Multicrew training concept in the USSR.

De-mythology, Getting Wings, Q&A, Yakovlev. The name&the planes Add comments

‘Back in the USSR!’

Not on the BOAC plane, but on our ‘Time Machine’:)

Grass fieid in Khlebodarovka, the Aktyubinsk Flying College training base. Yak-18T was an initial type we were getting our wings on. Here’s a couple of words about FLIGHT TRAINING IN THE USSR.

An aviation training system in the USSR was remarkably different from what existed for the same purposes in the Western countries. In the middle of 70s the Ministry of Civil aviation in the USSR began introducing a new type of training facilities that could be defined as ‘ab-initio colleges’.

The ultimate goal of this move was to create a solid training base for preparing cadre of flight personnel adequately trained and educated, and ready to face new challenges of the on-going progress in the world aviation.

Flight cockpit of the Yak-18T. Side-by-side pilot seating lay-out.

(My instructor Nikolai Tetyushin, and me. Khlebodarovka, in the vicinity of Aktyubinsk, Kazakhstan. 1981)
As one element of this entire concept there was an established practice to train cadets (’COURSANTS’ - “КУРСАНТЫ”) in the MULTICREW environment from the very beginning of the course.

On this blow-up of the previous image you can see the Yak-18T primary trainer’s cockpit, and there’s two side-by-side seats for pilots. Interestingly enough, we never flew these planes SOLO, i.e., on ’single pilot operation’.

(to be continued…)

One Response to “Multicrew training concept in the USSR.”

  1. Clashmaker » Blog Archive » Oshkosh in one glance (Seaplane - reservations) Says:

    […] time, and the only experience I had on a single-engine piston powered plane was a time when I flew the Yak-18T in the Aqtobe Civil Aviation Flight College ’some twenty and plus’ years […]

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