Russian Knights Su-27 Flanker team celebrates 20th year....

[Stratofreighter]

http://en.rian.ru/photolents/20110405/163377871.html for more pictures.

http://key.aero/view_news.asp?ID=3052&t ... n=military

Russian Knights celebrate 20 years
The Russkiye Vityazi (Russian Knights) aerobatic demonstration team has celebrated its 20th anniversary.

Gary Parsons - 6-Apr-2011

April 6: The Russkiye Vityazi (Russian Knights) aerobatic demonstration team has celebrated its 20th anniversary with demonstration flights over Moscow.

The team is the only one to use Sukhoi Su-27 Flankers.

It was formed on April 5, 1991, the team making its foreign debut in September of that year, flying at the RAF Finningley and RAF Leuchars Battle of Britain airshows.

Since then the six-aircraft team has regularly participated in major air shows across the world including the United States, Canada, France, the Netherlands , Norway, Belgium and the United Arab Emirates.

The team will continue to fly the Su-27 for the foreseeable future.

[wamovements]

They have been to the Netherlands, not with the complete team to perform, but with only two Sukhoi's at Leeuwarden

[Joe Kurr]

They have been to the Netherlands, not with the complete team to perform, but with only two Sukhoi's at Leeuwarden

Wasn't that Anatoly Kvochur's Test Pilots Team?

[wamovements]

Found the following on milspotters .nl

19-04-1993
1040804/18 Sukhoi Su-27UB Russian Knights RUSAF 76766C SovAF 18 bl/First visit of type in demo c/s Russian Knights a/c from Kubinka several demos /dep 2104

19-04-1993
36911031716/09 Sukhoi Su-27 Russian Knights RUSAF 76766B SovAF 09 bl/First visit of type in demo c/s Russian Knights a/c from Kubinka several demos /dep 2104

[aviodromefriend]

They have been to the Netherlands, not with the complete team to perform, but with only two Sukhoi's at Leeuwarden

Wasn't that Anatoly Kvochur's Test Pilots Team?

Kvotchur was in Holland at Valkenburg (1997) and Texel (1995 and 1998) only.

Back to the Knights topic: I remember an article in a not to be named newspaper going fully mad about Russian pilots flying in "our" F-16s (this should give a clue which newspaper it was ), not mentioning, as was revealed at a later stage in de Vliegende Hollander, Dutch pilots have been flying Flankers at the same time. In that article, the leader of the Russian Knights stated they were very glad to fly the F-16s as in their opinion that was even better than an Eagle. (So much for taking that man seriously.)

[BaasG]

Any change to see them again this year at the Open Dagen at Leeuwenarden?

[Stratofreighter]

Any change to see them again this year at the Open Dagen at Leeuwenarden?

Getting rather off-topic, but it seems that "the Russians" demand an "onkostenvergoeding"/all expenses paid from all airshow organisers.

And apparently the amounts of money involved are huge. Not a single Western European airshow organiser has wanted to cough up the funds needed to pay this in recent years...