As young (eighteen years) and relatively inexperienced pilot with only 50 hours of flying Mathias Rust sets of on an adventure on 13 May 1987. In a rented Reims Cessna F172P with registration D-ECJB he sets of from Uetersen in West Germany. For two weeks he travels over the North Sea visiting the Faroe Islands, Reykjavik on Icland, Bergen in Norway and then Helsinki in Finland. In the morning of 28 May he fills the tanks claiming he's off to Stockholm, Sweden. Instead he turns east turning off all communication equipment aborad. Entering Soviet territory over Estonia he turns towards Moscow.
Several lucky chances made it possible for Mathias to avoid the Soviet Air Defences all the way to Moscow. After making a few fly by's over the Red Square trying to land he finally landed on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge and taxied within 100 meters from the Red Square. Astonished by standers approached him and was doubly surprised when they realized that he came from West Germany. They managed to get some autographs before the police came and arrested him. The fly by's and landing was video taped by a British doctor who happened to be visiting Moscow.
Mathias was put in prison but released a year later as a good will gesture. The whole affair enabled Gorbachev to remove many of the strongest opponents to his reformes,
This kit is from Italeri in scale 1:48.
