AirVG 2024 - MiG-21 farewell | Airshow Dispatches S07E02

Рет қаралды 9,616

Ай бұрын

Highlights from AirVG 2024, Croatia's largest and most important airshow of the year.
AirVG celebrated the arrival of Croatia's first Rafales just three weeks previously, and also served as an opportunity to say farewell to the beloved MiG-21. Croatia is the last remaining MiG-21 operator in Europe, and this was probably the type's last airshow appearance.
Almost the entire Croatian Air Force inventory participated, with the Zlin 242, Mi-171, OH-58 and thte excellent Krila Oluje aerobatic team of PC-9s also taking part.
Video by Adam Landau

Пікірлер: 36

@ThisisFlight Ай бұрын

If you enjoyed this, do stay tuned for our next episodes! In June, we'll be recording at the Midlands Air Festival and RAF Cosford Air Show in the UK, and the Quinte International Airshow in Canada.

@dannyboy-vtc5741 Ай бұрын

Yeah, we are proud of our krila oluje (wings of strom) - their name stems from the operation storm, our biggest war operation in our independent state history, when we liberated our land in four days, less than ten with mopping up. Our migs played an incerdible role in that operation and were used in ways mig 21s never have had, and in fact never supposed to be. And zadar's zemunik airport is almost a second home for the british red arrows, they are very often there trainig with our guys, maybe every year even, just recently within a month they were the guests. Zemunik airport is situated and oriented that way that always has one runaways available despite the famous bura and other winds along the coast, and they can fly over the mountains above some incredible national parks, but also over the sea and features like the kornati national park of some 200 islands in zadar's archipelago. Cheers from slavonia, croatia, nice vid and presentation mate!

@ThisisFlight Ай бұрын

And rightly so! One of the best aerobatic teams in the world and they are as worthy of national pride as anything else! I did not realise the significance of their name, so thanks for that information.

@Igors_mind Ай бұрын

Thank You ! From Croatia !

@isuckatthisgame 27 күн бұрын

Thank you for covering this show. Kind regards from Croatia!

@AshWilliams-z8y Ай бұрын

Fantastic stuff again Adam, awesome footage with your usual great commentary. Cosford looks set to be a great show, plenty of french stuff!

@Anthony_Fogarty_Aviation Ай бұрын

Great episode again, looking forward to MAF, see you there!

@ThisisFlight Ай бұрын

Thanks, see you at Ragley Hall!

@Militeripedia Ай бұрын

Amazing show, thanks for the video

@Destroyersw1997 Ай бұрын

Sad to see the Mig 21 being phased out but not surprising! Always look forward to your videos great commentary. And will maybe see you at Cosford so far looks like it's going to be a good one 👍

@tomislavb5760 Ай бұрын

There is a push by some in the CroAf to keep one example airworthy as a museum flying piece.. Fingers crossed.

@Militeripedia Ай бұрын

Amazing Show, thanks

@user-xj3ve7wt8k Ай бұрын

I will miss MIG-21. Iconic jet...

@JT-zl8yp Ай бұрын

great video and very informative too...good work...

@tomislavb5760 Ай бұрын

The pilots who were "pinched" by Qatar were paid big bucks. I remember reading they were offered contracts worth 300 thousand USD/year plus accommodation and a range rover. Hard to say no to that!

@baco4848 Ай бұрын

awsome, thanks :)

@TattooedTraveler Ай бұрын

Damn, missed my chance for a Mig 21 ride

@anguscooper8132 Ай бұрын

What a fantastic looking jet. The red and white chequered scheme looks so good. MiG-21s always seemed to have a knack of pulling off wild colour schemes. Certainly an aircraft that will be missed. I'm glad I got to see it albeit the once at RIAT 2019. A great episode as always! You have a very unique style when it comes to filming and commentary. It looked like a great day! Hopefully see you at Cosford or RIAT. Whats your favourite colour scheme ever applied to an aircraft?

@ThisisFlight Ай бұрын

Tricky question and lots of options. Rafale Solo Display 2017 (topside), CF-18 Demo Team 2017, the RAF retirement Tornado and SoloTurk spring to mind but there are many others equally worthy of mention! "Unique filming style" - I'm surprised and intrigued. Stylistically I aim for little more than keeping the aircraft more or less in the frame for as much of the time as possible. I'll be at Cosford and RIAT, albeit based in non-public areas at both shows I suspect.

@anguscooper8132 Ай бұрын

@@ThisisFlightAce! All of those colour schemes were fantastic. Of the Tornado retirement schemes, I really liked the camouflage jet, it looked very mean. I'd actually forgotten about the RCAF Hornet 2017 display jet looked amazing. The RCAF100 jet looks really good too. You do! I like how you don't zoom in too close to the aircraft, it gives more perspective of movement etc. Plus I like your commentary style, it's very informative. Nice! That will make filming a lot easier at Cosford. The lineup for Cosford this year looks brilliant at the moment. I can't believe it's 17 years since I last went to a Cosford show.

@tomislavb5760 Ай бұрын

I think Croatia needs to consider acquiring the PC-21 as a lead in trainer for the Rafales, that is if they are serious about operating them to there full abilities.

@fapmashina1 Ай бұрын

Agreed on that! This jets or even great Italian trainers.

@antoniovitturi5482 Ай бұрын

❤🇭🇷✌️

@kresimirskoric3960 Ай бұрын

Great video. Thanks

@ivankulas6092 Ай бұрын

If this is really last flight of our MiG-21 , I feel really disappointed for not showing off our MiG-21 "kockica" in the air.. We were expecting a real Air Show , but this was a little bit disappointing because they were flying for like 10 minutes. It was 1 , I repeat 1 low pass of MiG.. I don't know , maybe my expectations were a little too high 😢

@ThisisFlight Ай бұрын

"Kockica" is no longer flyable. The last time it flew was almost seven years ago. Compare this airshow to the public farewell airshow appearances of other aircraft in recent years (eg. RAF Tornado in 2018, Slovak MiG-29 in 2023, Romanian MiG-21 in 2023, Italian AMX in 2023, Dutch F-16s later this year - mostly aircraft from much bigger and better-funded air forces) - all limited to non-aerobatic flypasts or even just static displays in their final airshow season. The MiG at AirVG got a far better send-off than any of those other aircraft. A 10 minute flight, including aerobatics, is almost unheard of for a farewell airshow appearance nowadays and certainly far exceeded the expectations of all of us visiting from abroad. Yes, unfortunately I think you were expecting too much.

@fapmashina1 Ай бұрын

@@ThisisFlight Great and so informative reply mate! Also extraordinary video! 👍 I agree with you that our Mig 21 got great farewell performance! I'm also very pleased that our Air force finally acquired modern jets and 12 Rafales F3R are the top notch for Croatia, relatively small country of only 3.8 million people! I just hope for that our government in foreseeable future decides to buy at least another squadron of these beauties since this would be more serious number of jets with each squadron stationed in Zagreb and at the Zadar Zemunik airbase. Kind regards from Croatia

@harryahop Ай бұрын

I'm at midlands

@fullspektrum435 9 күн бұрын

So if i understood correctly, this was the last flight of an croatian MiG? I am coming to croatia in september and was hoping to see a MiG-21 flying, but it might be too late :/

@ThisisFlight 8 күн бұрын

Last airshow flight, not the very last flight. But I think September will be too late anyway. Even if they are still in service - which sounds unlikely - they are only doing one flight every week or two and the times are not announced in advance, so you would have to be very lucky to see one.

@LiamWard-nd2jy Ай бұрын

I think Poland still operates the mig21

@ThisisFlight Ай бұрын

They do not. Poland retired its MiG-21s 20 years ago.

@LiamWard-nd2jy Ай бұрын

@@ThisisFlight there was a mig21 at riat last year but I can't remember who opened it.

@ThisisFlight Ай бұрын

There was not. A MiG-21 last visited RIAT in 2019, operated by the Romanian Air Force. Romania retired its MiG-21s since then. As stated in the video, Croatia is the last remaining MiG-21 operator in Europe.

@LiamWard-nd2jy Ай бұрын

@@ThisisFlight thanks I looked through my riat23 book and found that is was the polish air forces su22 fitter that was there. I'm generally sorry for the mistake.

@tomislavb5760 Ай бұрын

Poland still fly some Su-22's which have a similar air intake to the Mig-21 but is a completely different aircraft.