Clashmaker.com

As I wrote in a previous post: my friend Alexei is doing good as he deploys ‘a somewhat’ that in terms of North American General Aviation could be called a ‘Fixed Base Operator‘. I intentionally predicated the statement with ‘a somewhat‘, because you have to adjust the meaning of ‘commonly known things and notions’, when you try to find their equivalent in ‘Russia’s realities’.

One of those realities is that for an individual, a private owner, it is near to impossible to enjoy ‘at full throttle’ such a ’specific object’ of ownership as an aircraft, and at the same time - to be in ‘no contradiction’ with all existing regulations in the area governing the General Aviation in the country. The set of rules is so lengthy, tedious, and demanding, that it brings you into a situation where you, as an individual, a private enthusiast of aviation, have to comply (to certain extent) with requirements that may be as complex as those outlined for largest subjects of aviation such as commercial airlines.. Another thing is, (and little has changed since many, many years ago), the military firmly holds the ‘ownership’ over the country’s airspace. If we refer it again to the ‘logic of comparative standards and definitions’, we promptly come to a conclusion that the entire country’s airspace is pretty much set up as ‘one big ADIZ‘

As a matter of proven fact, there’s a very slim chance for a private aircraft owner to get an approval from the military centres of ‘UVD’ (military ATC sectors) for a submitted flight plan in a timely manner. They often just don’t respond to the individuals’ requests. On the other hand, it would be not a rare occasion, on which some eager enthusiast didn’t bother himself about it - he would just go and fly!

And in my opinion, it is important to support such a type of well organized enterprises as the Alexei’s (as to my knowledge, there’s a few similarly indented outlets in other regions of Russia), and foster them as ‘areas of growth’ from where the body of future Russia’s general aviation will structurally develop. Successful and strong business of this kind may also be able to push and leverage some ‘lobbying efforts’ aimed at extending freedoms and relaxing flying regime ‘prescribed’ so far for general aviation and private aircraft owners.

Yet you may wonder, “how on Earth would the state of affairs in Russia’s general aviation be of my concern”, but as I learned from reading one article in the ‘Canadian Aviator’ magazine, there’s some groups of organized individuals here, in North America, who would definitely welcome any positive changes in this area.

I was delighted, when I read ‘Alaskans pioneer VFR route to Russia - and beyond’ in the July/August 2006′ copy of magazine.It was about a project of establishing an official VFR route linking continents of North America and Asia trough the Bering Strait and Russia’s Far East. The project was initiated by Felix Maguire and the Alaska Airmen’s Association in 2001. I’m going to make a research in order to get some more information on the current project’s status. And I will certainly let Alexei know about it. Maybe, he has resources within his ‘network of connections’ to help push it further. And get a new branch of the route: ‘Across Siberia - to Krasnodar’

P.S.

Yes! Found some information on Felix Maguire.

(to be continued..)