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  I wrote about some substantial elements of innovation that one would immediately note in the Yak-42, a short/medium range airliner introduced in the Soviet Union’s civilian aviation in the early 80s.

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It was a real delight to receive this news. A friend of mine from Russian city of Samara dropped a line a couple days ago tipping me to check out their web-site where they posted a bunch of photographs showing a progress of one long-run project. Read the rest of this entry »

Another photograph from the ‘Valentin’s depository, ‘AVLUGA file’. It shows a ’sim bay’ at our college in Aktybinsk. These flight training devices had neither ‘motion capability’, nor any kind of visual system to simulate the effects of flight, and the elements of environment, but they did fairly good job when we used them during an introductory training course. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you know that today is the ‘National Aviation Day’? As a matter of fact, it is exactly today, on February 23, 2009, all the country’s aviation community (and all to whom it matters in the entire world, for that sake), commemorate the 100th Anniversary since the first ever ‘manned, heavier-than-air, motor-powered flight‘ in Canada. On this day, exactly one hundred years ago, a motorized craft called ‘The Silver Dart’ made history as it lifted off from the frozen surface of the Bras d’Or Lake in Cape Breton Island, and flew successfully 800 meters, at an altitude of 9 meters. Read the rest of this entry »

Interesting, what’s going on with this Beaver? Been noticed recently in Kelowna, in such a ‘humble’ condition. Hope it’s destined for better. Say, it’s ‘waiting for a major overhaul’, maybe, ‘rebuild’, expecting a new - of course, turbine! - engine to be put on..  And it’ll see more sky one day.

Wonder, are the ‘Viking’ guys, along with a ‘go-ahead’ of their DHC-6 Series 400 program, also exploring a prospect to put a ‘renewed’ DHC-2 in production at some point down the road?

This picture goes back to the early 80s. Surprisingly how well it turned out, - quite crisp, and in pretty vivid colors. What I did on it in Photoshop was just a minor color/balance correction, and a little bit of retouch to remove a few apparent scratches. Read the rest of this entry »

At times it occurs to me, why didn’t I write a good post devoted to a first plane I flew commercially.. It was the Tupolev-134, and given all the circumstances surrounding my career transitioning into its right seat, I should summarize it: it was a fairly complicated ‘flying platform for the purposes of continued on-the-job training’ Read the rest of this entry »

What a beautiful dawn! Mornings like that are a special feature, highlighting an outstanding character of the Kuban region (oficially - ‘Krasnodarsky Krai’)  located in Southern part of  Russia. I wrote already a few dedicated posts about this country, and there seems to be a good reason to write one more. Yes, it was a pleasure to receive a mail from an old friend of mine living in Kuban. Aleksei (one more Alexei here and around! ) wished all good things to us in the New Year Eve, and ‘briefed’ me on what’s going on in his ’sophisticated household’. Read the rest of this entry »

Just got an e-mail from another ‘correspondents’ in Russia. Dima, a guy I’ve been intermittently corresponding with for the last two years, wrote on some achievements he accomplished lately going on the road of ‘career flying’ - a walk of life he began not too long prior to the time we met on the Internet. Right now he’s undergoing a transition course for the Tupolev-154 type rating, and says chances are he might just ’seamlessly’ transfer to another training class - of English, and International flying regulations. Read the rest of this entry »

It is a common knowledge in aviation community all around the world that Canada is a good place for flight training. Maybe, among the best. Training here is recognized for its high quality and availability. Also, there’s a thing that strongly appeals to international students: hourly rates for flight instruction - they are fairly decent compared to those in many other countries, especially, in Europe. Read the rest of this entry »