MOSCOW. Sept 21 (Interfax-AVN) - New aircraft that are entering the Russian army's inventory will be shown in the air and on the ground during the festivities timed to he 85th birthday of the Defense Ministry's State Flight Testing Center.
"The festivities will be held at the center's main base in the town of Akhtubinsk in the Astrakhan region on Wednesday, September 21," Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky, Air Force press service chief, told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"Aerial demonstration of new aircraft and their combat use will take place at the Groshevo proving range," he said.
Also on Wednesday, the festivities will feature demonstration flights of the Air Force's Swifts and Russian Knights aerobatics teams. An open day will be arranged at the Akhtubinsk aviation garrison for guests, servicemen, their family members, and local residents. In particular, they will be able to see the aircraft in the Russian army's inventory and new developments on the ground and in the air. A meeting between the center's personnel and designers general of Russia's leading design bureaus will be arranged.
The history of the State Flight Testing Center began on September 21, 1920 with the creation of a test airfield on Moscow's Khodynskoye field. Since its establishment, the center has held 1,339 state tests and 1,782 special tests of aircraft and armament systems. In the past few years, specialists of the center have tested such aircraft as Su-27SM, Su-24SM, Su-27IB, Su-30, Il-80, Il-82, Il-76MF, An-70, An-225, A-40, M-17, Yak-130, and Mi-34, and Pchela and Dan UAVs.
A fair share of tests is devoted to evaluation of aircraft armament and equipment, as well as control systems and combat use support systems. The center's activity is aimed at ensuring fullness and high quality of tests of new aircraft and armament systems, checking and evaluating the latest achievements in aerospace hardware. The center's personnel are actively involved in combat exercises, aircraft and armament demonstrations with combat use.
Facilities of the center are located in the Moscow, Astrakhan and Saratov regions, Russia's internal republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, and Kazakhstan.
The center incorporates the headquarters, the flight testing facility, the flight tests and efficiency evaluation directorate, the airborne assets test and efficiency evaluation directorate, the test facilities and proving ranges directorate, and the special aircraft armament directorate.