| An air show was held in Monino in honor of Russian Air Fleet Day Russian Air Fleet Day has two founding fathers: Nicholas II and Stalin. Both of them gave orders that were significant for domestic aeronautics in August. The last Russian tsar, on July 30, old style (August 12, new style), 1912, ordered the formation of the country's first unit, as we would now say, of the air force under the Main Directorate of the General Staff and transfer to its jurisdiction all issues of the development of a new type of troops. And the leader of the peoples, starting on August 18, 1933, started a tradition in the country of celebrating the Day of the USSR Air Fleet. In 1992, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation supported Stalin's initiative, deciding to celebrate this professional holiday (only not the USSR, but Russia) annually on the third Sunday of August.
Finally, the commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force, Army General Vladimir Mikhailov, last Friday promised to introduce a new tradition: to celebrate Air Fleet Day in Monino, near Moscow.
In Monino, where until last weekend there was not only an airfield, but even the most primitive runway, there is nevertheless a rich Air Force museum. Last weekend, our country's first air show of historical aircraft, "Flying Legends," took place there. At its opening, Army General Mikhailov promised to make the air festival a regular event.
Especially for the air show in Monino, they quickly built a real (albeit unpaved) runway and a fake airfield from the times of the Great Patriotic War - with dugouts, caponiers, weapons workshops, airplanes, cars, anti-aircraft guns and soldiers dressed according to the era. The anti-aircraft guns fired several almost real blank bursts into the sky, repelling a demonstration “air raid” of “German bombers.”
Such displays of restored historical aircraft, which, despite their venerable age, are capable of taking to the skies on their own, are new to us, but they are quite often held in Western European countries. For example, in the UK there are between 10 and 20 different air shows every month, and at least a couple of them are entirely dedicated to historical aircraft. And in other countries, veteran vehicles are used as a “seasoning” for modern airliners and combat aircraft.
From there - from Europe - most of the “flying legends” arrived near Moscow. The legendary exhibits of the Monino Museum itself are no longer able to get off the ground (although Commander-in-Chief Mikhailov promised to “put some of them on the wing” at the festival by next year).
In this regard, the equipment of our wartime allies, the Americans, turned out to be most advantageously presented. However, as it turned out, in many cases it can be considered as ours as theirs, because the Americans actively supplied their aircraft to the USSR under Lend-Lease and the aces of the Red Army flew them here. For example, the largest of the historical aircraft shown in the air - the American-made B-25 bomber - passed over Monin under the control of a mixed crew. Colonel General Vasily Reshetnikov was sitting in the cockpit with the pilots of the Austrian Flying Bulls group, which now owns this aircraft. During the war, he piloted the same B-25 on the Soviet-German front.
The Luftwaffe in the sky of Monino was represented, paradoxically, by a collector from Ukraine, Vladimir Nessonov. He arrived, however, not on a real historical plane, but on a scaled-down model (about two-thirds of the original size) of the famous “laptezhnik” - the Junkers-87 bomber. Due to the shortage of authentic enemy aircraft, the show organizers had to resort to the services of a group of modern Yak-52 sports aircraft to simulate a raid on the “field airfield of the Red Army.”
However, the fact that “Hitler’s” plane was officially allowed to fly over Russia for the first time after the war already has great symbolic significance. Until very recently, our military could not overcome the unpleasant associations associated with German wartime technology. As recently as January 2000, Swiss pilots from the Ju-Air airline tried to fly around the world on the Junkers-52 transport, which was produced in Germany since the 30s and was widely used, among other fronts, in Russia.
The Swiss crossed Europe and Asia, but then - in order to reach America - they had to cross Russia. Their request to land and refuel on Sakhalin was rejected, and the planned “around the world” trip never took place.
This time, in Monino, the pilots had serious problems of a different kind. The weather smiled on them only on the opening day of the holiday - August 13th. The next day, half the monthly rainfall fell in Moscow and the Moscow region. A special plane was prepared in advance to disperse the clouds, but it turned out to be powerless against such a rampant nature. The “flying legends” spent Saturday on the ground. Mikhail KUKUSHKIN |
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