Memories of service in military aviation. Memories of service. Aerodrome "Troitskoe. East is a delicate matter

At the end of the summer of 1973, I, as a reserve officer, was called up for active military service for 2 years. They called me at the most inopportune moment for me. I was on vacation at that time, and my documents for obtaining a flight certificate were in Moscow. It’s good that by the time I was drafted, my certificate had already been issued and was located in the flight navigation department (LSO) of the MAP, at Myachkovo airport. This airfield is located outside the Moscow region town of Lytkarino, south of Bykovo airport.

I had to urgently, while still on vacation, “drive” our factory Li-2 to Moscow, to the LShO. After spending the night with friends, in the morning I came to the LShO, received a certificate and again, with our own plane, returned to Voronezh. Then the “painful” process of dismissal began. A few days later, in connection with the conscription, the factory dismissed me, and I left Voronezh with a heavy heart. The family had a difficult time ahead - we had no one in Voronezh, my daughter was only 7 months old at that time. And I, by the will of the state, left my family and went into the unknown. My soul was, to put it mildly, not good...

On September 4, I flew by plane to Kyiv, where I had orders. From Boryspil airport I went to the military commandant's office in Kyiv, near the Arsenalnaya metro station. By the time I got there, the working day had already ended. The officer on duty at the commandant's office explained where the unit where I was supposed to report was located. I arrived there in the evening, and there the officers on duty directed me to a military hotel, just not far from the headquarters, until the morning.

The “hotel” turned out to be an old red brick building, in some quiet side street, apparently a former pre-revolutionary barracks. Possibly a former cadet school. I was received there, processed, and taken to the “dormitory” hall. The room - well, a barracks is a barracks, the walls are thick and the ceilings are high. In this room there were many beds, in several rows, there was no comfort at all, but it was clean. I chose a free bed and settled in for the night. There were quite a few people in this hall, mostly young officers who had just graduated from military schools and were heading to their duty stations. There were also traveling officers, as well as several civilian people called up from the reserves.

The next morning, several of us civilians went together to headquarters. We started talking in the evening - we are the same two-year students, and in our specialty, like me, we are “elephants” - in aircraft and engines. They were former graduates of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI). I was the only one from civil aviation. When you find “comrades in misfortune”, it is easier to overcome difficulties. We were sent to the HR department. They took one at a time. All my new “acquaintances” were sent to Chernigov, to the Chernigov Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots. I was the last one to come in, I thought I would also go with them, to the same unit, but then things took a completely different turn. I was sent to Voroshilovgrad (Lugansk), to the Voroshilovgrad Higher Military Aviation School of Navigators (VVVAUSH). The reason was apparently that during my military training at the school I studied the transport An-12, which was also available at VVVAUSH.

They gave me a new order to replace the old one, issued travel documents, and explained how to get from the station in Voroshilovgrad to the school. The guys who were sent to Chernigov waited for me, I told them that our paths diverged - I was going to Voroshilovgrad (and they had to go to the bus station, and then to Chernigov by bus). To say goodbye, in the park next to the headquarters, we drank a glass of beer “for good luck.” In those years, in many cities, during the warm period, barrels on wheels with beer or kvass were rolled out to “busy places”. After that we chatted a little more, smoked and went our separate ways. I arrived at the station and immediately issued a ticket at the military ticket office for the train, which left in the evening. The rest of the day I walked around Kyiv, wrote a postcard home, had lunch and went back to the station. Soon I was already traveling in a half-empty compartment carriage to Voroshilovgrad...

The mood was worse than ever. In the morning I arrived in Voroshilovgrad, as recommended to me in Kyiv - I went to the school by taxi, getting to that area from the station was problematic. And the place where the school was located was called “Sharp Grave.” I then said to the taxi driver: “... to the sharp grave, please!”, He took me to the school checkpoint. The military town was large, about the same as in Baku “Red Vostok”, next to which we once lived. He came to the headquarters, introduced himself, and handed over the accompanying documents. To my surprise, I was sent further to a training regiment in Berdyansk, Zaporozhye region. And I thought that Voroshilovgrad was the end point of my army “voyage”. I had to serve in a regiment that operated a rather “rare” piece of equipment – ​​the Be-12 Chaika turboprop anti-submarine amphibious aircraft…

But, first I was sent to the town hotel, and after lunch I was ordered to report to the clothing warehouse and get a uniform. I quickly checked in at the hotel, had lunch in the dining room there, and went to the warehouses. I waited for the storekeepers for a long time, about two hours, no less. Although, according to the working hours of the warehouse, they should have been on site. Finally, two prapors (ensigns) appeared and the “dressing” began. They handed me a uniform, set after set, and I tried it on, sometimes sneaking a look in the mirror. The feeling was as if I had entered school again - “goodbye home and freedom”...

They dumped “junk” on me – a whole bunch. This is both a casual suit and a formal suit, the second are casual trousers, a set of casual shirts, a set of white shirts for a formal suit. And also a field uniform, and with it a second breeches, an officer's belt, a sword belt, a holster for the sidearm, an everyday overcoat, instead of a dress overcoat - a piece of light cloth, a set of socks. They didn’t “go past” me with shoes either - shoes, two pairs of boots, as well as a hat, a scarf, three caps, a raincoat, a summer coat, underwear - thin and warm, a lot of shoulder straps, stars, emblems, cockades, buttonholes, several a pair of gloves, a field bag and something else, I don’t even remember. I then got the impression that my native Soviet army had decided to “dress” me for the rest of my life...
“And the technical uniform,” they told me, “you will receive at the warehouse in Berdyansk.”

Looking at the pile of junk given to me, as they say, I almost sat down! The mood was already bad, but here it dropped to “zero”! How to carry all this? It’s time to hire a porter with a cart... And you also have to get some technical junk! Thank God it wasn’t right away, and not here, otherwise he would have died on this pile of government “goods.” They “dressed and put on shoes” for me for more than an hour, because they also had to try on clothes, shoes and caps. Then I put all the small things into a field bag, and everything else, together with the ensigns, was tightly placed on a spread raincoat, rolled into a huge bale and tied with some kind of wire. The bale turned out to be large and heavy; it barely made it to the hotel.

Tomorrow, after lunch, I had a train, and I had to go to Upper Tokmak, and there would be a transfer late at night. One good thing was that the train going from Dnepropetrovsk to Berdyansk arrived in Upper Tokmak 15 minutes after the arrival of the Voroshilovgrad-Simferopol train, on which I arrived in Tokmak. In the evening, a guy my age came to the room where I stayed until the morning. The room was double, and he lived here. We got to talking - he turned out to be a business traveler, a worker from Tartu. Here he carries out bulletins on the products of his plant - emergency flight mode recorders MSRP-12, which everyone now calls “black boxes” (although they are spherical in shape and orange in color).

My neighbor turned out to be, as they say, “his own man,” a factory worker. We quickly found a common language with him; it turns out that he sometimes worked with our Voronezh finalizers. As cheerful as all the builders. We spent the entire evening chatting, telling jokes and laughing, remembering funny stories from the life of the workers. At least my blues went away a little, and my soul became a little lighter. In the end, I didn’t go to prison, but for two years I became the elite of the Soviet army - an Air Force officer. Many people dream of becoming an officer all their lives, but it doesn’t always work out, but then “hello to you through the window!” - unexpectedly put on officer's shoulder straps. One thing that depressed me was that I had just retrained on board and received a flight certificate - I could fly and fly, but here on you - again as a technician on the ground! Yes, and from home, from family - God knows where. You can’t say anything - then fate unexpectedly dealt me ​​a “low blow”!

But what can you do, life goes on, and you have to accept its rules. And now, after many years, I do not regret that I was drafted into the army then. These years can also be safely ranked among the best years of my life, well, if not the best, then certainly not bad - for sure. I remember that evening in Voroshilovgrad well, and I don’t know why. Probably, then I mentally reoriented myself to the positive, the realization came that everything was fine, but I could still fly, I already had the main “backlog”, I was retrained and after the army they would take me to work where I was called from. These are not today's troubled times...

Needless to say, I had to order a taxi and leave for the station early with my heavy and bulky bundle of uniform junk. I picked up the ticket at the military ticket office without any problems, and handed over the bundle to the storage room and spent the rest of the time “killing” near the station, and at the same time had lunch at the station restaurant. When I boarded the train, the Air Force captain whom I saw in the morning at headquarters when I received my travel documents got into the same carriage. His family saw him off. When the train started moving, we started talking in the corridor - he was traveling in the next compartment. He also saw me at headquarters. It turned out that we were both going to Berdyansk. This was already a little more “fun”, at least I could help with my heavy bale. His name was Viktor Sh., he was an electronics engineer, and he was transferred to Berdyansk to a major position as the head of a group of electronic equipment (radio-electronic equipment). At night we went out together in V. Tokmak, he helped me pull out this “damn” bale, ran with tickets to the station - we didn’t have seats for the passing train, stamped them, and then the Dnepropetrovsk - Berdyansk train arrived. Then we rode for three hours in an almost empty carriage. We got from the station to the unit in some kind of GAZ-51 truck - the driver gave us a lift for three rubles in the back with some junk, fortunately it was still warm, the beginning of September. It was Saturday, and that day the regiment was declared a day off, because... the day before there were graduation flights for graduating cadets, and the regiment was resting. We arrived at the headquarters, the unit on duty gave orders to put us in a “hotel.” And on Monday we had to report to headquarters in the morning and after breakfast to the regimental formation.

Formation... How, to be honest, I was disgusted by this word, long forgotten from school! But there’s nothing to do, let’s go to the “hotel”. This officers' "hotel" was located in a four-story, two-entrance, new barracks - on the first floor. The barracks building stood alone in the open, “facing” the parade ground and the dining hall, and behind there was a dirt road and vineyards. There were no fences or checkpoints around, everything was open. Subsequently, newly arrived young officers called this barracks “Cruiser”, and this name stuck firmly with it. Indeed, the tall narrow barracks building looked like a lonely cruiser - among the “sea” of endless fields and vineyards. In the “hotel” to the right and left of the aisle there were beds with bedside tables, well, a barracks was a barracks. There was a “hotel” in Kyiv, where I was a few days ago, exactly like this, only in an ancient building. And the storeroom, where the Azerbaijani soldier sat and was on duty, was a kind of “reception” and a storage room and wardrobe for the officers’ personal belongings.

Surprisingly, there were people in the “hotel”. Several officers were transferred from other VVVAUSH regiments, there were also civilian guys, like me, “two-year students.” They also arrived the day before on the same “route” Kyiv-Voroshilovgrad-Berdyansk. By evening, I began to put my uniform in “order”, with the help of the officers’ recommendations, pinned stars on the shoulder straps, sewed shoulder straps and buttonholes on the jacket (for some reason the uniform jacket was called a jacket), pinned emblems on the cap, in general, I was preparing for formation on Monday.

At this time, a large crowd of men burst into the “Cruiser” with noise and laughter; several people were hardly dragging a bag made from a mattress cover, full of watermelons. They sat on the beds on the other side of the aisle, changed clothes, shared watermelons, and laughed. I already began to guess who they were. I asked the guys who had already lived here for several days, and all doubts were dispelled - it was a team of finalizers from the Taganrog aircraft plant. While I was sewing on shoulder straps and insignia, I glanced sideways at the finalizers - one to one, they were no different from the Voronezh ones, from the 17th workshop, with whom I worked in Omsk... And they had the same conversations, and about the same things. I remember that evening melancholy came over me again... When I had sewn on everything I needed, I put on my uniform and looked at myself in the mirror. Hmmm, it’s like not me, but it’s like me too. But I didn’t like the look, what the hell kind of officer am I, I’m purely a civilian. And I never dreamed of a military career, but here it is on you, lieutenant...

On Monday morning, together with the guys from the Cruiser, we went for breakfast - the dining room was located opposite the Cruiser, and between the dining room and the Cruiser there was a parade ground where all the formations took place. Well, at least I wasn’t the only “new guy” that day, there were about 5 of us. And we were all introduced to the regiment in order.
This is how my military service began. That year, many young recruits came to our regiment, including “elephants” - graduates of the Irkutsk Military Aviation Technical School (IVATU). Also, along with them, there were three graduates from the Kirsanov Aviation Technical School of Civil Aviation. We quickly became acquainted with the “elephants” and found a common language and interests. At first we all lived in the “Cruiser”, but soon we moved to the dormitory of some construction trust or administration, in the city, on Pionerskaya Street. The hostel was no longer the Cruiser barracks; it was more comfortable here. The dorm was five-story, there were shops nearby - in general, all the infrastructure necessary for life. All the newly arrived officers settled here for a while, and later, on the advice of those who arrived earlier, we began to look for housing in the private sector - many rented out apartments in the resort Berdyansk, and, in general, for a symbolic price. And the new house in the military town, where we all later received housing, was still under construction. It was supposed to be handed over by the end of February... .

Story 1 (About the phase)

Late 70s. Manitou. I don’t know where it is, maybe Mongolia, maybe the Chita region - I don’t know, don’t blame me.
After college, my dad, a young and green lieutenant, arrived to serve at the unit’s location. Well, he was sent to settle in and set up his own workplace.
Well, as is customary with grandfathers, you need to pin up the flyer, the guy is five minutes away from demobilization...
Well, one brave guy went to the baht with an empty bucket and asked for a phase.
Dad became fascinated, calls the old, old ensign, nicknamed Dida, and asks:
- It says what?, and points to the fighter with the bucket.
Well, Didu didn’t think twice, and there was a fist as big as a pioneer’s head, hitting the fighter in the forehead with all its might, so that he lost consciousness and left. Dad brought the fighter to his senses, gave him tea and sent him off to God.
Since then, no one has approached Bata with such questions.

Story 2 (About the Air Force Commander-in-Chief)

Story 3 (About Pushkin)

Mid to late 80's. Yakutia. My dad commanded a company of fighters to provide aircraft, I don’t know what they provided, sorry. My dad is walking through the barracks and hears one of the soldiers swearing very loudly. Well, my father made a remark to him:
- You wouldn’t swear, but you might as well read Pushkin. I give you two weeks - you will read poetry to me. And left.
Two weeks pass, (my dad has already forgotten about this incident) a fighter comes up and says:
- Comrade captain, I came to you to read Pushkin. And off we go...
My dad was surprised, to put it mildly. But he listened and praised the soldier for the right course of development.
“Comrade captain, I’ll read you some more from Lermontov, in a week.”
Well, you read it, you read it. Another two weeks pass, by the way, my dad kept an eye on the fighters, and he knew his soldiers not only by last name but also by name, and looked after their health, the fighters also loved, feared and respected my dad, and dad notices that something is wrong with the soldier - that's not it. Well, he sent him to the hospital for examination. They say there:
- There’s something wrong with my head, we can’t understand it, we need to send it to Krasnoyarsk.
No sooner said than done, my father, another officer and a soldier are flying. During the time spent in the hospital, the fighter gained ten kilos, and during the flight he received his rations, his father and the officer. It's not a pity, it's not far to fly.
We arrived, arrived at the commandant’s office, and settled down. An hour later the ambulance arrives. Two orderlies come out - approximately like Valuev, and the aunt paramedic is like Natalya Krachkovskaya in size. They slowly approach the peacefully sleeping soldier and swaddle him in a straitjacket, simultaneously rolling in a heavy dose of sedative.
The father and the officer are shocked.
- Why are you doing this?
“If he had run, we wouldn’t have caught up with him in the ambulance, and you were lucky that he behaved calmly, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to cope with him even with ten men.”
The fighter was taken away. Then it turned out that he had some kind of complex form of schizophrenia, I guy could really hurt himself and those around him.
The fighter spent some time in the hospital, was cured and then discharged.

Story 4 (About soda)

Early 80s. Mongolia. When my father served in Mongolia, they had a closed garrison with four houses where the officers lived, and naturally everyone knew each other. And Dad had a married friend who lived on the floor above.
A friend’s wife and children flew to the mainland, but he was itching. He brought a local Mongolian girl to his place to have sex. But she smelled terrible, they smear themselves with lamb fat so as not to wash, they rolled it up into pellets and it was good. Water is scarce in the steppe. Well, how do you climb on one?
He decided to wash her in the bathroom, everything is romantic. And I couldn’t think of anything better than pouring caustic soda into this bath...
The effect was on the entire garrison! A wild scream and a naked Mongolian woman with red skin like a Soviet flag running down the street...
Well, this friend’s wife was naturally informed about the adventures of her Alphonse, for which he received a lyulei for a week. Well, then they seemed to make up.

Story 5 (About me)

I was born on May 26, 1984 in the glorious city of Yakutsk. The entire garrison walked, from lieutenants to colonels, and washed their hooves for a week. Times were calm in terms of living in the Soviet Union, and doors were rarely closed.
Well, there was a whole bath of vodka, floating in cold water.
Dad, we're getting older.
Well, one major came, freely entered the house and drank this unfortunate vodka. And fell asleep in the bathroom. Accordingly, this comrade did not show up for evening duty... And he blamed Father for everything...
My father was summoned to the court of honor and asked how he allowed the senior officer to not go on night duty. To which my father replied:
- How do you think I should prohibit a senior in rank?
Of course, he received a reprimand, but he didn’t lose face...

Story 6 (About the plane hijacking)

Mid 80's. Yakutia. I was born, my father received a senior position and moved to the USSR Air Traffic Control, this is an office to which all aircraft were subordinate.
My father was on duty that ill-fated day. The situation is tense, recently a Boeing crashed with the Koreans... In short, everything is tense.
Civil aviation pilots have a panic button under their feet, and if the plane is hijacked, it is easy to press. Accordingly, when you press the button, there is a request from the ground for the height; if the height is not correct, they say it means capture. Anxiety, planes in the sky, etc., etc....
A civilian aircraft is traveling from Yakutsk to Moscow at an altitude of 10 thousand meters. The panic button goes off, and accordingly the whole group is in suspense.
The father, as the senior officer, will request the height:


- Board such and such, report the altitude!
- Such and such a board is ten thousand meters!
- Board such and such, report the altitude!
Pause…
- Oh, fuck you in the mouth... - And still in the same spirit...
Everything worked out.

Story 7 (About IL-76)

Mid 80's. Yakutia.
Winter. Frosts below -70. Boarding for refueling and maintenance. He flew from Vladivostok to Moscow, the cool pilots landed. They don't like money, so they decided to spend a week in Yakutsk away from their wives, hang out in taverns, try out local girls... Well, you understand.
Well, the father met with them and said:
- Guys, fly away, it won’t be long before the fogs, it’s winter, you can get stuck for a month.
Well, they accordingly did not listen.
We walked for a week and then the fogs descended. Visibility is zero, no one allows departure, we decided to sit out.
A month has passed... The fogs do not go away... The money has run out... They live in the barracks with the soldiers... The guys got caught.
And then it’s a clear day, they quickly take off. God bless them! We took off!!!
Right now! The chassis fails, the hydraulics froze in the cold, the pipes broke, in short, comrades. You can't fly. Sit back down...
In short, the poor fellows sat and waited for another two weeks until spare parts were brought from Moscow on another plane. We admired the clear sky. Then, as my dad said, when they repaired the IL-76, I never saw such a quick takeoff.

I hope I didn’t disappoint you and gave you a few smiles this weekend. Maybe someone recognizes himself or served under him?

On June 11, my father passed away, but these stories will live in me, and I will proudly tell them to my daughters and grandchildren when they grow up. I am proud to be the son of a Soviet Officer.

I got into the air defense troops purely by accident. Served in the Belarusian Military District. Familiar pilots came on vacation and, over conversations and memories, asked the question if there were anyone willing to go as a replacement to Novaya Zemlya. It so happened that the entire crew had to be changed at once. My crew commander was excited to go north. A year later, an order came for a transfer to a new duty station. Having taken the most necessary things, we flew to Arkhangelsk. In Arkhangelsk, we registered at the security department and began to wait for our turn to board the plane. In Arkhangelsk the weather was summer, the temperature was + 18 - 20 degrees Celsius. Yes, it’s the beginning of summer, and everyone told us that the flight was delayed due to weather conditions. Those who flew to a new duty station for the first time did not understand the reason for the cancellation of the flight. And only on June 4, 1978, our plane headed for Novaya Zemlya. We looked at the new landscapes with interest. First, the forest floated under the wing, then the waters of the Barents Sea. When we were landing at the airfield in Rogachevo, we saw it. that the whole earth is covered with snow. We were dressed like summer, but found ourselves in real winter. Temperature -4 degrees, wind 15-18 m/sec. We immediately felt uncomfortable. Our warm clothes were packed in boxes and it was impossible to get them out right away. But the fears turned out to be in vain. They were already expecting us. Wrapped in warm sheepskin coats, we were loaded into a car and driven to a residential town. There were five-story buildings in the town and a table was set in the apartment. The meeting took place in a very “hot” atmosphere, in the full sense of the word. It was polar summer and we could not understand what time of day it was now. The feast ended only on the third day. All deadlines for reporting to the command about arrival at a new duty station have long passed. Because of this reception we... unknowingly, we almost got into an unpleasant situation. The fact is that on Novaya Zemlya, service for ground personnel was protected from one month to two, and for this reason, many wanted to stay as long as possible. There were cases when replacement workers were soldered and pawned to the command. Such officers and warrant officers were sent to their old place of service with punishment, and the cunning ones remained to continue serving for another year. The length of service of the flight crew did not depend on the conditions of the North. The division commander scolded us for being late with the report, gave us 3 days to pass the theoretical tests and begin familiarization flights. The next day we went to the airfield to receive aircraft. But we were again awaiting “commissioning” into service according to the laws of new colleagues. We were invited on board an Il-14 plane. Our transport link consisted of two Il-14 aircraft and two Mi-8 helicopters. The aircraft's on-board technician was Pyotr Ispenkov. He was one meter eighty tall and weighed one hundred and thirty kilograms. The powerful figure was wrapped in a sword belt made from two belts. The aircraft's anti-icing system was alcohol-based; there was a supply of certified alcohol of 40 liters on board.
The flight engineer’s hand calmly clasped the three-liter jar, like a cut glass. His measuring stick was a soldier's aluminum mug. Having measured out the amount of alcohol and drunk it, he poured it into a mug and with the words: “Let’s see, will you fit in with us?”, handed the mug to me. I drank alcohol, but not in such quantities, I decided to come what may. The liquid was cold and pleasantly burned my throat. After drinking and eating a little, I felt like I was falling into oblivion. I woke up already in the room, only the next day. This completed the check. Having passed the required tests, a week later we began familiarization flights. Flying turned out to be not difficult. The weather was clear and visibility was excellent. The terrain was flat, with minor hills. The flight route ran either over the tundra, as flat as a billiard table, or over the sea. Having received permission to fly in the airfield area, we began independent flights. The helicopter flight's tasks were assigned mainly to transport troops to deployment points. The helicopters had the main task of providing search and rescue operations during scheduled flights of interceptor aircraft. An additional task is to transport personnel to RTV points and division leadership to check the combat readiness of these points. There were several people stationed at the points, and it was both physically and mentally difficult to serve in such conditions. All points were located along the western coast of the island. The northernmost point was at Cape Zhelaniya. All this had to be studied and mastered. The weather in the Arctic is very changeable, it’s not for nothing that the Arctic is called the kitchen of weather.
You get permission to take off from the dispatcher, the weather forecaster writes out a weather bulletin, you go out onto the porch, and the fog is so thick that you can’t see your outstretched arm. And after 10-15 minutes the sun is shining again and you can see around as far as the eye can see. It was especially unpleasant when you were in the air and there was fog in the landing area. Gradually we got used to both the weather and the terrain. Bala is another task that no one has officially set, but it was impossible not to complete it. It was hunting and fishing. The island consisted of many small islands and lakes, bays, and channels. There were a lot of fish in them, and large herds of wild reindeer, up to several thousand heads, grazed across the tundra. All this attracted the attention of the command of the division and other units. There was another unspoken, but long-established tradition. There were two garrisons on the island. One was in Rogachevo, where an air defense aviation regiment and a Navy helicopter squadron were stationed. The second garrison was located 15 km away in Belshya Bay. The sailors were in command there. The head of the garrison was a sailor, Rear Admiral Kastritsky.
All support units were also subordinate to the sailors. These include shops, schools and kindergartens. The uniform was also different, ours was green, the sailors’ uniform was black. Arriving at the store, we were served after the sailors, we even had a saying: “in America everything is for whites, but on Novaya Zemlya, everything is for blacks.” The same relationship existed among the formation commanders. Our division commander was the same in position and rank as a naval admiral, but in fact was obliged to submit to the commander of the garrison. This was a very serious obstacle when performing auxiliary tasks. Each military leader had his own hunting and fishing grounds.
We were strictly forbidden to land fishermen on the sailors' territory. There is a lake on the island called Goltsovoye, where there was a nice house for fishermen.
Dryers, smokehouses and other buildings were built. Fish was caught all year round and in incredible quantities. We didn't have such buildings. The sailors monitored environmental protection, and if the command found out that we were landing fishermen, then the sailors’ helicopter pilots would take off and representatives of the prosecutor’s office would fly out to check. These were quite risky flights for us. But the unit commanders constantly prepared teams of fishermen, some sent them by land transport, others agreed with our command and we landed them in the right places. Once a week they brought them food and took away fish. There was one more feature of the polar day. This is the sun that never sets over the horizon. It is not possible to understand when it is day and when it is night. Only by the position of the sun relative to the window could one determine what time of day it was. There have been cases where you wake up and go to work, and it turns out that it is two o’clock in the morning. The weather is great, you have to go to bed, but your body resists. Gradually we adapted to new conditions and entered climatic conditions by winter.

Polar night.
As winter approaches, nature and weather change. In the Arctic, changes are happening faster and more noticeably. It’s not for nothing that they say that June is not summer yet, and August is no longer summer. By this time, darkness gradually sets in and flowers begin to bloom in the tundra. The flowers are very small, but they smell like French perfume, very pleasant. On weekends, companies gather in the tundra for barbecues. By September, families fly in from the mainland, the tundra is filled with women's and children's laughter, songs, and fun. Everyone is gaining energy before the long Polar night. This is a busy time for us. It is necessary to recover when flying at night. In conditions of directionless terrain it is very difficult to navigate, especially at low and extremely low altitudes. At this time we fly more often, we need to get used to the new contours of the coast, remember what landmarks look like at night. At the end of September, the tundra is covered with snow and navigation becomes even more difficult. Flights to distant points are becoming less frequent and the route runs along the water surface, close to the coastline. At night the steep coast is very clearly visible. The sea becomes black, and the coastline is gray, clearly visible even in bad weather. For helicopter pilots, landing is also difficult. In combat units on the mainland, we were taught to land in a “well”, the helicopter hovers over the site, blows the snow with the flow from the propellers and lands. In the Arctic, such landings will lead to loss of spatial position and loss of life. Therefore, the landing technique was different and we learned to land at a forward speed, pressing the snow whirlwind with an air flow and not allowing the cockpit to close. This method helped me in further flight work both in the Moscow Air Defense District and on dusty sites in Afghanistan. We were fully prepared for conditions of complete darkness. In winter we had to fly less; there were strong and frequent blizzards that lasted for weeks. On winter days, everyone's attention in the morning is focused on the loudspeaker. The unit duty officer announces the weather and daily routine. There were whole weeks spent at home, only going out to the grocery store. Several people gathered, tied themselves with a rope and went out into the street. If there was a strong wind, and sometimes it reached up to 40 meters per second, we had to call an on-duty tractor and drive it to the store. After the snowstorm, the entire garrison went out to dig out equipment from the snow captivity. Having cleared the parking lot, all the personnel gathered in classes, shared news, played preference and other games, at the end of the working day, taking 150 grams each to relieve stress, they went home. On Good Days we flew out on missions and were on patrol duty at the airfield. The privilege of the flight crew was that we were allowed to bring our families. The land-based staff had no families. For us, the conditions were easier, because the family warmed us in the cold and the time passed more fun. I had a son, who at that time was only one and a half years old and there was plenty of time to raise him. The first words, the first conscious gestures, everything was recorded on tape, filmed. True, business trips to Amderma, Vorkuta, Naryan-Mar and other points were long. They were away from home for a month at a time.

Memoirs of a Techie

Anatoly KRAVCHENKO Shchelkovo, Moscow region.

Material for publication prepared by Dmitry STERLIGOV

Senior Sergeant Kravchenko A.A. Lebedin city, 1948

Probably, every person, summing up life, inevitably remembers the time of youth, youth. For me, these years are associated primarily with military service. And my army life began on January 12, 1945. The war was still going on, and there were tears in the farewell. The conscription took place in the village of Altaiskoye, Altai Territory. From there, future Red Army soldiers were sent to Biysk to a recruiting station, and then by train to Krasnoyarsk. The Odessa division was located there, where anti-tank rifle crews were trained. We spent a month and a half here while the Chelyabinsk Aviation Technical School held its next graduation, after which we were assigned there. After three months of training, at the end of May, we were released as mechanics of the Il4 aircraft and sent to serve in Long-Range Aviation (LAR) with the rank of “junior sergeant”...

This is how I ended up in the city of Kirsanov, Tambov region, where the 34th training aviation regiment (UAR) was based - one of the three regiments of the Michurinsk military aviation school of ADD pilots. The other two were located in Michurinsk itself and at the station. Nikiforovka. The school trained future IL-4 commanders. From here, in fact, the real path to aviation began. Our regiment was then commanded by Mr. Chernego. From the moment of my arrival and for several months, the 34th UAP did not fly, putting the materiel in order.

Photo postcard with the image of pilot instructors of the 34th UAP. Kirsanov, 1945 (aMK)

Before departure. Listener of the 34th UAP Lt Kuzmin M.A. 1948 (aMK)

Il-4, as you know, was the main ADD bomber during the Great Patriotic War. And our regimental vehicles bore all its hardships. Having been in battle, they came to us from front-line units. The regiment had only “land” bombers; we did not see sea torpedo bombers. Our regiment did not have its own emblems, inscriptions or characteristic numbers. Externally, the planes remained the same as they came from the troops. Basically, the coloring was one-color, two-color (lower surfaces were light blue, upper surfaces were green). When recruiting squadrons, only the side numbers were repainted. They were painted on the keels with large white numbers. There were no other differences in the 34th UAP. The state of the equipment, however, was so shabby that sometimes it became simply unsafe to take to the air. Of course, we did fly, but there were clearly more accidents and catastrophes than necessary.

In this regard, one incident comes to mind. Once there were night flights ahead, and the day before one of the mechanics settled down to sleep in the cockpit of an Il-4, which was standing on the edge of the parking lot. Waking up in the evening, he went to the nearest orchard to hunt for apples. At this time, another Il, landing in the dark, caught the plane abandoned by the mechanic. Both cars were completely burned out. The landing crew died, but the mechanic, by chance, remained alive.

Flight everyday life of the 34th UAP. The crew is preparing to take off. Pilot Lt. Kuzmin, radio station Gribanov, navigator Lt. Grishchenko. Lebedin, 1948 (aMK)

Personnel of the 2nd squadron of the 34th UAP. Lebedin, 1949

In June 1946, the entire Michurin school was relocated to Ukraine. The headquarters settled in Konotop. One training regiment was also stationed there, another in Nizhyn, and the 34th UAP was already under the command of the sub-cabinet A.M. Semenov was imprisoned in the town of Lebedin, Sumy region. The airfield here corresponded to a higher level. It was built before the war, but most of the buildings and structures were destroyed as a result of bombing. The runway was unpaved, but the aircraft parking areas were concrete. In front of us here were high-speed La fighters. They left a pretty decent infrastructure behind.

It was in Lebedin, where my military service continued, that I truly experienced what an Il-4 aircraft was like. Both the airframes and the engines were extremely worn out. Of the most characteristic defects, the so-called “head wobble” is memorable. It happened that during the flight the cylinder head became so loose that after landing (when the technician and I checked the engine) its movement was visible to the naked eye. The regiment even organized a so-called cylinder group based on PARM to replace heads. But cases of engine parts breaking still occurred. Once, having come off in flight, the cylinder head pierced the hood, hit the canopy and, breaking the glazing, cut the pilot with fragments. The crew commander, Mr. Zherebtsov, with his face covered in blood, miraculously landed the car.

As for the accident rate, the materiel was in such a state that landing aircraft with one strut extended no longer seemed unusual. Usually in such cases the pilot decided to remove the landing gear and land the car directly “on its belly.” Fortunately, the design of the Il-4 was such that the engine nacelles were located below the fuselage. The plane rolled on them like on a skid, without any special consequences. The propellers, of course, were a mess, they had to be changed, but the PARM workers would lift the plane itself, knock it up, patch it up, and take off again.

I must say that the service of the technicians on the IL-4 was, as they say, worse than it could be. Both the engines and the cars themselves were not clean. Therefore, literally all the mechanics, motor mechanics, and technicians were grimy, like tractor drivers. It was not for nothing that there was a rhyme at that time: “Forever dirty, always sleepy, an aviation mechanic.” The M-88B engines gave us, the operators, a lot of trouble. For example, valve boxes were filled with a rather vile lubricant, “kutum”. I remember the process of replacing it. While the engine was running, it melted, and the mechanic who opened the cover on the bottom row of cylinders (secured with a special cable) would certainly find himself flooded from head to toe. And there was nowhere to escape from this. No matter how careful you are, you will definitely be taken out.

The motors themselves, although they developed the required thrust, were not reliable. They were already old, and for repairs, a separate workshop was organized there, in Lebedin. I still remember the roar of aircraft engines running in, which constantly came from outside the city. Needless to say, the technicians’ service back then was very difficult.

And there was no need to envy the flight crew. As far as I remember, three or four crews were buried on these vehicles. One of the dead commanders, Captain Petrov, a mighty man, was burned alive. He was the chief of the PDS regiment, under whose leadership I made my first parachute jump. His car crashed into the forest outside the city. The plane was crushed by a tree and when it was found, its burnt hand continued to grip the handle of the jammed canopy. The pilot probably survived the impact, but when the plane caught fire, he was unable to get out of the cockpit. However, according to the pilots themselves, the main cause of the disaster was the low level of flight organization. There was almost complete absence of meteorological and radio technical support. We often took off with a small supply of fuel on board (only in the front tanks), which left no chance of returning if the weather conditions worsened. Gunners survived the accident more often than other crew members. They were at the back, and when they fell, the rear part of the fuselage sometimes came off, saving their lives. But again, everything depended on the specific case.

The regiment's flight personnel consisted of permanent instructors (who were, as a rule, ship commanders) and a variable composition - pilots who already had some experience on other types of aircraft. The main supplier of students for the 34th UAP at that time was the Novosibirsk pilot school, where the cadets managed to master the safety of pilots. Already in those years, however, it was known that the Il-4 would soon give way to new vehicles. However, after several months of retraining, graduates of the Konotop school were sent to combat units. At the end of the forties, however, due to the beginning of organizational changes in the ADD, some students had to be “stuck” in the training regiment for a year and a half or more. And although there were no Heroes among our instructors, since most of them did not go to the front, many of the pilots, such as captains Primerov, Shulichenko, Kashtanov and others, whom I remember well, were high-class professionals.

Separately, I would like to say about the relationships in the regiment. As for the flight crew, the crew is the crew: they were real, friendly families. On the ground, the owner of the plane is a technician. He and the mechanic are two people who are responsible for the technical condition of the car. Therefore, the relationship between the ship’s commanders and us, the operators, was absolutely normal, one might even say very good. Those who went through the war especially respected us. As a rule, these were pilots of variable composition, who knew full well that their lives depended on the work of the technicians. Moreover, when only one specific crew, including ground staff, was assigned to each aircraft.

But whatever our relationship, the boundary between the flight and technical personnel always remained.

The first, of course, was more privileged in aviation. Take, for example, food: they were fed, of course, completely differently than technicians or mechanics, in the soldiers’ canteen according to the “standard two”. Our food supply was especially bad in 1946. Then, during the drought in Ukraine, we “traveled” mainly on bread. It happened that if there were flights the next day and there were a lot of defects, we had to work together with the technician without lunch. And in the evening in the dining room they could give you a bowl of gruel for both dinner and lunch. The soldier's standard became acceptable only in the 60s.

Among the pilots there were decent people who enjoyed the respect of the technical staff and their colleagues, but there were also those who did not gain much authority. As in any team...

Our work also had its own characteristics. As an aircraft mechanic, I serviced one aircraft together with a technician. The technicians were officers or petty officers and lived in private apartments. There were no privates in Long-Range Aviation before 1949. Mechanics, like me, graduating from ShMAS, received the rank of sergeant, and then senior sergeant. We, like all conscripts, lived in barracks and obeyed the routine prescribed by the Charter. But, it must be said, in those post-war years the requirements for its implementation were not particularly stringent, especially in aviation. Later, when I was already an officer, the rules became much stricter. For example, soldiers were forced to leave during lunch, no matter how much work they had to do. Although sometimes we ourselves had to dig without lunch, and sometimes without dinner.

And in the first post-war years, discipline in aviation, frankly speaking, was not important. It is no coincidence that the saying appeared: “where aviation begins, order ends there.” I remember when I first got to the regimental barracks after the Chelyabinsk school, I was amazed when I woke up in the morning and did not hear the command to get up. True, it was a day off and later the orderly still appeared with the words: “Get up, lads. For breakfast". We also went AWOL, although we didn’t drink much, because we had nothing to spend on it. Vodka cost money even then.

They dressed poorly in the post-war years too. We wore an ordinary soldier's uniform, cotton breeches, tunic, and tarpaulin boots. Moreover, at first the tunics didn’t even have pockets; those with pockets were introduced later. In winter they wore overcoats, and at the airfields they gave us rather lousy technical jackets with cotton wool.

Flights in the training regiment took place two days a week, as far as the condition of the aircraft allowed. There were four squadrons in total: two day and two night. The second squadron (commander - Mr. Goncharov), in which I served, was a night squadron. During the pre-flight days, the technician and I prepared for night flights, and on the remaining days we worked on putting the equipment in order.

They taught flying in a front-line manner: takeoff and landing with occasional flights into the zone. Unfortunately, I never managed to take off in the IL-4. But later, on the Tu-4, we flew up more than once.

Good landing. With a parachute A. Kravchenko, wearing a cap. PDS G. Filinov. Lebedin, 1950

In 1947, the school headquarters was transferred from Konogop to Nizhyn, and it became known as Nizhyn. And in 1948, the regiment switched to B-25 aircraft. In contrast to Ilam, this bomber left the best impressions of itself. Servicing the Wright-Cyclone R-2600 engines was simply a pleasure. All units were clean, were under seals, and until their service life was exhausted, no one had the right to delve into them. Very spacious cabins - compared to the IL-4. And in general, after Ilov, this plane really seemed like something new.

I must say that I first encountered such cars as Spitfire, Airacobra, Kingcobra in Krasnoyarsk. There was an airfield there to which incoming aircraft were transported from Alaska. Before being sent to school, we recruits were sent out to clear the snow from the airfield. Despite the fact that the B-25 also went through combat, unlike our vehicles, they fully retained their flight qualities. The engines did not give a single failure, and during the year that we operated them, I don’t remember a single accident. There was no case of a B-25 landing on engine nacelles. And in general, I consider this aircraft the best of those on which I served. I can’t even compare it with the Tu-4. I am sure that the pilots who flew the B-25 remember him with gratitude. As for me, in the same 1948 I was transferred from engine mechanics to mechanics and became the first assistant aircraft technician. The salary also increased - from 150 to 400 rubles.

It must be said that the American aircraft were, as it were, a transitional vehicle to the new Tu-4, since they also had a tricycle landing gear with a nose wheel. Already in the next year, 1949, the 34th UAP under the command of P. Naidus began preparations for retraining. At this time, 13 SHMAS began to train specialists [mechanics] in radio, instruments, electrical and special equipment. In the same year, the old Il-4s began to be finally removed from service. They were driven away from Lebedin somewhere and cut up for scrap metal.

First Tu

The regiment received its first Tu-4 in the fall of 1949. It was a solemn moment. The plane was greeted with a brass band and all personnel assembled in full. The giant machine made a deep impression. When the plane taxied, everyone, without exception, poured out onto the airfield. And although we knew that it was copied down to the rivets from the American B-29, everyone understood that this bomber marked the beginning of the development of completely new combat vehicles in Soviet aviation.

A new time has come in the service system. Not only did the flight crew include a flight engineer and a flight technician. The ground technical staff has also increased significantly. Each aircraft, in addition to the senior technician, was serviced by a left plane technician and a right plane technician with their own mechanics. In each squadron, groups were formed for radio, weapons, electrical special equipment (ESO), which included technicians for electrical equipment, instruments and photographic equipment.

The regiment was replenished quickly and began flying almost immediately. Typical tasks were the same exercises that crews had to perform in combat units. Takeoff and landing, circling flights, training bombing at nearby training grounds. They bombed us with so-called “concrete bombs” – bombs filled with cement. Most of the technicians on the Tu-4 came from colleges. Mechanics were mainly trained by ShMAS.

In the regiment, with the transition to the Tu-4, classes were organized to study the entire aircraft, including its equipment. A group of eight draftsmen with artistic ability was created to reproduce the diagrams and posters as teaching aids. I remember that many of the diagrams came with explanations in English. And since in the squadron I was responsible for the design of the Leningrad room and the wall newspaper, I was also assigned to the group. I don’t know why, but the chief of staff of the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Kachanov himself, patronized this. Two or three of those appointed were sergeants, and the rest were officers. We worked right in the headquarters classroom. I worked as a draftsman for three or four months until the time came for my conscription to leave. But Chief of Staff Kachanov, calling me, offered to remain in the Air Force.

Having received leave and an extra-conscript salary of 750 rubles, I went home to Altai. This money wasn’t much at that time, but life in civilian life didn’t smell like honey either. Therefore, after consulting with my father, I decided to stay in the army. Upon my return, it was Kachanov who first became interested in my choice. I must say, he generally looked after me like a son. It is to him that I owe the fact that I remained in the armed forces and that I enrolled in a mechanics course for photographic equipment. It was not so easy to transfer from an operator to special equipment. This wonderful man did a lot of good for me. Soon, at his suggestion, I joined the ESO group as a mechanic for photographic equipment. I learned a new profession under the guidance of technician Lt. Chebotarev. The greatest attention, of course, was paid to practice, which consisted of preparing the aircraft's photographic equipment for flights.

The Tu-4 was equipped with aerial cameras AFAZZ for daytime photography and NAFA-75 for night photo monitoring of bombing results using the FOTAB flare bomb. I quickly mastered my new specialty.

I remember that there were about 100 of us, sergeants and senior sergeants in each squadron. The barracks consisted of a whole hall with bunk beds. At the beginning of 1950, I was already a senior sergeant and I remember well how friendly this huge team was. In 1951, I was 24 years old, and next to me was the bed of an 18-year-old boy. But I don’t remember a single case of “hazing,” although we were all different in nationality.

My generation, born in 1927, had the difficult fate of living in the barracks for 7-8 years. During this time, we mastered more than one type of aircraft and in terms of knowledge were not much inferior to graduates of aviation schools. Therefore, many began to be given officer ranks, transferring to the position of technician. The only obstacle was the lack of education. I had seven classes, so in parallel with my service I studied at night school. In a word, I slipped through, and on May 5, 1952, by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, I received the rank of junior lieutenant in the technical service. By that time, of course, I was already ready to perform the duties of a photographic equipment technician. It was for this position that I was assigned to the 4th squadron of the regiment. True, later, in order to receive a full-fledged military education, I had to spend a whole 5 years bombarding my superiors with reports about being sent to school. In 1957, after four months of preparation, I passed the state exams as an external student for the full course of the Dvina (Daugavpils) Radio Engineering School, specializing in aviation photography equipment. Perhaps the hardest thing was passing the physical fitness standards - along with cadets much younger than me.

I really liked the work of a photographic equipment technician. At the same time, it was the most unpromising service in all of Long-Range Aviation. Until 1953, the regiments had the position of photographic equipment engineer with the rank of major. She was then eliminated, leaving instead a senior photographic equipment technician with the rank of no higher than senior lieutenant. Due to such injustice in those days, many officers, having served impeccably for 20-25 years, went into the reserve as senior lieutenants.

Soltsy, Combat Regiment

In 1953, the Commander of Long-Range Aviation issued an order to transfer the regiment's staff to three squadrons. Thus, the fourth squadron, in which I served, was subject to disbandment. In total, I spent 9 years in the Lebedinsky regiment. I spent my entire long military service here, and here I became an officer. Many names and surnames have already faded from memory, but I remembered some of the fellow soldiers with whom I had the opportunity to serve forever. This, of course, is my first commander of the 2nd squadron, Mr. Goncharov, squadron commanders Bozhko, Syrovatko, wonderful instructor pilots Mr. Primerov, Mr. Firsov, Mr. Ageev and many others.

After the reduction, some officers were fired, and the majority were distributed to other units. I was no exception. At first, in October, when I received an appointment in Tartu, I was happy because the place was considered prestigious. But I only had to stay there for a day. Another technician from the school was ahead of me and took my position immediately upon arrival. But in another regiment of the same formation (326th TBAD), in the city of Soltsy, Novgorod region, a technician for photographic equipment was needed. It was there that I ended up, having been assigned to the 2nd squadron of the 345th Berlin Order of Kutuzov, III degree TBAP. The regiment, originally formed in 1938 as the 6th DBAP, took part in the Soviet-Finnish War, went through the entire Great Patriotic War, ending it in Berlin, and in the early 1950s was armed with Tu-4 bombers.

Arriving with my wife and baby at a small stop in Soltsy, we barely made it to the city. Compared to Lebedin, it was a real hole - “the lip of Long-Range Aviation,” as they said then. The regiment commander, the Bashkirov settlement, gave us two days to settle in, and we found it difficult to find accommodation in a hut in a village nearby, since it was impossible to find other housing.

Two regiments with a very large staff were based at the airfield, because the crews on the Tu-4 were numerous, and each regiment had 30 aircraft. The town was small, with several bachelor officers living in each house. The conditions were hellish: cold, damp and bugs. Only closer to spring we managed to get a 10-meter room in a “Finnish house”. A neighbor there was the chief of intelligence of the regiment, Mr. Chekhov, and his family - wonderful people, about whom the warmest memories remained for the rest of our lives.

The difference in the provision of sorties between the training and combat regiments, of course, was large. Firstly, practice bombing was carried out with real land mines. Secondly, night photography was used, while in Lebedin they had no idea about this. To obtain night images, FOTABS - light bombs - were hung in the bomb bays. There were about five night cameras per squadron. About the same amount for daytime shooting. They were used mainly to monitor the results of bombing. The bombers were of the same type, but in special hatches we placed cameras on them for day or night photography, depending on the mission. Each such rearrangement was not an easy job, because the day camera weighed 78 kg, the night camera - 45 kg. Together with the mechanic, we constantly had to change them between planes. Tu-4 night flights were frequent, at least two or three days a week, alternating with daytime flights. Moreover, unlike the training regiment, here all crews could fly at any time of the day. Accordingly, the responsibility in 345 was much higher. For example, during the exercises, cameras were additionally used to monitor the radar situation. They were connected to the screens of the onboard Cobalt radars, and most of all we “trembled” precisely for these pictures. After the debriefing exercise, one could easily get a penalty if the darkroom produced bad photographs. We were in charge of the technical preparation of the equipment, and a separate aerial photography service (APS) was in charge of developing and processing the images.

It is curious that our regiment took part in exercises not only against ground targets, but also against sea ones. At the same time, the technology made it possible to obtain very high-quality images from radar screens. The shooting was carried out on 28 cm wide film, which was then printed on paper. When working on ground targets, the images produced contour images of objects, which were then analyzed by a special decipherer. A detailed annotation was compiled for each photograph. Naturally, the navigators-operators also knew how to read these images. One of them was a wonderful man, A.E. Filatchev, who became my good friend for life. The codebreakers, in addition to radar ones, were engaged in processing ordinary aerial photographs during daytime photography - they glued special montages and photographic maps. They also provided explanations for all the objects depicted. Photographing was carried out, as a rule, from high altitudes. The quality of the shooting was usually good, although when it was cloudy, it happened that the photo control task was not completed.

I would also like to say something about the warm relationships that developed between fellow soldiers in Soltsy. Being in close company, we were no different, be it a technician or a pilot. The regimental amateur ensemble, “Joke,” greatly helped us, young officers, to diversify our leisure time in a close group among the gloomy Novgorod swamps. In 1957, our ensemble took first place at the all-army competition in Smolensk. We performed concerts throughout the Novgorod region with a repertoire of popular songs in those years. We composed a lot ourselves, and wherever we went, a full house awaited us. In a word, the relationship was wonderful. What also brought us together was the fact that we were housed compactly at that time, without any special amenities, sharing our joys and hardships equally among everyone. Therefore, they lived very amicably. And the staff in the regiment was enormous, because each flight crew consisted of 11 people: the ship commander, right pilot, navigator-operator, navigator-navigator, navigator-bomber, flight engineer, flight technician, commander of firing installations, left gunner, right gunner and radio operator.

Electrical special equipment group of the 345th TBAP. Soltsy, 1957

Technical staff of the 345th TBAP. Top row – TECh mechanics, bottom row – AFS officers

Good relations have also developed with the command staff of the unit. Whenever the planes returned from a mission, they were met at the parking lots together, each in their own specialty. All crews, after our survey about the shortcomings of the equipment, made notes in the logs. This was mandatory. The aircraft was also released for flight only with the signature of the senior technician and all specialists. Each squadron had 10 aircraft, and the regiment had 3 squadrons in total. All our vehicles were silver in color and had side numbers large on the sides of the forward fuselage and, slightly smaller, on the fin.

In addition to the bombers, the 345th TBAP had two Tu-4 jammers equipped with noise installations with an additional operator in the crew. That’s what they called them: “noisemakers.” Externally, these aircraft were almost the same, but they had permanently installed jamming equipment in their bomb bays. In addition, there were devices for ejecting special cartridges filled with needles, the cloud of which created radar interference. The noise planes did not carry bombs and simply accompanied the formation of bombers in flight, jamming ground-based radars if necessary.

As already mentioned, we, the technicians, were able to fly up on Tupolev machines. For the first time such an opportunity presented itself in Lebedino, secretly from the ship’s commander. I had friends - shooters, commanders of firing installations, and before the flight, I climbed into their cockpit. If the commander had found out about this, they would have given us all, as they say, a latch, because I didn’t have a parachute. If the plane had crashed and a stranger had died in it, it would certainly have become known, and the commander could have been imprisoned. But we didn’t have a single Tu-4 crash, the plane was considered reliable, and I flew. We didn’t fly for long, the flight went in a circle, and I settled down in the aft cockpit, between the gunners’ blisters. We were connected to the front cockpit by a special hole - a pipe piercing the entire fuselage, but, fortunately, the pilots did not recognize anything. We flew for about thirty minutes, the altitude was not very high, and we did not use oxygen equipment. The plane was stable and made a pleasant impression in the air. Later I had to fly officially, for exercises, when the regiment was transferred to other airfields. On such flights we were given a parachute and allocated a seat on the plane. I also had a chance to fly the Tu-4 in the landing version. In the bomb bays, the bomb racks (so-called cassettes) were dismantled, instead a floor was laid and iron benches were made for the paratroopers. Such an aircraft could carry up to 42 people. True, I didn’t like flying in the bomb bay – the roar of the engines got on my nerves too much. I know that these machines did not last long. But in the early 1960s, during the flight to exercises in Severomorsk, they were used to pick up technical personnel. During the exercises themselves, technicians were naturally not taken on the flight.

The end of the Tu-4’s career in our regiment occurred in 1956-57. The aircraft were converted into a transport version and transferred to the airborne troops. Engineers and replacement crews arrived from there to accept the vehicles. A commission worked, a report was drawn up, and the planes flew to a new location. Our flight technicians and flight engineers left with them. The era of jet technology was coming.

Jet era. Tu-16

From the descriptions it was known that even during the war, the Soviet pilot Bakhchivandzhi was the first in the country to make a jet flight. But there was no hint that our aviation would switch to such machines. Only by 1953 it became known that the regiment would soon receive jet aircraft. By that time, we had already seen the first Il-28s in exercises. One of them even landed in Lebedino. It was an interesting car. Indeed, it seemed that this was a new generation of aircraft. About a year before the order of the Commander-in-Chief of the DA, we already knew that we would master the Tu-16, although at that time we had not yet seen them. There were no rush jobs in connection with the transition to new equipment; all preparations were carried out in advance.

Flights on the Tu-4 continued, and crews began to be sent to Ryazan for retraining.

For the technical staff, training mainly took place on site, after receiving the vehicles. Although from the point of view of operation the car was no more complicated than the Tu-4. However, each new generation of aircraft technology required an increasingly higher maintenance culture. The equipment has mainly become radio-electronic. Particularly increased attention to the maintenance regime was required during drills or in connection with complications of the international situation.

Now it’s difficult to remember how the first Tu-16 was greeted in 1955. In any case, as with the Tu-4, everyone also poured out onto the field with curiosity when it landed. The flight crew already knew these machines, the documentation for them also arrived in advance. But still, everyone was very interested, especially when they climbed inside according to their specialties. We discovered everything completely new. Including photographic equipment. In the navigation cabin there was a FA-RL-1 camera for taking images from the radar sight. Later this device was replaced by the small-sized FARM-2. An AFA-42 apparatus for daytime photography, or a NAFA-75 apparatus for night photography was installed through the niche of the front landing gear. Behind there were remotely opened photo hatches. Day cameras were also new. Moreover, they were installed on an automatic oscillating installation AKA-FU. In addition to changing the direction of the optical axis left-right (to simultaneously capture a double-width swath), it could tilt backward when FOTAB was applied at night. On the Tu-16, for the first time, shooting parameters were adjusted automatically in accordance with the flight speed and altitude set on the command instrument by the navigator. We transferred the captured films to the darkroom. Huge photographic tablets, more than a meter wide, were made there from glued frames, where the area was depicted in close-up. This was made possible by very powerful optics: a wide-angle lens for shooting from low heights had a focal length of 20 cm; in addition, there were lenses with a focal length of 75 and 100 cm with a telescopic device for high-altitude shooting. Night cameras had fixed lenses with a focal length of 75 cm. But night shooting was used only for photographic monitoring of the results of bombing in the dark. One aircraft usually flew on such missions. If there were 2-3 of them, then a night camera was installed on each one and one FOTAB was hung up.

The principle of night photography was based on the fact that there was a photocell next to the optics. When the FOTAB exploded (and it produced such a flash that one could go blind), the photocell transmitted a signal through an amplifier to the electromechanical release of the camera shutter. Devices of later designs, NAFA-MK, had differences: firstly, electronics appeared, and secondly, an image shift compensation system. Their photographic film automatically moved in accordance with the movement of the earth's surface. The pictures turned out as if they were during the day.

Changing devices for specific tasks still had to be done manually.

Meanwhile, one AFA-100, together with the cassette, was more than a meter high and weighed about 100 kg. Like any equipment, it happened that cameras broke. If, upon returning from a mission, the navigator or the ship’s commander reported to the senior technician that some unit was out of order, then our brother would get such a hard time that he might not even get out of the plane by nightfall until the defect was completely eliminated. If the camera failed, we filmed it and handed it over to TEC, a photographic equipment repair shop. This did not have to be done often, since the cameras were generally reliable.

And the Tu-16 itself was a very reliable car. At first we received two, maybe three planes a month. But within six months the regiment was completely re-equipped. At first there were 7 aircraft per squadron, and two years later there were already 10. Later, each squadron included one Tu-16 - a jammer.

During the entire period of my service in Soltsy, only one disaster occurred. The cause could not be determined. The plane crashed right outside the city, in Molochkovy Bor, the crew died. Accidents and failures, of course, happened. I especially remember one of them, which occurred due to insufficient strength of the fuselage in the so-called area. eleventh frame. It is located just at the level of the engine air intakes. Several times the first planes' cabin fell off this frame when they hit the ground during landing. If memory serves, the crew died in Poltava for this reason. In Soltsy this happened during the day, literally before our eyes. The Tu-16 landed, but at the end of the run we suddenly saw the cabin slowly turning away from the fuselage. The plane continued to roll when her nose turned toward the landing gear and was dragged along the concrete by ropes. A sheaf of sparks arose from the friction, and it was only by a miracle that the car did not catch fire. Apparently the fuel system was not damaged. In the left seat, the commander of the ship was the GSS Colonel G.G. Agamirov is a piloting equipment inspector. He was of southern blood, went through the entire war and had a rare composure. The entire crew was sent to the hospital, and he, having got out of the cabin lying on his side, only swore (they almost killed him again), calmly got into the car and drove to the control center (command control post). The rest had to be pulled out through the hatch and sent to Leningrad for psychological rehabilitation. After this incident, an order was issued for Long-Range Aviation to suspend flights on the Tu-16. Brigades were sent to the troops from the Kazan and Voronezh factories, which directly in the units reinforced the ill-fated frame with duralumin linings. Unfortunately, many defects in our aviation were eliminated with blood.