MiG-21 cockpit trainer

The trainer is built from a standard cockpit with working instruments and controls. The aim is to make procedure sequences automatic: start-up, emergency drills, work with the sight. The instruments are driven from an instructor's ground console. Such cockpits stood in every regiment and training centre. Their value lay not in visual realism — which simply did not exist then — but in muscle memory: the hand must find the right switch without looking. On display is a cockpit with the canopy open, which visitors can look into with a guide.