Description
In Orenburg, a small silver MiG-15 fighter aircraft is installed in front of the building of the former Higher Military Aviation Red Banner School of Pilots named after I.S. Polbin. The inscription on the pedestal reads: "The world's first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin flew on this plane."
Yuri Gagarin studied in Orenburg from 1955 to 1957. Each cadet at the school was assigned a specific aircraft. It was on this MiG, starting from the second year, that the future cosmonaut made training flights from the airport in the village of Karavannoye. Subsequently, other cadets flew on this plane.
The MiG-15 fighter was created in the late forties of the XX century in the design bureau of A.I. Mikoyan and M.I. Gurevich. The MiG-15 is the most massive fighter in the history of aviation.
The aircraft was designed for combat with enemy air and ground targets. It is capable of reaching speeds of up to a thousand kilometers per hour and climbing to heights of up to 15 kilometers. A training modification of this model was used throughout the Soviet Union, including at the Orenburg Flight School.
In the seventies, the fighter was supposed to be scrapped, but thanks to a happy coincidence, the records of Gagarin's flights preserved in the aircraft's form, the MiG-15 became a monument to the world's first cosmonaut.
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