It is always an exceptionally enjoyable experience - flying with a former military pilot. Conversation is always a great part of it. Although I was not trained in the Soviet Air Force system, nor I ever flew for them, I’m still able to (at least) ‘keep sustainable level of chatter’ on the topic 
I mentioned in one of the recent posts that some mates at the Aktyubinsk Flight College from our graduation year went to fly helicopters, and there was a group of those as well, who expressed their wishes to join the rank of military pilots, - for some reason in that year of 1983 the Soviet Ministry of Defense turned their attention to our wholly civilian establishment for possible recruiting.
I have just finished a pairing with one of our senior captains who used to fly in the Canadian Royal Air Force. Among a few assignments he had while in the Air Force, he also flew the ‘marine patrol’.
Oh, he had seen ’some stuff’ , - marine patrol operation was instrumental in so-called ‘intercepts’, and their targets were ‘Bears’, ‘Badgers’ (Tu-16s), ‘Mays’ (Ilyushin-38s), and other Soviet aircraft that happen to get ‘in their ways’.
Interestingly enough, we had a few guys, ‘there, and then’, - graduates in the bunch which was gone to military, - who used to fly the similar missions, on the similar aircraft.
And I’m thinking: wouldn’t that be nice to organize a great conversation between pilots from both sides, who used to play ‘Cold War games‘?!
Hm, a sort of ’sensitive’ theme.. but a worthwhile one to pursue.
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