MOSCOW. Oct 3 (Interfax-AVN) - For the first time since the breakup of the USSR Air Force pilots have resumed their attempts at setting world records on mass-produced MIG-31 Foxhound aircraft, the Russian Air Force press-service said on Friday.
"The Russian Aircraft Sport Federation Commission has registered 22 Russia records, scored by two Air Force crews on the MIG-31 long-range interceptor," Oleg Litvinov, an Air Force press-service official, told Interfax-Military News Agency. Litvinov said that at the moment the results achieved were being registered as world records.
He clarified that the records in the C-1L aircraft subcategory (a takeoff weight of 35,000-45,000 kg) had been set by an Air Force crew at the State Flight Test Center airfield in the Astrakhan region.
"The flights were carried out in compliance with the so- called "record scale", adopted by the World Air Sports Federation (FAI)," Litvinov said.
Flight crews, comprising colonels Vladimir Gurkin and Alexander Kozachenko (the Air Force Chief Directorate) and colonels Alexey Pestrikov and Sergey Seregin (the State Flight Test Center), carried out flights on a mass-produced MIG-31. Three attempts resulted in setting 22 world records, which had previously been scored on the MIG-25 Foxbat aircraft. Each of the three flights resulted in setting several records, the press- service official said.
"All records have been set by the two crews without preliminary training," he emphasized.
Litvinov clarified that the records concerned the rate of climb in various flight modes, the flight altitude with a payload of 1,000 kg, 2,000 kg, etc.
The records have been set in the presence of Yury Vetrov and Tatyana Polozova, sport commissars of the Russian Air Sports Federation, who have officially registered the results scored by Air Force pilots with the help of flight data recorders, ground- based monitoring and registering equipment, and other devices, Litvinov said.
"Secretary General of the Russian Air Sports Federation Sergey Kiselev noted that the results had been registered as Russia's records. In addition to that all documents, required to register these results as world records, have been submitted to the FAI headquarters, deployed in the Swiss city of Lausanne," the Air Force press-service official said.
Participants in and organizers of record flights stressed that the capabilities of this aircraft were yet to be employed to the full extent. "Should we additionally train the crews and prepare the aircraft, the MIG-31 may break and set another 30 world records, pertaining to speed, altitude, and rate of climb to various altitudes with or without a payload," Litvinov said.
The job is expected to be done in March-April 2004, he said.