Excellent vintage photo from Valentin’s collection showing a Mil-4 helicopter sitting on a rocky plateau (looks to me, an engine is still running), and you can also see the mountain ‘Narodnaya’, a highest peak in the Ural Mountains. It is 1895 m (6217 ft) tall. Read the rest of this entry »
You have to be genuinely resourceful if you ‘do stuff’ in the remoteness of bush. And if you’ve got a ‘bad day’, and got into a kind of emergency and, as a result, ended up with a sure chance to become stranded in the wilderness for a while, I’ll bet you do everything, employ all your ingenuity to get yourself out of the dire situation. Read the rest of this entry »
Have just begun another interesting communication with a pilot, who used to fly MiGs, and now - the Antonov-2s in African desert, hauling loads of tourists on so-called ‘aero-safaris’. Read the rest of this entry »
As I keep drafting these notes for a future work tentatively called here ‘Bush Operation on both sides of Arctic’, somehow it occurred to me that a ‘drafter would probably miss a point’ unless he gives a quick outlook of existing ‘bush environment types’. Apparently, the kinds of landscape over which the operation takes place will define some essential traits characteristic to a particular case. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s a map of Arctic. The one in which you could literally see ‘both sides of it’, as if you ’soar over the top of world’. I’ve got this picture by scanning a page in an old Soviet atlas, published in 1985. By the way, this year bears some significance in respect (how it would turn out later) - to the fates of the world’: ‘Perestroika’ was officially ’spinned-off” then, and in the following years this same world has changed unprecedentedly. Read the rest of this entry »
It was a nice surprise to find this book in my mailbox at a company’s ‘crew room’. A friend of mine, one of our pilots, left it there, signed: “it was pleasure to fly with you”. Recently we worked together, and, as it turned, after a few short minutes of usual ’small talk’, both of us quickly found a turf of common interest laying in the subject of bush flying. His dad, by the way, was mentioned in the book, for he was one of the prominent aviators opening up the province’s North for exploration and development. 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 »
The Caribbean. Enthralling beauty of turquoise waters. Divine islands contoured with miles of sandy beaches exposed to effects of elements, - such as balmy breezes - that gently caress pale-skinned bodies of temporary visitors fetched over here, across the spaces from their habitats normally found in much higher latitudes.. An enticing concept of living ‘with no time’. An ultimate getaway, a magnet paradise for escapist-type characters populating some of John Grisham’s books. Warning: “Do not get overly enchanted!” 
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Before this one I never had even a close look inside a Dash-8 in my entire life! Who knew the first ever ride would be going to happen in the Caribbean! Instead of Canada, not to mention Russia. And to add more peculiarity to a set of circumstances surrounding this ride, - it was ’strictly business’; however, not without a touch of pleasure Read the rest of this entry »
Just got a permission from an author of this picture to post it here. What a beauty! Such a nice visual compliment to a topic risen in the previous post. A shot of this departing An-2 was taken in Nar’yan-Mar, Arctic Russia. Read the rest of this entry »
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