Chaika Display in bad weather - Tony Cunnane's Life and Times

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.

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. Sadly no-one took any photographs!

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!

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