My Farewell to the Czech MiG-21s

(Text and photos: author)

After I had succeeded in building good contacts with the official Czech authorities in spring 2004 and thus obtained permission for various visits, cooperation became increasingly difficult after the Flying Rhino exercise in September 2004. Despite many attempts, no further official visit was arranged. The reason given was that no scheduled flight operations were carried out any more, only the QRA taking off at irregular times. All the more interesting was the remark made in this context that these take-offs – three in number – took place on every (!) weekday. So the decision matured to drive to Čáslav on a sunny Saturday in November and lie in wait there under the approach for the QRA. After six hours of waiting in rather cool temperatures, however, it was clear that there was obviously not flying every day – at least not on that one. In view of this disillusionment and more than 800 kilometres driven in vain, four months passed until – impressed by the constantly repeated claim of three daily flights – I dared a second attempt on March 25 and 26, 2005, which was crowned with success (see below).

From then on I was drawn more and more often along the arduous route to Čáslav – arduous because it largely followed country roads. After all, this was the last opportunity to see flying MiG-21s in action less than a day's journey from home. Whereas at first I tried to hide my presence near the airfield, I later became bolder and bolder, as apparently nobody took any notice of me. While on the first visits I had parked my car as far from the airfield as possible and walked to the approach behind trees and bushes, on the last trips I drove from one side of the airfield to the other and parked directly under the flight path of the aircraft taking off and landing. A nice side effect of the car always being available was heating on cold days and air conditioning on hot days, a radio and a comfortable seat.

What there was to see was worth the effort of the journey: while the two daily pair take-offs were comparatively unspectacular, the minutes before landing were always exciting. Sometimes there were one or more low passes over the runway, sometimes tight turns over the airfield. When one aircraft landed, the second usually made another low pass over the airfield. Sometimes they went around again after touchdown; once the approaches were even made in opposite directions. And it was always exciting, because no regularity could be detected in the take-off times, flight duration, "show elements" or approach procedures.

This, my very special farewell to the Czech MiG-21s, lasted three months. The takeover of QRA by the JAS-39 Gripen on July 1, 2005 heralded the end of this wonderful time. The highlight and finale was the MiG-21 farewell at Čáslav on July 12, after a great show had already been offered to the public at the open day.

Below is the entire digital yield of around 10,000 kilometres driven and 16 days of waiting – unedited, but of course without the completely failed photos. There is a reason why almost all the pictures were taken in relatively poor weather: at that time I still preferred classic film photography in sunshine. As I lack the leisure to scan these pictures as well, the selection is limited to the digitally captured motifs – the scope is quite considerable as it is.

Addendum of December 10, 2009: the analogue pictures are now also available here – see at the very bottom.