MIG 25 Jet Flight - to the "Edge of Space"
(05.04.2005, Ramenenskoje Airbase - Moscow/Russia)

Robert Braunsteiner, an independent entrepreneur from Vienna, fulfilled himself in April 2005 one of the desires, about which many dreamed: On board a MIG-25 "Foxbat C" he hunted with Mach 3 to the "Edge of the Space". Read here his exciting and sensitive experience report of his flight, which was realized by the Space Travellers at beginning of April 2005.

My "Edge of Space Flight"

After my preliminary medical investigation, a pressure suit was tightened up by two nice Russian ladies and I was fastened with an oxygen mask in the hand into the cockpit of a MIG 25. Now it came me consciousness - now its began, the adventure of my life.

It was a cloudless radiating beautiful day, at the beginning of April in Russia, on the Zukhowsky air base close to Moscow. Air was still, and the landscape was a little bit snow-covered. It was cold. A older man of the jet-team bent over me, and began with a ratchet to fasten my seat-belt, until I was pressed into the seat. A few tubes to stuck on my g-flight suit, and after that with a friendly smile of the man, the cockpit fall with a loud clicking downward.

Now it was certain, no step back! The turbines were started and began to come slowly on routes. The supersonic jet sat down after short time in motion and we rolled over the runway at our initial position. The runway was very broad, the length I could not estimate, but it was enough “runway” to the horizon. Flat tundra-same country was before me with snow on the fields, where I ever looked.

Tensely I waited for the takeoff. The left engine howled on and I could read on the instruments on-board as they reached 100%. The same for the right engine. The machine trembled under the immense load, but it did not move a centimetre, since the chassis was still blocked.

A jerk drove it through the jet, and then went loosely. First only slowly, but after one second one already I felt the tremendous thrust of those two 18,000 HP of strong engines. The runway began to run by under me. It pressed me in the seat and my eyes moved excited back and forth. I tried to process the impressions, but after a few seconds the jet has arrive a lot of hundreds of kilometres of speed and takes off. The strain remained as the acceleration, which was unbelievable, and pressed me into the seat. Already in the climb we broke through the sound barrier and without afterburners. No bang or otherwise any change was to be heard, only the armatures indicated that we had reached Mach 1.

The airplane stabilized now on a altitude of 10.000 meters. The strain yielded and made for the overwhelming prospect place. It was a clear day and could see rivers, lakes, cities, and mountains up to the far horizon.

Now the pilot controlled the machine into a loop and began the climb. The radius became ever smaller and the afterburners ignited. Trough the MIG-25 drove through a jerk and went in a spiral steeply uphill. The G-forces began to pull again and my physiological feelings were not so good, in my brain was the beginning of a little bit of fear. The jet pushed 15.000 - 16.000 meters upward without consideration. Mach 2 exceeded and ever continued to itself, screw the supersonic jet into the sky. Over my head it became more darkly. The sky lost its color and yielded in different emerald to blue tones of the darkness.

With 20.000 it became black and the sun radiation sharply. A feeling, which an astronaut must have with a shuttle-flight, flowed through me. A trembling hell machine under my seat into the dark sky bored itself, under me the soil less depth, as well as the earth by its edges one Earth's curvature to clearly, I could recognized.

My view fell on the instrument of the altimeter that merciless turned and now already 22.000 meters indicated. But there was none hold for the MIG 25. The pilot turned the jet straight and with last power he pushed the jet steeply, nearly perpendicularly into almost the vacuum forwards up to over 24.000 meters.

Suddenly the engine noises had disappeared. It was as if we would have left the Earth and would have penetrated into the vacuum. I controlled the armature of the engine achievement however these indicated still 100 per cent. Until today I did not remember if I have had a pressure problem with the ears, or whether in this altitude the sound became quieter, but the feeling was overhelming.

While the machine was located steeply in air and braked from its 3000 km/h, I feel weightlessness. Over me, into the black sky, there began something suddenly to sparkle. Thousands of stars blinked in the dark sky. Although I often looked from the Earth on the start, I did never seen such a view before. Carefully, I groped with my hand the glare-shield of my helmet and opened it carefully. I wanted to see the Universe with my own eyes. The impressions overhelmed me and for a short instant time, the time stood still.

Behind me the Sun, and I were looked into this direction. Caution-half I closed again my visor. It expects me not as an enormous yellow disk flickered as on earth, but I looked on a star. Sharply white and rather sharply circumscribes.

Since these seconds my world view changed fundamentally. Over me this sharp white star and under me the blue round Earth and the terrestrial atmosphere, which coated the Earth like a emerald.

Feelings those to be similar a crew member of the International Space Station would have, overcame me. The emptiness of the Universe, the smallest thinking of our own existence in addition, the difference between light and shade, its absolutely differently than everything I have seen on Earth.

Now the jet almost stood still and the disks of the cockpit began itself suddenly to fit. In this altitude prevailed more than minus 50 degrees and without friction heat, the glass immediately were icy. From now, we went only downhill. The nose lowered itself during the MIG 25 fall like a stone downward slowly. A lot of soil nausea I fell in my nose. Four, five thousand meters the jet fell, and we with it. In spirals it screwed itself downward. It was a racing downward like 15 minutes with a roller coaster. In a short periode I feel the g-forces again. The G-forces were the largest G-forces of my body during this adventure - 5 G's.

Before I thought of the G-forces, I fought against the weight of my head. With 4 G I had trouble to hold my head straight. Only with effort I could see through the cockpit glass, but I also now came to my expense. During the flight I felt downward like an Astronaut during reentry.

A “quake” shaking the machine, the G-forces pulled at my body - to deliver out the laws of nature. Now I was to be sat gladly in the MIG-25 and felt deep respect against all Cosmonauts and Astronauts, when they came back from their missions from the stars. On approximately 4.000 meters the pilot stabilized the jet and we turned from the “Edge of Space Flight” to a normal combat flight.

We flew a few loops and then, my pilot allowed me to control the stick and take over. The pilot said only with a Russian accent: “Robert, it's your machine now, try it”. I really took the control stick into my hand and - the supersonic jet reacted suddenly to my command. A little bit upward, a little bit downward, a few to the left and to the right. Although I had made myself familiar with the MIG-25, but already only with a flight simulator on PC before. I occurred myself like a 14 year old boy, that drive for the first time with his father's car. Sometime later I gave the command to the pilot and my suit was now completely though-sweated.

Still another low-altitude flight followed over the airbae with a greetings to the ground personnel - the MIG-25 wipped with its wings. I was gladly on the save side, that pilot do not show me a role, because of my stomach - I was a little bit sick. Still another close curve, after that we were set for landing. The landing was butter-soft and I was absolutely exhausted, but my feelings are never known before settled up in this ways.

Minutes later I came back out of the cockpit with soft knees. The impressions overhauled me. Only as my pilot and I was shaking hands and all others congratulated me to this successfully adventure - I was coming back to life.

It was entirely seen for me like a “space close experience”, with which I was allowed the same experience nearby to takeoff inside a Space Shuttle, flight and landing. Special thanks still my responsible person Andreas Bergweiler, I participate a lot of his knowings of space and space-flights from his side, and he fullfill me the dream of my life - because he made it possible … my flight inside a MIG-25 to the “Edge of Space”.

Robert Braunsteiner (MIG 25 "Edge of Space Flight" am 05.04.2005 - Ramenenskoje Airbase/Russia)

Copyright (c) MMV. All rights reserved. Original text by Robert Braunsteiner - Vienna, pictures captured out of Video-Film MIG 25, filmed by Robert Braunsteiner & Andreas P. Bergweiler.