![]() Many of the aircraft were from early, inferior production blocks. The 831st was considered among the best fighter units in the Soviet Union.Īfter the USSR collapsed, 72 Su-27 fighters based in Ukraine stayed in Ukraine. The first Soviet unit to receive the Flanker was the 831st Fighter Regiment (now Brigade) based at Myrhorod, in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine. The Su-27P was an interceptor, while the -S could use unguided air-to-ground weapons.) The fighter did not reach operational regiments until 1985, and only in 1990, after it passed service trials, was it designated the Su-27. As Simonov said, “We kept just the tires and the pilot’s seat.” He halted development in 1977, and began again, virtually from scratch. The first attempts failed, and chief designer Mikhail Simonov took a radical step. The Soviet air force 1969 specification for its new fighter design boiled down to this: Outperform the F-15. Test pilot Viktor Pugachev stunned the crowd with his signature “cobra” maneuver, pitching his sky-blue Sukhoi up to beyond vertical and skidding it forward on its tail, proving the fighter’s super-maneuverability. The Flanker, as NATO named it, debuted in the West at the 1989 Paris Air Show, four years after it entered service. F-15 Eagle and today, as a Ukrainian air force interceptor protecting its airspace from Russian Su-27s and other fighters. The powerful Sukhoi Su-27 has patrolled Ukrainian skies for 35 years at first, as a Soviet fighter to counter the threat posed by the U.S. ![]() One of the Ukrainian pilots the magazine spoke with, Oleksandr Oksanchenko, was shot down and killed in action by a Russian surface-to-air missile. On February 28, he was posthumously awarded the title Hero of Ukraine, the nation’s highest award for valor in combat. Editors' note, March 11, 2022: As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, we are resurfacing this 2020 story from Air and Space magazine about the plane still used in the ongoing air battles by Ukrainian and Russian forces.
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