Gelendjik ‘Hydro-Aviation Salon‘ is to open on September, 4. We haven’t proceeded with our plans to go and visit the event this year. Kinda long trip, but first of all there’s been a few reasons related to a necessity to do some immediate stuff at home. My apologies to our ‘RA-85123 Fan Club‘ members for ‘failing to fulfill expectations’ 
Anyway, we can be sure of a ’steady stream of imagery’ from the site. There’s a few friends of mine living in the region, and some of them are certainly going to Gelendjik, and they are taking their cameras with them too.
No doubt the main feature of the airshow is going to be a parade of the Beriev aircraft, as always, represented by a few generations of them.
I’m looking forward in excitement to seeing if the Beriev men have embodied in metal (or, in more modern material - composite) one of the projects they’ve been lately working on - a small amphibian for recreational flying, which has so far gotten a tentative designator ‘Be-101′..
Beriev is an old company, by any standard. It goes back to middle 30s.
I wish they would do some restoration projects of their ancient designs as well, and this one would be a great candidate for such an undertaking: MBR-2, built in large numbers in 30s and 40s.
It would be interesting to see what foreign (to Russia) aircraft, if any, are going to appear at Gelendjik.
Like this one, piloted, for instance, by a truly dedicated sea-plane flying enthusiast. Well, this picture is not quite off the topic, to be honest
Although the dominance by Beriev is going to be more than apparent (the airshow itself is taking place at their Black Sea test base premises), there will be a chance for other, smaller companies emerging now in Russia on the remnants of the once huge ‘Soviet Aviaprom‘ (generalized term for the whole complexion of the ‘Soviet aircraft manufacturing industry‘) to show up with some ’stuff’. Somehow it happened that in Samara region of Russia, at the end of the famous ‘Perestroika‘ years, there was a ‘Big Bang of creation’, resulting in emergence of a plethora of small, privately owned enterprises specialized in designing and building General Aviation aircraft, and, specifically - the sea planes..
Those companies have been present at airshows in Gelendjik in the previous years, and some of them demonstrated examples that draw attention from various circles in the world of aviation.
So far the most known case has been with regard to this plane - a ‘Che-25‘ design by Boris Chernov. ‘One of a genius’ - how they call this Samara resident who was an active creative force at the very beginning of that ‘Samara General Aviation phenomenon‘.
A while ago I intensively communicated with a gentleman who used to work beside Mr. Chernov, and later on went to China, as a member of an engineering group to help the Chinese set up a serial production of the Che-25’s version which was dubbed ‘BD-205′, or, ‘BADA-205‘.
As a result of lost communication I ceased to keep tracking events, and don’t know the current status of the project. Well, who knows.. But at some point down the road I wouldn’t wonder seeing the brand ‘Made in China‘ figuratively spring off the ‘Wal-Mart‘ shelves and march further beyond, right into hangars of the GA pilots in North America.
No, it is a joke
OK, looking forward to seeing what the Gelendjik is going to ‘dish out’ then
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