Answer: Snow Removal

Peek outside your plane window on a snowy day while waiting to taxi on a Russian runway and you might see a sight to behold: giant steam-punk’esque dump trucks rumbling down the runway blasting fire out of their front ends and melting all the snow that dares cross their path.

What you’d be seeing is a very clever repurposing project: rather than let the expensive (but antiquated) jet engines of old MiG jets rot away in military scrap yards, the jet engines have been removed and attached to large trucks for the sole purpose of rapidly, and dare we say with some over the top style, removing snow and ice from both runways and planes alike.