Five of the six former Russian Aerospace Force MiG-29s ordered by Belgrade were recently handed over to the Serbian Air Force.
A MiG-29 from the original batch delivered to Yugoslavia heads up the newlook Serbian ‘Fulcrum’ force. The nearest jets are each armed with a pair of R-27R1 (AA-10 ‘Alamo’) and four R-73E (AA-11 ‘Archer’) AAMs.
Report and photos: Babak Taghvaee
At the end of ‘Freedom-2017’, two MiG-29s joined the sole MiG-29UB from the original batch, serial 18301. They flew a ‘missing man’ formation in memory of MiG-29 pilot Maj Zoran Radoslavljevic, shot down on March 26, 1999 by an F-15C during NATO’s Operation ‘Allied Force’.
OCTOBER 20 WAS an important day in the Serbian calendar. Not only was it the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade from its Nazi occupiers, but the Serbian Air Force also oficially inducted new fighter equipment. This was almost 30 years after the delivery of the last fighters to the then Yugoslavian Air Force. The Serbian Ministry of Defense marked the event with a military exercise and accompanying ceremony named ‘Freedom-2017’ at Batajnica air base, Belgrade.
