and other dignitaries. Until then, the status of the 1.44 was largely a secret; the previous day, however, Aviation Week & Space Technology published a photo taken from the roof of the hangar in which the demonstrator was parked. On 29 February 2000, the aircraft performed its first flight at the hands of Vladimir Gorboonov. During the 18-minute flight, the 1.44 reached a maximum height of and reached speeds of . The aircraft touched down at 11:43 am Moscow Time, amid tight security. Gorboonov later described the aircraft as docile. After the 22-minute second flight on 27 April, engineers probably uncovered some problems, since there were no reported flights thereafter. The program has since been cancelled, with the sole prototype known residing at Gromov Flight Research Institute, it was later restored/refurbished and was displayed at MAKS 2015. Design Note: Since the MiG 1.44 did not conduct an extensive flight test program, not all predicted performance aspects were verified. Thus, this section refers to the design as the MiG MFI. The MiG MFI was a delta wing, twin-tailed, fifth-generation air superiority/strike fighter design that incorporated advanced technology to theoretically give the aircraft excellent stealth and fighting attributes. It featured a close-coupled canard layout which, when working with the thrust vectoring engine nozzles, gave the aircraft remarkable maneuverability. The aircraft had a tricycle landing gear system, with a single, dual-wheel landing gear in the front, and two single wheels in the rear. The MFI had relaxed stability and was controlled by a fly-by-wire flight control system. Mikoyan made use of weight-saving materials in the construction of the aircraft, with aluminum-lithium alloys making up 35% of the empty weight, steel and titanium alloys (30%), composites (30%) and others (5%). The MiG MFI was unconventional in its layout, in an effort to improve in-flight efficiency and stealth characteristics. Efforts were made to minimize surface-area, possibly to reduce drag. The wings were of delta planform, with leading-edge sweep at 52°. At the tips were dielectric fairings which housed electronic countermeasures/electronic support measures. The wings had full-span leading-edge flaps. The canards, meanwhile, had a leading-edge sweep of 58°, and had prominent dogtooth which improved airflow over the wings at high alpha (angles of attack). Russian aviation experts claim that the unorthodox design, use of radar-absorbent materials (RAM), and internally mounted weapons, gave a radar cross-section (RCS) of less than , comparable to that of the F-22