Experience Close Encounters Of The Military Kind With These Two Crazy Videos
I guess you can never be too close to the action... That is until you are! In this case, we get very up close and personal with a Su-27 and T-72.
For military and aerospace technology aficionados, proximity to the weapon systems they are so interested in is highly valued. The size of a heavy fighter can't really be appreciated in photos and videos and the sounds that a main battle tank makes are quite unique to hear with your own ears. For aviation photographers, the better the access the more creative and striking your images are likely to be, at least in many circumstances. But sometimes things can get almost a bit too close for comfort, as is the case with the two videos below.
The first video was shot in 2019 and is of a Ukrainian Su-27P Flanker getting really, really close to a bunch of surely extremely stoked aviation photographers flying in the back of a Shorts Skyvan operated by Sky Force of Poland. The aerial meetup was directed by aviation photographer Sławek "Hessia" Krajniewski. The video itself was shot by Krzysztof Goralczyk according to one of Instagram's most prolific aerospace content posters and one of our favorite follows, Combat_Learjet, and it appears to have been filmed in conjunction with the Gdynia Aerobaltik Air Show that Ukrainian Flankers attended last year.
The Ministry Of Defense Of Ukraine has a couple 'in your face' photos from the air-to-air encounter posted on their official website. Here's one that appears to have been snapped during the pass that was captured in the video above:
Flanker pilots seem to be a uniquely curious bunch. This video of a Russian Su-30 getting close to poking its nose inside an Il-76's rear cargo door is another classic: