Red Arrows Arrive in Leningrad 1990

This edited extract from my second book starts as the Red Arrows were en route from Uppsala in Sweden to Pulkova Airport, Leningrad (now St Petersburg) at the start of their tour of the Soviet Union in 1990 (it was still the Soviet Union). I was on board a BAe125 executive jet, flying in formation with the Red Arrows

‘You can’t call the AOC Mike,’ said one of the Reds, aghast at my apparent breach of protocol

The Fnnish-Soviet border was now very close and all the aircraft in the formation were sticking close together.

‘Hope the IFF is working properly,’ muttered one of our passengers, referring to the Identification Friend or Foe radio transponder equipment that identifies aircraft to ground controllers. We giggled nervously at his little joke.

Penetration of the Iron Curtain, when we reached it, was a bit of an anticlimax. We had half expected a Soviet fighter escort to be waiting for us but none was forthcoming. The air traffic controllers seemed to be expecting us. They understood English quite well as long as they were not asked anything complicated. From then on the pilots had to get used to measuring heights in metres instead of feet. The Leningrad weather was given as more than 10 kms visibility, cloud base 1200 metres, runway in use 28 Left, runway surface dry but with thunderstorms threatened. The formation had planned to fly a continuous descent from high level right down to airfield height but, frustratingly, clearance was granted in steps so that, with only 24 nautical miles to run, the formation was still at 9000 feet altitude and just skimming the tops of the cloud. It was going to be difficult to manoeuvre the large formation onto the runway centreline in such a short distance with a high rate of descent. Then, suddenly, the clouds broke again and all was clear below with no sign of the promised thunderstorm. The Hawks requested permission to pull ahead of the BAe 125 at this stage of the approach so that they could proceed independently for a run and break. I don’t think the controllers ever really did understand the expression 'run and break' but the Reds did it anyway, leaving dense trails of patriotic red, white and blue smoke all over the airfield. The Red Arrows had arrived!

The BAe 125 made a more sedate instrument approach and, after landing a few minutes behind the Red Arrows, quickly caught up with them on the taxiway. All eleven aircraft then proceeded at a stately pace through the extremely crowded civil airport to a military dispersal several miles away where the Air Attaché, Air Commodore John Cheshire, and the Assistant Air Attaché, Squadron Leader John Elliott, another old friend of mine from Victor tanker days at Marham, were waiting to greet us. The first thing that struck all of us was how friendly the Russians were. Their faces were beaming, and they were anxious to shake hands and to try out their few words of English. Fuel bowsers were instantly available for refuelling the aircraft, much faster than often happens at UK airfields. Customs and immigration officials were on hand to dole out reams of paper and even they were able to smile. Apparently handing out the forms was more important than collecting them in or reading what we had written on them. It was then that it dawned on us that we were being treated like VIPs, not like tourists or possible enemies.

The Red Arrows ground crew, who had travelled as usual in the back seat of the Hawks, set about the Hawks’ after-flight servicings while the pilots and other support personnel soaked up the atmosphere and signed autographs. Eventually we were invited to board a fleet of military coaches which took us to the civilian airport terminal. There we met up with our AOC, Air Vice-Marshal Mike Pilkington, who had travelled ahead of us in a 32 Squadron VIP Andover together with the few members of the British media and a PR team from British Aerospace.

‘Hello, Mike,’ I said as we greeted each other warmly for the first time in 25 years. ‘Long time, no see.’

‘You can’t call the AOC Mike,’ said one of the Reds, aghast at my apparent breach of protocol.

‘Oh yes he can,’ said the AOC with a grin.

Formalities over, we were driven off in a long convoy, led by a police car with flashing lights and siren. Each coach had at least one Russian interpreter on board and from ours we learned that we were now a delegatsiya and as such entitled to a police escort to ensure we were not held up in traffic jams. For a while we thought that red traffic lights in Russia meant go until we realised that every traffic light at every junction was red until after we had passed when, presumably, the normal sequencing was resumed. It was fascinating to note that many ordinary Soviet vehicles tagged onto the end of our convoy so that they, too, could take advantage of the police escort.

We eventually arrived at the Soviet Officers’ Club in down-town Leningrad, a faded but once grand building with an imposing facade outside and sweeping staircases and lofty decorated ceilings inside. The Club was crowded. Whether it was always so or whether people had turned up especially to see us I do not know but we were certainly the centre of attention. We were led by our hosts and interpreters to the front of a long queue to collect our dinner. We then sat down at tables that had been held ready for our arrival. The food was no more than adequate but better than many of us had expected. Most of us found it embarrassing that the hundreds of other diners were watching us, not simply because we were British but because we were being fed meat. I was not the only one, I suspect, who ground his way through the gristly, tasteless meat when we would normally have left it untouched on the side of the plate.

After dinner, we were ushered back into our coaches for another long bus ride with the same police escort. We arrived at a military hotel in a really shabby part of town and parked at a rear entrance. The hotel, of appalling modern architecture, would rate barely one star by western standards but who cared? There was a TV in every room and the world cup was being shown live. We had adequate supplies of British beer, freshly delivered from our support Hercules, and I doubt if any import duty had been paid. I was fascinated to meet my first dezhurnaya – the archetypal, unsmiling, large Russian ladies who sit upright on small chairs and guard all hotel corridors. They watched us dashing from room to room, making quite a bit of noise as we unpacked, drank our beer and checked for late amendments to the flying programme. There seemed to be no other guests in our part of the hotel and soon we settled down for the night.

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