Gaudy Gurevich
MiG-17 on display at Lone Star Flight Museum in Houston, TX, painted in the colors of a 1950s era Soviet flight demonstration team, similar to the USAF Thunderbirds or the US Navy's Blue Angels
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the governments of the separate states needed quick infusions of hard cash, so they sold off a lot of their military equipment. Foreigners could buy planes like this for almost nothing, and many westerners did exactly that. As a consequence, you can see many of these and similar machines in airshows around the country.
Gaudy Gurevich
MiG-17 on display at Lone Star Flight Museum in Houston, TX, painted in the colors of a 1950s era Soviet flight demonstration team, similar to the USAF Thunderbirds or the US Navy's Blue Angels
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the governments of the separate states needed quick infusions of hard cash, so they sold off a lot of their military equipment. Foreigners could buy planes like this for almost nothing, and many westerners did exactly that. As a consequence, you can see many of these and similar machines in airshows around the country.