Weather Check at Chaika, Kiev

An edited extract from "Red Arrows - the Inside Story" by Tony Cunnane published by
Woodfield Publishing in 2001

We walked back to the terminal building to polite but prolonged applause from the drenched onlookers who must have thought this was part of the entertainment

On Sunday the weather in the Kiev area was even worse. This time I went along in the helicopter to Chaika and at times we were forced down to 100 feet above the ground by low cloud, rain and mist. The Airport Director at Chaika, an Air Force full Colonel, decided that since I was a pilot, he and I should get airborne and do a weather check. He could not speak a word of English. He ordered an ancient Antonov AN-2 biplane, rather reminiscent of an overgrown Tiger Moth, to be prepared for an immediate take-off. The Colonel borrowed a huge cape from another Russian standing there and draped it around my shoulders. We then barged our way through large crowds in the Air Traffic Control building and outside into the pouring rain. A civilian mechanic, not a pilot, had taxied the aircraft from the flight line to the front of the tower. As we boarded, the Colonel occupied the left hand pilot’s seat and I was invited to take the right hand seat. The civilian stood behind us on a step looking distinctively apprehensive, as well he might.

It quickly became apparent that the Colonel was not very familiar with flying this type of aircraft, or possibly any type, and he had to be repeatedly prompted by the civilian mechanic. We taxied out, in front of a large, admiring crowd, and took off uneventfully. Once airborne the Colonel handed control over to me just as we went into thick, turbulent, rain-bearing cloud. It was some time before I identified all the instruments I needed for maintaining a safe climb and even longer before I realised that all the instruments were calibrated in metres for height and kilometres per hour for vertical and horizontal speed. I found conversation difficult in my halting Russian partly because of the Colonel’s strange dialect but mainly because I was having to devote most of my attention to flying that incredible monster of an aircraft.

In this fashion we flew around for a full hour, in and out of thunderstorms and torrential rain, not once catching sight of the ground, seeking the hoped-for clearance from the west. A great deal of rain came in through the windscreen seals and liberally covered the instrument panels and me. Then the Colonel, who had been fiddling with a radio compass, indicated by hand signals that I should start a descending left hand turn. He closed the throttle to make quite sure I understood his wishes. We descended in a continuous spiral from a height of 2,000 metres right down to 200 metres above the ground before we came out of cloud over the forest. I can only assume that either the Colonel or the mechanic knew where we were because I certainly did not. We landed, to my not inconsiderable relief, and the Colonel complimented me on my flying ability! We walked back to the terminal building to polite but prolonged applause from the drenched onlookers who must have thought this was part of the entertainment.

The weather was clearly unsuitable for a Red Arrows display. By this time the Soviet general had arrived with Air Marshal Pilkington and the crowd had grown to several thousand. Amongst them I met some teenage boys who told me they had cycled 80 kms just to see the British Red Arrows. Word had obviously gone quickly around the Ukrainian grapevine since yesterday. The General and Air Marshal were naturally keen for the display to go ahead but it was obvious a new time would have to be negotiated with the Civil Airport authorities. They had their own general who was more concerned with airline schedules than with the Red Arrows’ display - which he was not going to see anyway. All these negotiations between Generals and our Air Marshal took place in the crowded air traffic control with dozens of ordinary citizens eavesdropping! Mike Pilkington later wrote in his report:

‘I reflect now on the unlikely spectacle of a Soviet 3-star general and myself in the Control Tower at Chaika studying meteorological charts and re-planning together as fellow airmen the re-staging of, as he termed it, the operation of the Squadron. I believe the significance was not lost on him, or the 50 or so ordinary people breathing down our necks either. He certainly pulled out all the stops - even to the extent of arranging for the civil airport to be closed for movements for the second time that day.’

At last the weather started clearing from the west and a new display time of 6pm was set. Most of the crowd wandered off for a couple of hours to do what ever they do on a Sunday afternoon in Kiev but they returned in time to see an excellent flat display. The crowd were extremely enthusiastic and we off-loaded another large batch of brochures, souvenirs and stickers and received in turn many souvenirs from the Ukrainians in the crowd. The Team Leader’s debriefing of this display took place in the lobby on the 15th floor of the hotel using our portable video playback equipment. Bemused tourists and hotel staff watched in astonishment, but at least it was quieter than the musical evening of the night before!

Monday 25 June dawned mild and sunny with no sign of the clouds and rain that had threatened to ruin the Red Arrows displays on the previous two days. Whilst waiting to board the coaches from Kiev to Borispol, Wing Commander David Guest, the Hercules Captain, told me that his crew had spent the previous evening at the house of the Borispol Base Commander having dinner. Wing Commander Guest had produced a bottle of Glenfiddich for the Colonel to try. ‘Very like Russian vodka to my mind’, said the Colonel. David was not sure whether that was a compliment or not.

Out on the airfield while the official farewells were being made, I found that I still had a 10 rouble note in my possession. I could have changed it back into Sterling with the Assistant Air Attaché but, since it was worth barely £1, I decided instead to give it to one of the Soviet guards who had been protecting our aircraft overnight. The young guard quickly stuffed the note inside his jacket. I told John Elliot what I had done.

‘You shouldn’t have done that, Tony,’ he said earnestly. ‘That guard will be in serious trouble if he’s found with a 10 rouble note in his possession because it’s more than he earns in a month. They have nothing to spend money on and his officers will assume he has stolen it.’

The BAe 125 and the Reds taxied out at 0950 local time for a take off exactly on schedule at 1000hrs for the flight to Budapest. On the climb it had been arranged for the Hawks to join up in close formation on either wing of the BAe 125 for photographic purposes. The late Arthur Gibson, the well-known and sadly missed freelance film-maker, photographer, and friend of the Red Arrows for many years, had moved from Air Marshal Pilkington’s VIP Andover to the BAe 125 for this purpose.

Just after the formation had levelled off at around 30,000 feet the first Hawks appeared on the starboard side of the aircraft and all six passengers in the BAe 125 moved over to that side to get a good view. We heard an anguished shout from the flight deck and Corporal Morgan came rushing back to see what was happening. The auto-pilot had failed to cope with the rapid change of lateral trim and the co-pilot flying in the left hand seat had fought to stop the aircraft rolling to the right. Before the steward could report back to the co-pilot what was happening, we noticed more Hawks coming up on the port side and the inevitable happened – an undemanded roll to the left. We passengers became rather better behaved after that.

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