All news

First rehearsal of Victory Day parade’s air show held over Moscow

More training flights over Moscow will be held on May 7

KUBINKA AIRDROME /Moscow Region/, May 4. /TASS/. The first rehearsal of the V-Day military parade’s air show was held over Moscow Thursday morning with 72 planes and helicopters taking part, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The world’s largest military transport helicopter Mi-26 escorted by a quartet of Mi-8 helicopters opened the show. It was followed by Mi-28N, Mi-35, and Ka-52.

Next the onlookers saw a group of five long-range planes - four Tupolev-22M3 bombers and the strategic missile carrying jet Tupolev-160 White Swan. Also taking part in the rehearsal were strategic bombers Tupolev-95MS, tanker planes Ilyushin-78, military transport planes Antonov-124 and Ilyushin-76MD, fighters Sukhoi-35S, Sukhoi-30SM, Sukhoi-27, MiG-29, MiG-31BM, front-line bombers Sukhoi-34 and Sukhoi-24M, fighter-bombers Sukhoi-25 and combat and training planes Yakovlev-130.

The aircraft took off from eight airdromes in the Moscow, Tver, Bryansk, Saratov, Kaluga, Voronezh, Lipetsk and Nizhni Novgorod regions. The MiG-29 and Sukhoi-30SM jets of the aerobatic groups Strizhi (Swifts) and Russian Knights took off from the air base Kubinka, west of Moscow. On Kubinka’s airfield one can also see a sextet of Sukhoi-25 jets that will end the parade by drawing Russia’s white-blue-red state flag with colored smoke trails in the sky over Red Square.

First rehearsal of Victory Day parade’s air show held over Moscow
© TASS

The helicopters flew over Moscow at an altitude of 150 meters and a speed of 200 kilometers per hour, and the tactical, long-range and military transport planes, at altitudes of 300 to 500 meters and a speed of 500 kilometers, the Defense Ministry said.

More training flights over Moscow will be held on May 7, the day of the last rehearsal of the May 9 parade.