 Twenty-one of the MiG-29s were sold to the United States in October 1997 to prevent their sale on the world market, and for research purposes.All the spare parts for those aircraft were also purchased, as were the accompanying 500 air-to-air missiles.All the aircraft were transported from Moldova to the National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio in Boeing C-17 Globemaster III transport planes over a period of two weeks.