MiGFlug Can Take You to the Edge of Space for a Fairly Reasonable Price

If you’ve got $18,500 USD to spare and a valid passport, you might as well give MiGFlug a call to book the flight of a lifetime. The organization whose tagline is “Be a Fighter Pilot For a Day” offers civilians the opportunity to fly up to 72,000 feet (22 kilometers) in the backseat of a MiG-29 Fulcrum, with one of Mikoyan’s premier test pilots from their Sokol facility riding up front. That’s the flight of a lifetime, considering that you’re nearer to the edge of space than anyone in existence, save for the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (and possibly super secret black aircraft pilots/RSOs in spy planes that don’t exist). How exactly does MiGFlug take you that high? Well, they use the Fulcrum’s ability to push a little past double the speed of sound to break through the MiG’s service ceiling of 59,000 feet. Adopting a ballistic flight path, the jet rockets through 60,000 feet with ease at around Mach 2. And when it’s time to get back to a more reasonable altitude, you can experience some of the awesome air combat maneuvers fighters like the Fulcrum are designed to be able to do. If that’s not a sweet deal, I don’t know what is.

Why do I say $18,500 is reasonable? Well, it’s either that or you attempt to become an astronaut, a U-2 pilot with the USAF, or a space jumper like Felix Baumgartner.