SOME NEW WARPLANES TO MISS MOSCOW AIR SHOW.

The 3rd biannual Moscow International Air Show opens today at the Zhukovsky air field and many of the latest Russian military and civilian planes will be on display as Russian producers try to increase their share of the lucrative international aircraft market. Foreign planes will also be shown, including the new Ukrainian An-70 military transport. Although Russia’s two largest military aircraft enterprises — the Moscow Aircraft Production Association (MAPO) and Sukhoi — will be well represented, their two most modern fighters will be kept in a hanger where only top Russian leaders will get a look at them. (Itar-Tass, August 13)

These two "fifth generation" fighters are MAPO’s Project 1-42 multi-role jet and a similar design by Sukhoi. The MAPO jet has been under development for nearly a decade and has yet to fly. The company announced in 1995 that it would be displayed at that year’s Moscow air show but it was pulled from the exhibit at the last minute, reportedly at the insistence of the Defense Ministry. In recent years Russia has offered some of its most modern weapons to overseas buyers as a means of propping up its cash-starved defense industry, but it seems that the military understandably wants to keep the very latest technology for itself.

Yesterday the prototype of the Be-103 — a light amphibian passenger plane designed by the Beriev enterprise in Taganrog — crashed at Zhukovsky, destroying the aircraft and killing the test pilot. He had been practicing for the air show and what would have been the first public display of the new plane. (Itar-Tass, August 18)

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