The Russian Knights Visit Scampton

'If you have something private to say, make sure you say it in private!

‘Hope to see you in Scampton,’ had been the cry as we said farewell to the Soviet pilots at Borispol in the Ukraine in June 1990 when the Red Arrows started home after their highly successful six day tour of Leningrad, Kiev and Budapest. It was the sort of thing you often say on leaving new-found friends even when you do not expect it to happen. But in this case it did happen – just fifteen months later. The ‘Russian Knights’, now flying the mighty Sukhoi-27 fighter bombers known to NATO as Flanker, did come to Scampton.

In Russian folklore a young warrior famous for his strength and his ability to defend his Motherland was called a Veetyaz, roughly equivalent to the original English Knight. Hence the name for the Team, Русские Витязи (Russkiye Veetyaze), The Russian Knights. But was it a Russian Aerobatic Team or a Soviet Aerobatic Team? So much had been happening on the international stage, especially in the three short eventful weeks before the scheduled start of the visit, that we were by no means sure. The Soviet Union was rapidly disintegrating and the entire world was watching with bated breath.  However, no-one at Scampton really cared about the politics –  all that mattered was that they were coming.

I was heavily involved in planning the station’s arrangements for the Russian Knights’ visit. Knowing how fond the Russians are for ceremonies, I recommended to our Command HQ that the Russians should be greeted with a formal arrival ceremony to mark what would have been an historic occasion even without the break up of the Soviet Union. My suggestion was greeted with not a little scepticism and alarm. Long gone were the days when RAF stations used to have regular parades, so long gone that most officers and airmen never parade again after graduating from initial training schools. However, that was not the sort of parade I wanted. I reckoned there should be a marching band and a saluting base from which the leading players could make their official speeches of welcome. I wanted a formal line up of Red Arrows’ aircraft and pilots opposite the Soviets. I wanted the pilots to walk across the tarmac from opposite sides of the dispersal so that they could be photographed and filmed greeting each other halfway. I wanted lots of media on hand to record it all.

Some months before the actual visit by the Russian Knights, a small Soviet delegation flew in to RAF Scampton for a preliminary planning meeting. Probably without realising the irony of the situation, the station hierarchy had decided to park the strange-looking Soviet AN-72 transport aircraft on a remote and normally disused dispersal that for many years had been the place where Blue Steel missiles were loaded onto Vulcan bombers. Still there on the dispersal, and probably still connected to the main water supplies, were the high pressure water hydrants that had been designed to flood the dispersal rapidly in the event that the extremely volatile fuel for the missiles leaked out during the loading process.

The prospect of seeing any Soviet military aircraft on the ground in Lincolnshire was so unusual that I invited the local media to Scampton to cover the event even though we had no clear idea what to expect. Not surprisingly, all the local print and television media sent representatives. BBC Radio Lincolnshire sent along Chris Jones, the station's very popular presenter and friend of mine, to do a live outside broadcast. As a result, Chris made broadcasting history. Out of the Soviet aircraft popped a three-star general. We had not been expecting such a high powered visit. I persuaded the Soviet Air Force general to be interviewed live through an RAF Interpreter. I was astonished that the General readily agreed to do the interview and some of his aides seemed quite worried. I assured them that Radio Lincolnshire was a family radio station and that there would be no political questions. And so, we think for the first time ever, a serving Soviet general was interviewed live on a western radio station without any advance notification and without a script. It was a great success and Chris was a minor celebrity in the BBC. I imagine political and defence news reporters around the country were rather miffed at a missed opportunity.

Later, we took the visitors to the Officers’ Mess for lunch. While I was in a toilet cubicle I overheard part of a conversation in Russian taking place in the adjacent wash room.

‘Comrade General,’ someone, presumably a KGB man, said in a hushed voice, ‘be very careful what you say in front of Major Cunnane, the public relations officer – he can speak Russian!’

That Russian had broken one of the most elementary rules of espionage: if you have something private to say, make sure you say it in private. The most intriguing part of that conversation is that I had not uttered a single word of Russian that day; I had no need to, because there were more than enough official interpreters around. So how did the speaker know I spoke Russian? Someone had done their homework though.

I then had to remain shut in the toilet until I was quite certain that all the Russians had left the wash room.

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