Russian fighters resumed training in Crimea

23.08.2010 Russian naval aircrafts arrived to training center NITKA, Crimea, informs Rosbalt referring to Ukrainian defense ministry press service.

Training flights will last since the end of Aug till Sent 30. Aircrews of Su-33, Su-27UB, and Su-25UTG will pass the training period. In total, ten deck-based fighters will attend the drills.

We recall that the pilots of 279th shipborne fighter regiment had been regularly training at NITKA system till 2008. After Russian-Georgian conflict, on Aug 2008 Ukrainian foreign ministry considered further practice of Russian pilots in Crimea inappropriate. That ban was a kind of Ukraine's reaction on Black Sea Fleet involvement in combat actions off Georgian coast.

Ground-based aircraft training system NITKA is a special training simulator which imitates a deck of an aircraft carrier and used for practicing deck takeoff and landing techniques. Located at Novofedorovka airbase (near Saki, Crimea), it constitutes an airfield with a metal deck-like runway equipped with all needed facilities, including ski-ramp and arresters. Dimensions of the airfield are equivalent to the flight deck of heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov.