-portada-eng","category-military-aviation","tag-national-museum-of-the-us-air-force","tag-pride-aviation","tag-sukhoi-su-27","tag-tactical-air-support-inc","tag-ukrainian-air-force","tag-united-states"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-12 00:35:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}