±Recent Visitors

Recent Visitors to Com-Central!

±User Info-big


Welcome Anonymous

Nickname
Password

Membership:
Latest: cgsimpson
New Today: 0
New Yesterday: 0
Overall: 6645

People Online:
Members: 0
Visitors: 568
Total: 568
Who Is Where:
 Visitors:
01: Community Forums
02: Community Forums
03: Community Forums
04: Community Forums
05: Statistics
06: Community Forums
07: Photo Gallery
08: Home
09: Downloads
10: Community Forums
11: Photo Gallery
12: Community Forums
13: Community Forums
14: Community Forums
15: Community Forums
16: Community Forums
17: Community Forums
18: Community Forums
19: Photo Gallery
20: Community Forums
21: Community Forums
22: Community Forums
23: Community Forums
24: Downloads
25: News Archive
26: Community Forums
27: Community Forums
28: Community Forums
29: Community Forums
30: Community Forums
31: Your Account
32: Community Forums
33: Community Forums
34: Community Forums
35: Home
36: Community Forums
37: Photo Gallery
38: Community Forums
39: Photo Gallery
40: Your Account
41: CPGlang
42: Community Forums
43: Community Forums
44: Photo Gallery
45: Community Forums
46: Community Forums
47: Photo Gallery
48: Community Forums
49: Photo Gallery
50: Community Forums
51: Community Forums
52: Photo Gallery
53: Member Screenshots
54: Downloads
55: Community Forums
56: Home
57: Community Forums
58: Community Forums
59: Home
60: Community Forums
61: Photo Gallery
62: Community Forums
63: Community Forums
64: Community Forums
65: Community Forums
66: Community Forums
67: Community Forums
68: Community Forums
69: Member Screenshots
70: Community Forums
71: Photo Gallery
72: Community Forums
73: Community Forums
74: Home
75: Home
76: Community Forums
77: Photo Gallery
78: Photo Gallery
79: Home
80: Community Forums
81: Photo Gallery
82: Community Forums
83: Downloads
84: Community Forums
85: Photo Gallery
86: Home
87: Photo Gallery
88: Community Forums
89: Home
90: Photo Gallery
91: Community Forums
92: Community Forums
93: Community Forums
94: Home
95: Community Forums
96: Photo Gallery
97: Community Forums
98: Member Screenshots
99: Photo Gallery
100: Community Forums
101: Community Forums
102: Your Account
103: Community Forums
104: Community Forums
105: Community Forums
106: Community Forums
107: Community Forums
108: Community Forums
109: Community Forums
110: Community Forums
111: Downloads
112: Community Forums
113: Community Forums
114: Home
115: Home
116: Community Forums
117: Home
118: Community Forums
119: Home
120: Community Forums
121: Downloads
122: Community Forums
123: Community Forums
124: Photo Gallery
125: Community Forums
126: Community Forums
127: Home
128: Community Forums
129: Community Forums
130: Community Forums
131: Home
132: Photo Gallery
133: Community Forums
134: Community Forums
135: Community Forums
136: Community Forums
137: Photo Gallery
138: Photo Gallery
139: Community Forums
140: Community Forums
141: Community Forums
142: Downloads
143: Community Forums
144: Community Forums
145: Community Forums
146: Community Forums
147: Community Forums
148: Community Forums
149: Photo Gallery
150: Community Forums
151: Community Forums
152: Home
153: Your Account
154: Photo Gallery
155: Photo Gallery
156: Home
157: Community Forums
158: Community Forums
159: Community Forums
160: Downloads
161: Your Account
162: Community Forums
163: Photo Gallery
164: Photo Gallery
165: Community Forums
166: Community Forums
167: Community Forums
168: Community Forums
169: Community Forums
170: Photo Gallery
171: Community Forums
172: Community Forums
173: Home
174: Photo Gallery
175: Community Forums
176: Home
177: Photo Gallery
178: Community Forums
179: Community Forums
180: Community Forums
181: Photo Gallery
182: Member Screenshots
183: Photo Gallery
184: Community Forums
185: Community Forums
186: Community Forums
187: Home
188: Community Forums
189: Community Forums
190: Community Forums
191: Community Forums
192: Community Forums
193: Community Forums
194: Community Forums
195: Home
196: Downloads
197: Photo Gallery
198: Search
199: Community Forums
200: Home
201: Statistics
202: Community Forums
203: Community Forums
204: Community Forums
205: Community Forums
206: Community Forums
207: Photo Gallery
208: Home
209: Community Forums
210: Community Forums
211: Community Forums
212: Photo Gallery
213: Community Forums
214: Community Forums
215: Community Forums
216: Community Forums
217: Home
218: Community Forums
219: Photo Gallery
220: Community Forums
221: Downloads
222: Your Account
223: Community Forums
224: Community Forums
225: Community Forums
226: Home
227: Community Forums
228: Community Forums
229: Community Forums
230: Downloads
231: Community Forums
232: Community Forums
233: Downloads
234: Community Forums
235: Community Forums
236: Community Forums
237: Community Forums
238: Community Forums
239: CPGlang
240: Community Forums
241: Home
242: Community Forums
243: Downloads
244: Photo Gallery
245: Photo Gallery
246: Community Forums
247: Photo Gallery
248: Community Forums
249: Community Forums
250: Community Forums
251: Community Forums
252: Community Forums
253: Community Forums
254: Community Forums
255: Community Forums
256: Community Forums
257: Community Forums
258: Community Forums
259: Community Forums
260: Community Forums
261: Photo Gallery
262: Home
263: Downloads
264: Photo Gallery
265: Community Forums
266: Downloads
267: Photo Gallery
268: Community Forums
269: Community Forums
270: Community Forums
271: Downloads
272: Community Forums
273: Your Account
274: Community Forums
275: Community Forums
276: Community Forums
277: Photo Gallery
278: Community Forums
279: Community Forums
280: Community Forums
281: Downloads
282: Community Forums
283: Photo Gallery
284: Community Forums
285: Community Forums
286: Member Screenshots
287: Downloads
288: Community Forums
289: Community Forums
290: Photo Gallery
291: Community Forums
292: Community Forums
293: Community Forums
294: Your Account
295: Community Forums
296: Community Forums
297: Community Forums
298: Community Forums
299: Photo Gallery
300: Community Forums
301: Community Forums
302: Community Forums
303: Home
304: Community Forums
305: Community Forums
306: Community Forums
307: Community Forums
308: Photo Gallery
309: Community Forums
310: Home
311: News Archive
312: Community Forums
313: Home
314: Community Forums
315: Home
316: Your Account
317: Community Forums
318: Member Screenshots
319: Community Forums
320: Community Forums
321: Photo Gallery
322: Community Forums
323: Community Forums
324: Community Forums
325: Community Forums
326: Photo Gallery
327: Community Forums
328: Downloads
329: Community Forums
330: Photo Gallery
331: Community Forums
332: Photo Gallery
333: Community Forums
334: Community Forums
335: Home
336: Community Forums
337: Community Forums
338: Photo Gallery
339: Member Screenshots
340: Home
341: Photo Gallery
342: Community Forums
343: Home
344: Community Forums
345: Community Forums
346: Community Forums
347: Photo Gallery
348: Home
349: Photo Gallery
350: Photo Gallery
351: Community Forums
352: Community Forums
353: Your Account
354: Community Forums
355: Community Forums
356: Community Forums
357: Community Forums
358: Community Forums
359: Community Forums
360: Photo Gallery
361: Community Forums
362: Photo Gallery
363: Community Forums
364: Photo Gallery
365: Community Forums
366: Community Forums
367: Community Forums
368: Community Forums
369: Statistics
370: Home
371: Community Forums
372: Community Forums
373: Your Account
374: Community Forums
375: Community Forums
376: Your Account
377: Community Forums
378: Home
379: Community Forums
380: Community Forums
381: Community Forums
382: Community Forums
383: Home
384: Photo Gallery
385: Tell a Friend
386: Community Forums
387: Community Forums
388: Downloads
389: Community Forums
390: Home
391: Community Forums
392: Community Forums
393: Community Forums
394: Community Forums
395: Community Forums
396: Community Forums
397: Community Forums
398: Photo Gallery
399: CPGlang
400: Photo Gallery
401: Community Forums
402: Community Forums
403: Community Forums
404: Community Forums
405: Community Forums
406: Community Forums
407: Photo Gallery
408: Photo Gallery
409: Community Forums
410: Community Forums
411: Community Forums
412: Member Screenshots
413: Community Forums
414: Community Forums
415: Community Forums
416: Community Forums
417: Photo Gallery
418: Community Forums
419: Community Forums
420: Photo Gallery
421: Community Forums
422: Community Forums
423: Photo Gallery
424: Community Forums
425: Photo Gallery
426: Downloads
427: Community Forums
428: Community Forums
429: Community Forums
430: Community Forums
431: Photo Gallery
432: Downloads
433: Downloads
434: Home
435: Community Forums
436: News
437: Home
438: Home
439: Community Forums
440: Community Forums
441: Downloads
442: Photo Gallery
443: Community Forums
444: Photo Gallery
445: Community Forums
446: Community Forums
447: Community Forums
448: Community Forums
449: Community Forums
450: Downloads
451: Photo Gallery
452: Community Forums
453: Community Forums
454: Community Forums
455: Home
456: Community Forums
457: Home
458: Downloads
459: Community Forums
460: Community Forums
461: Community Forums
462: Community Forums
463: Photo Gallery
464: Community Forums
465: Community Forums
466: Community Forums
467: Community Forums
468: Statistics
469: Community Forums
470: Community Forums
471: Your Account
472: Community Forums
473: Photo Gallery
474: Photo Gallery
475: Photo Gallery
476: Community Forums
477: Photo Gallery
478: Photo Gallery
479: Community Forums
480: Photo Gallery
481: Community Forums
482: Community Forums
483: Home
484: Community Forums
485: Community Forums
486: Home
487: Home
488: News Archive
489: Your Account
490: Community Forums
491: Community Forums
492: Community Forums
493: Community Forums
494: Community Forums
495: Community Forums
496: Photo Gallery
497: Your Account
498: Community Forums
499: Community Forums
500: Community Forums
501: Photo Gallery
502: Statistics
503: Community Forums
504: Community Forums
505: Community Forums
506: Community Forums
507: Community Forums
508: Community Forums
509: Home
510: Community Forums
511: Community Forums
512: Photo Gallery
513: Photo Gallery
514: Your Account
515: Community Forums
516: Community Forums
517: Downloads
518: Photo Gallery
519: Photo Gallery
520: Community Forums
521: Photo Gallery
522: Community Forums
523: Photo Gallery
524: Photo Gallery
525: Community Forums
526: Community Forums
527: Downloads
528: Home
529: Photo Gallery
530: Photo Gallery
531: Home
532: Community Forums
533: CPGlang
534: Home
535: Community Forums
536: Community Forums
537: Community Forums
538: Home
539: Community Forums
540: Home
541: Photo Gallery
542: Home
543: Community Forums
544: Home
545: Community Forums
546: Community Forums
547: Photo Gallery
548: Photo Gallery
549: Community Forums
550: Home
551: Photo Gallery
552: Member Screenshots
553: Community Forums
554: Community Forums
555: Community Forums
556: Downloads
557: Member Screenshots
558: Community Forums
559: Community Forums
560: Photo Gallery
561: Photo Gallery
562: Community Forums
563: Community Forums
564: Photo Gallery
565: Downloads
566: Community Forums
567: Community Forums
568: Community Forums

Staff Online:

No staff members are online!
Building Your Own Air Force, One Mig at a Time :: Archived
A general meeting place for all pilots!
Post new topic    Revive this topic    Printer Friendly Page     Forum Index ›  Officer's Club

Topic Archived View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Uhu_Fledermaus
Aircraft Demolition Expert

Offline Offline
Joined: Nov 28, 2004
Posts: 4369
Location: Blaricum, The Netherlands ~GMT+1
PostPosted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 2:00 pm
Post subject: Building Your Own Air Force, One Mig at a Time

A lil' story I stumbled over roaming the web

Building Your Own Air Force, One Mig at a Time

How a supersonic speed freak snuck Soviet fighters out of Kyrgyzstan and started flying "enemy" jets for the Pentagon.

In a cavernous airplane hangar in Quincy, Illinois, two hours south of Chicago, Don Kirlin paces beneath the gold hammer and sickle of a large Soviet flag. Around him are the military bulwarks of the once-formidable Evil Empire: four Czech Aero Vodochody L-59 Super Albatross fighter jets, perched in two rows. In another Kirlin hangar next door sits a Soviet MiG-21 Mongol, the bane of US pilots in Vietnam. Outside, on the flight line, are seven Czech L-39s, still bearing red Communist stars. And just beyond them, almost invisible in dusky-gray and sky-blue paint, two MiG-29 Fulcrums. The pride of the hallowed -Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau, the Russian equivalent of Lockheed Martin, the Fulcrum has a top speed of Mach 2.4 - hundreds of miles per hour faster than an American F-16 Eagle or F/A-18 Hornet - and remains one of Russia's preeminent fighters.

A decade ago, only sovereign nations could afford to buy and maintain sophisticated, high-performance fighters. But Kirlin's unmarked hangars contain an air force more formidable than that of many countries. He has 30 jets in flying condition, 10 in line for maintenance, and dozens more to be delivered. His MiG-29 Fulcrums, designed in the late 1970s to go head-to-head with the hottest US planes, are the only privately owned Fulcrums in the world. Kirlin breaks into a big smile whenever he looks at them.

"Check this out," Kirlin says, leading me into a back room and opening a steel cabinet. He takes out a white cotton bag. Inside it is a pilot's helmet that connects to the plane's laser-guided tracking system. The result: A MiG-29 pilot can precisely target a missile just by looking in a certain direction. Federal regulations require all military equipment owned by civilians to be disabled, but somehow - "Can't tell you," Kirlin says - the Fulcrum's radar weapons systems are intact. The plane is no match for a US fighter's sophisticated avionics in an encounter beyond visual range. But if it can survive long enough to come within view of that fighter, the MiG-29's ability to fly at high angles of attack becomes a distinct advantage - and where the pilot's eyes aim, so does its weapon.

Kirlin's collection began as a rich man's game to own the baddest toys money can buy. Then he realized there were others who coveted the planes as much as he did. So he started a business, Air USA, to sell L-39s to doctors and executives looking for a nifty flying sports car with twin ejection seats, capable of aerobic loops and rolls and approaching the speed of sound. As Kirlin puts it, why plod about at 120 mph in a $300,000 Cessna when you can fly four times as fast in an L-39 that costs the same and looks a hundred times sexier? "Look at this," he says, whipping open the forward avionics bay in the nose of an L-39. "We strip out the old stuff, put in light American avionics, save 800 pounds, and there's enough room for a set of golf clubs!" Built to fly in and out of dirt airstrips throughout the Soviet empire, the L-39 is so sturdy, Kirlin says, "This is the only tactical jet fighter that you could - if the Federal Aviation Administration would let you - land right on the golf course, play a round, and then head home! How cool is that?"

Cool enough - but Kirlin had even bigger ideas. In the past few years, he has built an entirely new and booming business hiring out his fighter jets and pilots to the US gov-ernment for training exercises. The Navy deactivated its last full-time adversary squadron in 1996 amid shrinking defense budgets and aging aircraft, even as training demands increased. And there was Kirlin, sitting on all those former Eastern bloc fighters maintained by factory-trained mechanics. So the Navy came calling. "Iraq was flying three kinds of plane when we invaded," he says. "The L-39, the MiG-21, and the MiG-29, which are three of the four airplanes that Air USA owns." Now Navy fighter jocks train against Kirlin pilots flying Kirlin planes. With 16 aircraft available for Navy exercises, Kirlin has more fighters in the air than any of the four other companies currently flying for the Pentagon.

Kirlin owes his operation to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the elegant crudeness of its technology. "When the Soviets built an airplane, they intended it to serve for 50 years, maintained in the middle of nowhere by a kid who could barely read, using a tool kit not much bigger than a box of fishing tackle." By comparison, he explains, a US warplane is designed around one parameter - performance. Price and complexity are barely considered. "All Americans want is a thoroughbred, but the Russians, they want quarter horses. And lots of 'em. Their whole design philosophy is based on simplicity and reliability."

As an example, Kirlin rattles off the L-39's features: efficient turbo fan engines that need little maintenance and can fly for three hours on a single tank of gas; mechanical flight controls; heavy-duty landing gear and tires for takeoff and landing on unimproved dirt airstrips. Nearly 3,000 were built throughout the 1980s and 1990s, making them modern and plentiful, with an abundance of spare parts - the perfect aircraft, as it turned out, to dependably and profitably challenge the US military.

As Kirlin is talking, two men who look like they've been sent over by a Hollywood casting agent walk into the hangar. Tom Leonard and Pete Pettigrew are both in their early sixties, lean and 6 feet tall, with short silver hair. Pettigrew is a retired Navy Reserve rear admiral with 20,000 cockpit hours and a kill on a MiG-21 over Vietnam in 1972. Leonard is a retired lieutenant colonel and Navy Top Gun graduate. Both are just in from San Diego. Tomorrow they'll fly back in two of Kirlin's L-59s for 10 days of offshore operations against the aircraft carrier Vinson and its battle group. Kirlin employs a cadre of 20 similarly experienced former fighter jocks, including himself.

Some of what his air force does can be mundane - towing targets on 10,000 feet of cable for other jets to shoot down, for example - but increasingly his pilots are being called upon to pierce the air defenses of Navy aircraft carrier battle groups. The scenarios vary, but typically Kirlin's birdsdive toward the carriers from 25,000 feet up and 200 miles out, pretending either to be incoming missiles or enemy fighters. "Gone are the days and tactics of the movie Top Gun, where you had to turn and burn and get behind 'em to shoot 'em down," says Eric Petersen, adversary requirements officer at the Naval Air Forces Headquarters in San Diego. "Now we want to ID someone from 10 miles out and shoot them down before they even see us. But there are 50 different kinds of radar out there, and bandits with different radar signatures. It's getting really complex for pilots trying to figure out which plane and radar is what." Kirlin's planes can simulate those signatures. And a carrier has to be able to identify those fighters and scramble its jets off the deck within a few minutes. But at first, Petersen says, "we found our pilots a lot less ready than we thought they were." The realistic scenarios staged by Kirlin and his pilots help. "When it's a foreign aircraft like the L-59," he adds, "it's much more intense, believable, and challenging."

The Navy paid Kirlin $840,000 for 200 hours of flight time in 2004. This year, says Petersen, Kirlin is already "way beyond that." Even at that price it's a bargain, he insists. "Military assets are programmed to last a certain period of time, so why not use theirs for less challenging missions and save ours for the war?" As Air USA pilot Leonard puts it, "We show up, do the job, and go away."

Kirlin imported his first plane in 1994 as the Soviet empire was crumbling, after he spotted a photo of an L-39 in an aviation magazine. At the time, he was working as a US Airways 737 captain, though as heir to the world's largest chain of Hallmark greeting card stores he certainly didn't need the job. Kirlin likes powerful machines - he roars around Quincy in a restored 1967 Corvette convertible - and the notion of obtaining his very own high--performance war machine grabbed him and wouldn't let go. "Here was a sexy-looking, late-model current--production fighter that could go eight-tenths as fast as sound," he says. "I said, 'I'm going on a quest to get one.'"

So Don Kirlin moved to Kyrgyzstan.

Once he sets his mind to a goal, he's relentless. He soloed his first plane at 16, instructed at 18, and began flying corporate jets three years later. He flew in the Navy, got twin bachelor degrees in business and clinical psychology, and then an MBA, all from the University of Northern Colorado, and moved on to US Airways. In 1993, he asked the FAA to let him parachute from the rear stairway of a Boeing 727, like the infamous skyjacker D. B. Cooper, who disappeared over the Cascades with $200,000 in 1971. Kirlin shrugs his shoulders and grins. "I just wanted to do it because the only other person to do it was Cooper," he says. The FAA said no, unless he could prove unequivocally it was safe. A year later, he presented 6,500 pages of documents to the agency. He remains to this day the only person authorized to operate jumps out of the rear door of a 727.

So it wasn't all that surprising when in 1994 Kirlin got on an airplane bound for the poor, mountainous country tucked between China, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. Kirlin learned Kyrgyzstan was awash in planes that it couldn't afford to fly, many having logged little flight time. "It was a former USSR training base, and I heard they had the most -corrosion-free airplanes in all of the republics," he says. He bedded down in Bishkek, hired an interpreter, and got busy. It took six months and plenty of vodka-fueled banquets. "Their first answer was always 'No, it's not possible,'" he says. "When I said I wanted to buy former Soviet military hardware so people in America could fly them around as toys, they couldn't believe that I wasn't a spy for the US government! But it just takes infinite patience and money. You have to immerse yourself in their lives and get them to trust you."

After his first L-39, Kirlin wanted more. More altitude. More performance. More bragging rights. Another eight L-39s followed within a year, and then two MiG-21s (one of which was subsequently destroyed in a crash that killed the pilot). But people like Kirlin who worship at the altar of high g forces are never satisfied as long as there's some-thing faster out there. And there was: Kyrgyzstan, Kirlin heard, might have a MiG-29 or two hidden away.

"It's a mechanical meat-and-potatoes airplane," he says, leading me onto the flight line where the two Fulcrums sit. But powerful and deadly all the same. "It can take off and head straight up and accelerate through the sound barrier to 48,000 feet in 60 seconds!" he says, nearly jumping out of his ostrich-skin cowboy boots. "Once I heard those numbers I just had to become the only person to own the biggest, baddest, fastest machine in the world. Me, chasing the clouds in the purest power machine out there. I had to have one."

Wanting one and getting one were two very different things. For starters, the Kyrgyzstanis insisted that they didn't have any MiG-29s. "'Well, if they did exist,'" Kirlin recalls asking, "'what do you think they'd be worth?'" In late 1994, after months of negotiations with the ministry of defense, military officers led him to an underground bunker at an airfield in Bishkek, where they showed him two Fulcrums in surprisingly mint condition.

"They were beautiful," he says. One had flown only 40 hours, the other 110. The bargaining continued for another two years, with Kirlin shuttling in and out frequently for sometimes tense negotiations involving large amounts of cash. "You sit with your briefcase between your back and the back of the chair. You're 1,800 miles from Moscow, and they could kill you any second."

It took two more years to complete the deal, for a sum he won't even ballpark (Russia sold MiG-29s to Malaysia and Peru in 1995 for nearly $16 million apiece). "All cash," Kirlin says, pawing through a box of photos in his spartan office overlooking the hangar. He pulls out shots of him eyeing the two warbirds, surrounded by guys in uniform. "It was the beginning of a dream that turned into a nightmare."

Kirlin and his crew dismantled the Fulcrums and packed them in custom-made steel crates with covers of rough-hewn wood labeled as farm implements. They even built a bridge across a river at the back of the base so they could be towed to the train station. Then something went wrong. Kirlin is coy about exactly what - it seems that the money didn't get where it was supposed to. Suddenly he was unwelcome in Kyrgyzstan. With nothing but the clothes on his back, his passport, and his bankroll, Kirlin shelled out $1,000 to be driven in the trunk of a car from Bishkek across the border to Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, the airplanes, loaded on a flatbed railway car and escorted by Kirlin's men, were sent to P'ot'i, Georgia, where they were supposed to be transferred to a ship. Instead, the government of Georgia threatened to confiscate them. Kirlin forked over $40,000 and had the Fulcrums brought back into Kyrgyzstan, escorted, as always, by his agents, who then chartered a Soviet-era AN-124 - the largest commercial airplane in the sky - to fly the planes to Tallinn, Estonia, the closest friendly NATO port, where they were quickly seized for another three months. After three years and more cash outlays required to seal the deal, they arrived in Quincy. Despite their low flying time, they need complete overhauls before they can safely take wing in the US. Some doubt Kirlin can get them airborne. He scoffs: "I've got all the manuals," he says, ever confident. "It's just a matter of time and money."

Kirlin has a full-time man in Moscow and another in Prague scouting airplanes and buying parts. He has jets stationed in Hawaii and Japan to be close to the carrier battle groups Air USA is working with. And in his conference room just off the hangar sit the chief engineer and two sales-people from Povazske Strojarne Letecke Motory, the Slovak Republic company that overhauls the Albatross' jet engines. Kirlin is about to take delivery on dozens more L-59s, and he wants the Slovaks to rebuild their -motors. But they've been in Quincy for three days, they're not budging on their price, and in an hour they're catching a plane home. "We must make a decision soon," says an anxious Czech mechanic who works for -Kirlin and is acting as a translator. "It's all show," -Kirlin replies. "Go back in there and be very gracious. Tell them thanks for the price and that I'll think about it."

Moments later, the mechanic reenters the hangar and motions Kirlin over. Sure enough, with minutes to spare, the Slovaks have capitulated, slashing their starting price by 50 percent. Don Kirlin is floating. "Outstanding!" he says, slapping the mechanic on the back. "Awesome. I knew it would go our way. It's always the same; you just have to wait 'em out." Then, stealing a glance at the hammer and sickle, he can't help himself. "America won!" he says with a laugh. "We're all they've got now."



fled
Back to top
View user's profile ICQ Number MSN Messenger Photo Gallery
JG300-Ascout
Power User

Offline Offline
Joined: Jan 05, 2005
Posts: 6257
Location: Cyberspace
PostPosted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 2:49 pm
Post subject: Re: Building Your Own Air Force, One Mig at a Time

Purty cool. Not quite the same thing, but over here in California, we have a collector with ~200 tanks and armored vehicles, most operational. Not open as public museum, but operates as a "foundation" (for tax reasons) which means I've had access. Do the math....200 vehicles qualifies as an entire armored division in almost any army that ever operated tanks! Of course, it helps a lot to be a billionaire. Wink

www.mishalov.net/milit...icles.html

_________________
"All facts go to clearly prove that Shades is a thrice-cursed traitor & mentally deranged person steeped in inveterate enmity toward mankind"
Back to top
View user's profile Photo Gallery
Uhu_Fledermaus
Aircraft Demolition Expert

Offline Offline
Joined: Nov 28, 2004
Posts: 4369
Location: Blaricum, The Netherlands ~GMT+1
PostPosted: Fri Sep 30, 2005 2:24 am
Post subject: Re: Building Your Own Air Force, One Mig at a Time

Nice link there Ascout !

for money you can let the devil dance my good Old father allways said, and he's right...............example the mentioned "Tank - Collector"


fled
Back to top
View user's profile ICQ Number MSN Messenger Photo Gallery
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic    Revive this topic    Printer Friendly Page    Forum Index ›  Officer's Club
Page 1 of 1
All times are GMT - 6 Hours

Archive Revive
Username:
This is an archived topic - your reply will not be appended here.
Instead, a new topic will be generated in the active forum.
The new topic will provide a reference link to this archived topic.