Mothballed Mig 21's and su-7's
Looking for a few things in Hungary I came across an satellite image of quite a few aircraft sat just a few hundred metres from a military base, the road that they looked to be near wasn't a road at all but was once a part of the airfield. Further inspection showed that the base was still in use by the Hungarian defence force BUT the taxiway the planes were sat on was not.
Getting to them was not an easy task you either need a 4x4 or a car you really don't care about! Luckily we had the former and via many way points and the edge of the live base equipped with 360 cameras we actually made it! I sat in at he car for a few minutes not quite believing it. There were 29 MiG 21's and 5 Sukhoi Su-7's (and a flock of sheep!) Not wanting to push our luck and the distinct feeling we were being watched from the gate at the end of the taxiway we didn't stay too long but long enough to realise that we were very lucky to see them.
After coming home and doing a little research we found out that the aircraft were once part of the Communist Hungarian fleet and then the Hungarian Defence Force finally being retired in 1999. One of the mothballed aircraft has a interesting history on 12 October 1978 a pilot called Polereczky Gabor made an unsuccessful escape attempt to the West using MiG 9178!
Getting to them was not an easy task you either need a 4x4 or a car you really don't care about! Luckily we had the former and via many way points and the edge of the live base equipped with 360 cameras we actually made it! I sat in at he car for a few minutes not quite believing it. There were 29 MiG 21's and 5 Sukhoi Su-7's (and a flock of sheep!) Not wanting to push our luck and the distinct feeling we were being watched from the gate at the end of the taxiway we didn't stay too long but long enough to realise that we were very lucky to see them.
After coming home and doing a little research we found out that the aircraft were once part of the Communist Hungarian fleet and then the Hungarian Defence Force finally being retired in 1999. One of the mothballed aircraft has a interesting history on 12 October 1978 a pilot called Polereczky Gabor made an unsuccessful escape attempt to the West using MiG 9178!
