Aircraft Identification For the ‘RA-85123 Fan Club’ Member
De-mythology, Times&Spaces, Clash, RA-85123 Fan Club Add comments
Eric sent me a letter the other day with an attached image showing some pins. He wrote he got those pins in 1969 when he was at the Paris Airshow. And two pictures of them brothers having fun in Paris soon followed.
I could only imagine himself, - a young fellow, perhaps fascinated with aviation already, and here he is, - in the focal point of the world aviation - Paris Airshow! At that time I could only dream or read about it, - in ‘Izvestiya‘ newspaper, for example (in our family we never cared about subscription to ‘Pravda‘ 
Eric wrote he toured the Il-62 flight deck at the time, and one of the Soviets on the craft took a picture of him there. It was Eric’s last sighting of the Soviet aircraft until the late 80s.
Himself was already a pilot then, in 80s, and often overnighted in Gander, Newfoundland, As you know, the Ilyushin-62s, and later - the 86s of the former Soviet Aeroflot had Gander as an option for intermediate stop while en route from Moscow to destinations in North America and the befriended Cuba.
It is another image from those days of the past. Probably, the serial numbers of these two Il-62s on pictures were quite close to each other.
But it was the Beriev-30 that Eric was interested to find some information about. Sure I’m delighted to be of use for my fellow ‘RA-85123 Fan Club‘ member with this Moreover, we have a ‘contact’ in the Beriev now!
Anyway, the Beriev-30 was never built in a large series. Notwithstanding the fact it was widely advertised, - in aviation press, and generally, in Soviet media (the mentioned ‘Pravda’ and ‘Izvestiya’ included.. and even on the match box labels (!) - which was surely a recognized element of ‘ big promotion’ then - would-be advent of this aircraft on a segment of the so-called ‘local (regional) airways’ never happened for some reason..
We’ll try and inquire about it from our Beriev contact. He helped us already, providing with images of Be-200 in a post where I speculated on bringing one of those amphibians here for a trial.
Although the Beriev was known for year as the sea plane (amphibians) developer and manufacturer, the ‘30′ was said to be a noticeably successful land plane design, and it was welcomed by the industry as a step forward in the segment of regional aviation already coming into an ‘age of turbines’.
Well, as rumors had it, the ‘big politics’ were then involved in a decision making process, and finally, the preference was given to the Czech Let L-410 as a principal aircraft on the regional segment.
Although not too good for Beriev, this choice wasn’t too bad at all.
Hey, Eric, just for kicks - have a look at this page with some data on the Be-30 in Russian :). It says the plane weighing 5000 kg (ca. 11,000 lbs) as fully loaded, was capable to carry 14 ‘guests’ at 240 KTAS, to fetch them as far away as 1500 km (940 mi), in one go. Oh, it is also mentioned on this page the Be-30 was demonstrated on the Paris Air Sow of 1969!
Cheers,
and we are looking forward to seeing some pictures you gonna bring from a trip to the Boeing Museum in Seattle,
Yours, Clash
The Chairman
September 9th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
So that’s the Be-30! I always pictured it as bigger, like an F-27, from the shape on the pin. Another interesting aircraft in the lower pic from Paris is the “Merquire”, the French version of the 737. It never really took off either, with just a dozen or so built for Air Inter (France)
September 10th, 2007 at 9:56 am
Eric,
yes, that’s it.
There’s a plane existing, a further development to Be-30 called Be-32. Here’s some data on it.
I’ve never heard of that French version of 737. I thought that it would be Americans who make ‘re-makes of something French’ (I started suspecting them doing this after I saw an American remake of a French movie ‘Nikita’ - bloody action featured a super killer girl) - it is a joke, of course.
Anyway, before going to Paris in 2009 you can go and visit Gelendjik in 2008, and you’ll have a chance to see Be-32 in real. What if we mull over this idea?
Take care,
Clash
March 31st, 2009 at 5:44 am
1 “It is another image from those days of the past.”
In fact it is prototype of Il-62 with absolutely different engines. And number of course is far from that at Paris.
2 “Anyway, the Beriev-30 was never built in a large series”
Be-30 was never put into production, and only some (IMHO only two) prototypes existed.
3 “Beriev was known for year as the sea plane (amphibians)”
In fact Beriyev made pure flying boats (not amphibians) also. And for a recent 2 decades (at least) it developed AEWACS planes (A-50 and A-50M)