Report (Permission Visit) (Flogger) MiG23 Sapper Range Moscow May 2015

[kingrat]

(This was supposed to be a report. But seeing as the guys we ran into eventually gave us permission .........)

There was very nearly a tag line to our Moscow adventure, it would have been "It was hidden in the woods! We didn't know it was operational". Honestly thought our number was up at this site, ordinarily it's fairly apparent if a site is live or not. It should be even more apparent if the military own the site, shouldn't it?

Well it wasn't and they did. Having said that we met two of the nicest squaddies on STAG and even though their English was worse than our Russian after a few minutes of comical miming and waving of cameras they actually told us where to find our goal despite it being the other side of the gates!

This is a MIG23 (Flogger), apparently it's 'quite the find'. Obviously once we knew we had 'permission' there was much tomfoolery (Wea5el gets the medal for most ingenious infiltration of an objekt). Visited with Wea5el and FieldyM.

This will be my last offering from our Russia trip, I'm handing over to Wea5el now.

 

[Oxygen Thief]

Thta's a great find, amazing that they let you in.

 

[kingrat]

Thta's a great find, amazing that they let you in.

Wea5el found it on the interwebs.
We couldn't quite believe it either, especially when they pointed us down the side of the fence and told us where to 'go under, not over'.
We were watched the entire time by another soldier with a dog in one of the buildings nearby.
We then met one of our 'friends' when we were leaving escorting a 'wood hooker' towards the building housing the guy with the dog! It was pretty surreal

 

[bhg]

brilliant find Kingrat! Thanks for sharing!

 

[drhowser]

That's pretty cool!

I know a couple who had a similar experience at a 'disused' base but with a much less friendly outcome..

 

[wea5el]

The MiG was not operatonal but certainly climb in-able

 

[Goldie87]

Excellent stuff

 

[trailboss99]

Wea5el found it on the interwebs.
We couldn't quite believe it either, especially when they pointed us down the side of the fence and told us where to 'go under, not over'.
We were watched the entire time by another soldier with a dog in one of the buildings nearby.
We then met one of our 'friends' when we were leaving escorting a 'wood hooker' towards the building housing the guy with the dog! It was pretty surreal

Obviously they got the concept that you were only there to take photos and as you say the guy with the dog had his eye on you the entire time. All the same it could have been nasty had they had a different attitude.

Nice pics of a rare bird.