Russian Machinery in Mesa, AZ

I arrived at Falcon Field in Mesa a day before my photography workshop began (another story to follow).  To get a feel for the location I headed into the Arizona Wing of the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) to look around and get some “static” images of their aircraft.

I was surprised to see this Ural motorcycle sitting on the Museum’s apron.  The Ural is a Russian made, heavy duty, sidecar motorcycle that was designed and built for the rough and often non-existent Russian roads where only horses or these Urals could cross the terrain.  It was based on a 1940’s BMW motorcycle of which the Russians obtained five machines, through a third party (Sweden) and they dismantled them and completely reverse engineered.

Ural Heavy Duty Sidecar Motorcycle

The Ural motorcycle just happened to be parked right in front of a gorgeous looking red and white Russian Yak-52 aircraft.  The Yak-52 was designed as an aerobatic trainer and since the decline of the Soviet Union is now exported to the West.

Ural Motorcycle and Yak-52

So now my interest is piqued as to someone’s fascination in Russian machinery.

But something was missing, the human element.  Without this both the motorcycle and the aircraft were just great pieces of historical industrial sculpture, however attractive.  People were needed to transform these pieces of sculpture into the functioning machinery they were designed to be.

Shortly after I took these pictures the owner Allen walked over with a friend and we started in conversation (little did I know that within a few days Allen would be my “Yak Buddy” – but that’s another story).  Allen recalled that probably in 1994 his business partner had access to the Urals and asked him if he was interested?  So Allen bought ten of them!  These are now distributed in various part of the US.  So, with my camera hanging round my neck, I persuaded Allen to mount up so that I could take a picture of him sitting on his motorcycle right in front of his aircraft.

The Proud Owner astride his Ural

Allen’s friend thought this was good fun so he was next up.

Allen's friend was next up.

At that point Allen said what was really needed was a picture of a pretty girl sitting on the Ural, not “us old guys!” So looking around the answer wasn’t very far away.  Stephanie Stephenson was visiting CAF with her husband and was soon roped in by Allen to pose on the Ural. (Doesn’t she look so press-ganged?)

Stephanie graces the Ural

Then, getting right into the spirit of things, Stephanie offered to make the moment a little racier!  But there were plenty of other folk about, so we hurriedly talked her out of it.

Stephanie having fun.

But as we were all having a good laugh, Stephanie spied the goggles dangling from the handle bars and immediately made the best of all the images by putting them on!

Stephanie Rocks!

The slight breeze catching Stephanie’s hair really adds a dynamic into the picture.

We had a good laugh and thanked Stephanie for making the moment.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 18th, 2012 at 4:12 pm. It is filed under Aviation Photography, Color Images, Warbirds and tagged with 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8, American SouthWest, Arizona, Aviation, AZ, CAF, Commemorative Air Force, D3X, Falcon Field, Mesa, military aircraft, Museum, photograph, Photography, Russian, Ural Sidecar Motorcycle, USA, Warbird, Yak 52. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.