Clashmaker.com

Investigation led by the Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) is on. They found FDR, CVR on a site shortly after the accident of September 14th.. There was a report of these recording devices been badly damaged as a result of severe impact the aircraft suffered after ‘falling from the sky‘. Yeah, that’s how some witnesses, happened to be awake at this wee hour commented on sudden appearance of low flying aircraft over the city’s neighborhood near which the fated plane collided with the ground. Read the rest of this entry »

A tragic news came from Russia. A 737-500 of the ‘Aeroflot-Nord‘, a subsidiary to the ‘Aeroflot - Russian Airlines‘, crashed nearby the airport of Perm, a big industrial city in the Ural Mountains region. The plane approached Perm following 2-hour uneventful flight from Moscow. Accident occurred in the wee hours of the morning on September, 14, the local time was about 5 o’clock. Read the rest of this entry »

Another training session is coming up soon. In fact, - in the next week. Oh, time flies! Feel a bit stressed, as always. Uh, ‘flyable time’ - it is a different stance.

But as for simulators, and the history of the aviation ’simulated training’ - it is quite an educative topic. My first exposure to the ’simulated flight’ occurred at the Aqtyubinsk Flight College. Read the rest of this entry »

Radial engine is back to Canadian bush. Noteworthy that it is a Russian engine now. Well, generally speaking, radial engine hasn’t been written off yet completely as a choice of power plant for specifically bush aircraft.  But it presumably means those choices were made many, many years ago, when that design for internal combustion engines was ‘in fashion’. Or, in favour among the ‘then’ engine manufacturers. Read the rest of this entry »

No, apparently, it is not the volcanic ash - stuff coming out of the volcano’s crater on this picture. It could be something less harmful - if you talk about ‘hazards of flying nearby the active volcanoes’ -  just a plume of water steam, for example. Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t you know that flying into a volcanic ash cloud doesn’t sound like a great idea? Whereas flying into a usual cloud may at times even be a fun (if it is not a big CB though), getting into a volcano eruption plume warrants dealing with a serious trouble. Read the rest of this entry »

“Tah-Dah!” It has happened, at last.

Antonov-2, a venerable biplane celebrated its 60th anniversary last year, was reintroduced on floats. Aviators in North America might wonder, “why, - what’s a big deal?..” Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, a communication with Samara has been established! I wrote in a previous post how guys from the Russian city of Samara (located in the Volga river region) teamed up to build a replica of the famous Polikarpov-2 biplane. Read the rest of this entry »

Nah, ‘Aerial Photography‘, - sounds a little bit too pretentious when you see those hazy images taken at some occasions of flying in middle-late 90s. Like this one that I took on the departure out of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in April of 1996. Read the rest of this entry »

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’ Read the rest of this entry »