HISTORY

village in front of me. I checked my controls, and the rudder did not work. I could

only control the pitch. Making turns was

very limited. I turned left and saw a dark

spot. I said to myself that it was probably

a field and there is nothing on it. At that

moment the flames erupted on the right side of the cockpit and when the fire

reached me I promptly ejected, exactly

according to the manual”, as the pilot recalled the dramatic moments. While he

was still on the parachute, he pulled out a

mobile phone to check his wounds. Thus,

the selfie with his blood-stained face was

taken. At the same time, he wanted to let

the ground control know that he was okay.

It took him approximately two minutes to

land. For his conduct president Volodymyr

Zelenskyi awarded him with the highest

award, Hero of Ukraine.

Photo: ZSU

Blue-yellow markings

Photo: ZSU

Major Vadym Voroshylov took selfie of his bloodied face while he was still on the parachute.

Wreck of the Voroshylov’s Mig-29 fighter carrying blue 10 bort number.

Also, the fighter flown by Voroshylow had

the long history. It had been manufactured

in the summer of 1990 and delivered to the

161st Fighter Squadron of the Soviet AF at

Limanske airbase near Odessa. The aircraft sported the standard camouflage of

light gray and green-gray colors and carried the bort number “blue 31”. After the

breakup of the Soviet Union it remained in

Ukraine and sometime in 2001-2002 it was

assigned to the 204th Brigade of the Tactical Aviation in Belbek, Crimea. The bort

number was changed to “blue 10”. During

2007-2008 this Mig-29 was grounded since his airframe has reached the prescribed maximum flight hours. In 2014, after

the Crimea was occupied by the Russians

together with the other non-airworthy aircraft it was dismantled and transported

by trucks to a new airbase of the 204th

Brigade of the Tactical Aviation at Kulbakine near Mykolayiv. During 2015-2017 it

flew again but when its unit was transferred to Luck airbase “blue 10” ended up

in the group of other grounded airplanes

at Ivano-Frankivsk airbase. This group of

the non-airworthy airplanes became the

target of the rocket attack in the very beginning of the Russian aggression launched on February 24. “Blue 10” was parked

a little further and escaped without damage. The plane remained there until April

at least and then, with the help of the allies

who supplied the spare parts, was repaired and in June returned to service. At

that time it was painted in the blue-yellow

livery reminding of the former Ukrainian

aerobatic group Falcons. It was returned

to its original unit where it flew sporting

this new marking until its last flight.

Photo: ZSU

Posilňovanie PVO

Mig-29 in blue-yellow livery was returned to service in June 2022.

20

INFO Eduard

The continued attacks against Ukraine

carried another side effect-they sped up

the supplies of the Western AA systems

to Ukraine. In October Germany delive-

January 2023