As promised, I am posting the final post about the most interesting authors of LJ. And it will be devoted to highly specialized topics, namely aviation, and everything connected with it. Why this particular topic? If, for example, take nature, it is rare who can resist greatness mountain ranges and oceans. So it is in technology. Graceful multicolored handsome airplanes, both in the sky and on the ground, have always attracted and will continue to attract the enthusiastic glances of people. This topic has not spared me either. I have been fond of airplanes and air spotting for a long time, and I keep a separate one in my own blog.
There are dozens of bloggers for whom the airport is their second home. And among them there are real pros who lead very, very interesting blogs. In my first post, under # 5 favorites, I already mentioned Alexandra Cheban alexcheban and today I will introduce you to other interesting authors. Of course, the people I will talk about below know each other very well, have been friends for a long time and are professional colleagues. But the rest of the authors and readers of LiveJournal may discover new faces and the stunning, exciting world of civil and military aviation.
In the first place I will put the inimitable Marina Lystseva fotografersha - a professional aviation photographer, the author of dozens of simply gorgeous posts, whether it be a report from an aviation holiday, a major air show, or from a new model of an airliner.
02. Marina.
Selected publications and collections of Marina, recommended for viewing:
Aviator - Sergey Martirosyan aviator_ru also known to many. No one can represent him better than himself: " My love for aviation began a long time ago, but only when I began to take notes, and to save pleasant moments and images in photographs, I began to express myself actively. I have a fairly large archive of personal aviation photos that I took at airports, in flight or just like that, as well as at various air shows.
08. Sergey.
My friends call me Aviator, I cannot walk past an airplane taking off or look into the sky, noticing a contrail of an airplane or admiring a handsome airplane parked at the airport. Coming aboard the plane, I feel at home, saying “Hello hostesses” to the flight attendants, and after completing, always pleasant for me, flight “Thank you for work” to the crew. The sky, the plane, the runway are all that make up my life. "
10. Airbus A350-1000 - the most spacious of the entire A350 family, 74 meters long and with a maximum capacity of 440 passengers.
11. The Airbus A350-900 has a distinctive carbon fiber livery, which symbolizes the advanced technologies for the use of composite materials in aircraft construction (over 50%).
FROM Julia Loris relax_action I am well acquainted personally, thanks to the first official spotting at our Kaliningrad airport Khrabrovo. Julia is an amazing person! It is not only interesting to shoot airplanes with her, but also to talk on many topics. Julia is not only a wonderful photographer and spotter, but also a professional designer.
13. Julia in the Kaliningrad Khrabrovo.
Thanks to Yulia, many spotters of our country have in their collections unique aviation keychains, branded T-shirts and safety vests. Julia is also the author of such a wonderful "branded" event as "". The term "podzaboring", habitual among spotters, has acquired new facets thanks to it.
Creative work as a designer directly affects Yulia's photographs, making them bright, unusual, and also shot from non-standard angles.
Another great master of air spotting - diman7777 . Dmitry lives in the south of Germany, almost on the border with Switzerland, and thanks to him we can enjoy magnificent colorful reports from best airports Germany, and the rest of Europe. Not so long ago, Dmitry visited, very beloved by me, the island of Fuerteventura on Canary Islands and, thanks to good traffic, I brought dozens of wonderful pictures from there, which I recommend that you familiarize yourself with without fail.
Rounds out the top five Maxim Holbreicht max_sky from Omsk, which has a unique airport "Omsk-Central", located within the city limits. Maxim is not only an active participant in many official spotting in various russian cities, but also the author-compiler of a unique in its kind catalog of LiveJournal spotters from Russia and the CIS countries. If you suddenly did not have enough of the five air bloggers I am describing, thanks to Maxim, you can always get acquainted with several dozen more similar authors.
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Then somehow Alexander started a "Merry Theme": http://arabskiy-pilot.livejournal.com/18415.html
I do not like stories about "how we are almost not that", but since the Commander of Arabas said "must", then it must be. Yalla ... (Let's go in Arabic). I began to write a response to his post, but it turned out to be a bit long, and you need to feed your LJ, so I'll post here.
Then there will be "a lot of bukaf" and scary ...
Second half of the 90s, summer. Aeroclub. Glider L-13 "Blanik". Beautiful and interesting flights. By that time, I was already a third-year athlete, I was already able and knew something, and of course I could not do without "feathers from the fifth point."
That summer gasoline became very bad, and in order to avoid unnecessary takeoffs of towing aircraft, the authorities decided to "lift" two athletes in one glider - fly and train together. For the same reason, the lack of gasoline, the authorities covered our flights along the routes (in order to avoid unplanned landings on the sites and flights of tugs behind gliders), as a result, we flew in the language of KULP-PASO-86 (course of educational flight training for glider aviation-sports organizations ) Control. 36 "Hovering in the airfield area". The duration of the exercise is 2 hours, and taking into account the fact that the exercise is paired, then for all 4 hours, and in fact the whole summer day, our glider is. That day I settled in the back cabin, my friend (and colleague in study, work and everything else) Leshka in the front.
The weather that day happened "bomb" - almost windless, blue sky, uniform cumulus with a lower edge for two kilometers. This is the case when, on a glider, without any motor, using ascending air currents, we without straining to gain altitude. And even on the contrary - we rather had an excess of it, because if we did not fly along the route, but in one area slowly and calmly, then we were already bored ...
The most "interesting" way for us to spend the height reserve and at the same time to warm up and have fun was aerobatics. True, by that time most of our gliders were almost older than ourselves, and therefore it was dumb to strain the materiel with aerobatics, but "hunting is worse than bondage." Of all the "difficult" figures, only a corkscrew was obligatory, which we must repeat at the beginning of the season with the instructors, and then, of course, many times independently. We persuaded the same instructors (easily, to be honest) and then twisted loops, corkscrew coups and even a bell - Blahnik performed well everything that was spinning in the "vertical" plane. But naturally, due to the glider's wing span, the lateral rotations were given to him much worse, and we practically did not see the same "barrels", usual for airplane aerobatics.
And after twisting everything else, one of us remembers about the "barrel" - shouldn't we twist it? - Come on !!! Before the barrel, we advise (if youth knew ...) how we can twist it. It seems that someone once saw her with an instructor, someone heard something from someone. We decide that for "spinning" we need a speed of 160 km / h and everything will work out.
- Go!
Spins Leshka, he is more familiar from the front cockpit. Handle from yourself - nose down, acceleration. On yourself - the horizon. "Boom ..." - the handle goes all the way to the side - we roll. Everything goes well at first ... but as the roll increases, the glider's nose starts to drop. Apparently Leshka is trying to hold it up, "giving" the opposite pedal or something else has gone wrong in our aerodynamics, but by the time we find ourselves in an inverted flight, the rotation stops completely. The picture that I remember forever: we are in an upside-down position, while the nose of the glider is directed strongly to the ground, and our speed is rapidly increasing. And the green field and the forest next to it, which are below us, but at that moment it seems to us that they are above us, and quickly fall into our cabins. Leshka in front shouted something very uncensored and obscene, for me it worked better than any signaling device of critical modes. It became clear that we would not be able to "screw up" the barrel, so we had to get out in a different way. Honestly, probably the most correct thing would be to give the handle away from you, go to the horizon in an inverted flight, turn off the speed, and then think about how to roll over back, but at that moment I just pulled the handle towards myself. The glider willingly continued to lower its nose, and now it has already become like an exit from the loop. The only thing is that our speed was already prohibitive - initially Blahnik had a maximum speed of 262 km / h recorded in the Airplane Flight Manual, then in the Union, in order to preserve materiel, it was limited to 180 km / h. We have already dispersed in 260 ... The air stream, usually flowing around the glider with a small and smooth noise, just roared, behind us something crunched and crackled loudly. Fortunately, I was smart enough not to pull on myself too much, and fortunately the Czech comrades built "Blanik" tightly. Having marked the height of 600 meters at the lowest point, we jumped back up, smoothly extinguishing the speed. Taking into account the fact that we began to twist from 1500 meters, and Blahnik loses no more than 150 meters per spin, the loss of altitude turned out to be simply enormous - 900 meters in ten seconds (it was good for us to start "twisting" this business with a margin, because that officially the lower limit of aerobatics was considered to be 600 meters of altitude ...). After that we both swore - not that we were scolding someone, but emotions flooded. But now we flew smoothly, smoothly, listening to the slightest creaks of the glider structure behind us. Then, having calmed down a bit and looking around, we reported the end of the mission and the entrance to the circle. Someone poked us on the radio - "are you fast, are you seasick? "But we were somehow not up to jokes. For a little more and ...
Well, and of course we examined the glider for a long time afterwards, shook and pulled at different parts.
And not immediately, but after a couple of weeks, we told our Instructor about the incident. The strongest point in the debriefing is "what did I say to your mothers?" sunk into the soul for a long time ...
The next time I had a chance to go "along the edge" in a couple of years. At that moment I was still flying in the flying club, but already as a co-pilot in the An-28. We used this airplane in a variety of guises - we threw parachutists from it, and flew across Ukraine for all kinds of aeroclub needs, and drove VIPs (everything is fair and legal - an airline was registered in the aeroclub and we flew under its call sign and civil rules). And it was also actively used in various demonstration flights, and the aerobatics performed on it (barrel, spinning roll) were very impressive.
And now another "big window dressing", something like the 9th of May, with the maximum amount of aeroclub equipment and the influx of spectators on the ground. Two An-28s are in one of the main roles, while the flight program provides for a pair flight with one engine off, and after their launch, passing on a collision course with barrels after a divergence, and then a joint flight with a Yak-52 group.
I'm in the booth with the Chef - the Head of the Club. He is a good Pilot, Champion of the Union in gliding, naturally flying a lot in aerobatics, including the An-28. But, as is the case with Chiefs, administrative matters take too much time and even in the air, questions of "managing the entrusted economy" are not always let go. It let us down a lot this time.
The program was tightly packed. So that the audience would not get bored, the pauses between our visits were filled by one of the pilots on the Yak-55 and the Yak-52 group. We "passed" with the engines turned off, went "into the zone" behind the spectators' backs to start them. While I do the launch manipulation, Operations turns and observes the situation. At the "arena" Yak-55 worked out its complex and stepped aside, but took up the wrong zone - too close to the place of the show. My Commander interferes with communications:
- Move away, interfere !!!
The 55th rolls off, the 52nd group finishes its work, now it's our turn to enter the collision courses and barrels after the divergence. I have already started the engine by this moment, I report to the Commander. He evens out the modes of the engines, but I can see that he still looks more at the Yaki than at our own flight.
-102nd ready - the second An-28 is recalling.
-101 is ready, come in!
The commander abruptly shifts the plane to the opposite bank, starts approach. But apparently because of the 55th who was standing close, the 52s shifted their place, we have to disagree with them, the Commander is again distracted by instructions. And we find ourselves closer to the stands than the second plane. The headlights have already been switched on, the Commanders exchanged confirmations "I am observing", but we are clearly jumping forward, for the second An-28 is just finishing the turn. My Commander is doing something like a snake, but there is no place to go - engines on takeoff, nose down - passage and acceleration to the barrel. We disperse slightly away from the center, now we need to "twist". The beginning of the barrel, in general, the transport, An-28 is very similar to a glider - acceleration and "pitch bully", and both take a certain amount of time. Since we have already found ourselves away from the center of the show, the Commander is in a hurry. I note to myself that at the moment of the beginning of rotation we still lacked a couple of tens of kilometers per hour speed and the pitch instead of the usual "over 40 *" turned out to be "a little over 30 *". The rotation starts as usual, but as the roll increases, the nose of the aircraft begins to burrow. The inverted position, in which the plane usually finds itself in approximately level flight, we already pass with the nose strongly down. And in the process of the second part of the rotation, it sinks lower and lower. By the roll 90 * we are already diving with a pitch for ... To be honest, the FIG knows what the pitch was, we are falling with a wing down nafig !!!
In the woods behind the airfield, they began to build a sanatorium back in Soviet times. We managed to erect a multi-storey box of the main building and a couple of buildings lower next to it, but then the money ran out and these gray "ghosts" stuck out unfinished for many years. pine forest... So, at that moment, our trajectory confidently stuck into one of these boxes.
At normal times, the duties of the co-pilot on show included various auxiliary actions at the command of the Commander (flaps-headlights-control of the systems, etc.) and softly hold on to the controls "just in case" (the co-pilots trained to "twist" all the same the most that the Commanders are in the process of training-preparations-overflights in the zone, higher from the ground). But today I did have a chance to pilot actively:
- Conclusion!!! - the Chief barked in a sharp hoarse voice on the SPU. Now the two of us were unscrewing the steering wheels and pulling towards ourselves, practically resting on the full travel stops. Time stretched out, although the world outside was smeared into a green ribbon at the speed and proximity of the earth. The plane reluctantly got out of the bank, broke its trajectory, swept over the tops of the pines, fortunately past the upper floors of the sanatorium, pulled into the set.
A short after-thought "damn it, just a little bit more!" interrupted the Commander's voice:
- Everything, everything, let go!
Apparently I was still holding the steering wheel tightly, preventing him from piloting.
Sluggishly flew the rest of the program, did not quite hit the 120-meter piece of asphalt, where they usually sat down on show to demonstrate a short landing, but that day all this already seemed such trifles.
Taxi-turned off, usually the Chief left the cockpit quickly enough, hurrying to do the following things, but that day he was delayed. He sat for a while looking at nowhere, pulling off his wet gloves, then turned to me:
- Sorry, we could have been killed ...
And RP's joke on parsing, by the way, USSR Champion in aerobatics, Viktor Mikhailovich Solovyov:
- Mikhalych, you should be more attentive next time, otherwise I have already closed my eyes ...
And if you look back, there were a couple of situations of a slightly different kind, when not my life was in danger, but the lives of other people who depended on me. As for me, it's even worse!
The first case that makes the hair on the back of my head move until now was when, in my student years, flying on gliders, at the same time I worked as a technician for the Wilga B-35 aircraft (a little yellow cheerful plane for "lifting" gliders and all other small necessities).
On the traditional "show" on May 9, my Airplane "worked" to its fullest: dragged the flag for opening and closing, dragged the glider in the process, at the end flew a dozen flights to the "ride". In the evening a strong thunderstorm with wind and downpour broke out. On May 10 the whole flying club had a day off, but not mine, because it turned out that my plane was "working" for filming a movie.
I dragged myself to the wet and empty airfield, cursing and cursing ...
Not early in the morning, but there was absolutely no one at the aeroclub airfield except the watchman's aunt. Wet grass, from which my feet instantly get wet, given the fact that after a thunderstorm it got colder, and I did not take this into account and was dressed only in a hebesh jumpsuit, it unpleasantly invigorates. The only good news of the day is that Anatoly Aleksandrovich Ruzhansky, who is very respected and adored by us, young people, should fly as a pilot, and even yesterday, setting me a task, he hinted that probably I would also break off to fly. But until he arrives, I am preparing the plane.
On a piston aircraft, preflight preparation is a long and dirty event (low bow to the technicians who have been doing this all their lives and in any weather!). I remove the clamps, the lower engine hoods, unscrew the oil plugs of the lower cylinders, drain the oil, turn the screw, tighten and check the oil plugs back, check the oil level. Finally, everything is ready to run and try out.
I climb into a cool, but at least windless cabin, traditionally look around, shout: "From the propeller !!!". When the start button is pressed, the engine slowly shudders, sneezes, turn on the magneto, pump fuel with a syringe - cold start ... Fortunately, compared to "my" second aircraft, this one is much newer and easier to start in the cold. The engine grasps, the engine quits, starts to rumble. He warms up, and I warm up, just from the front bulkhead drying my wet feet. And while the bottom line is yes, I decide to check the rudders (to be honest, now I'm not even sure whether such a check is included in the pre-flight preparation by the technician, it's more of a flying part, but nevertheless). And this is where THIS happens.
I move the control stick towards myself, away from myself - order. Left - order. To the right - the handle reaches a fully deflected position and ... is jammed there tightly. All my attempts to extract her from this strange situation end in nothing. On itself, on its own, it moves, no roll!
Yesterday's active flights flashed through my head, my signatures in the Airplane's logbook - "serviceable, ready for flight" and the possible consequences of jamming the controls in the extreme position ... The shock was so serious that I continued testing the engine, thinking "this cannot be , some kind of nonsense, I didn't remove the clamp or something got hit during yesterday's thunderstorm.
Having finished the testing schedule, I got out of the cockpit. The ailerons "stood" with scissors, there was nothing outsider around them ...
I don’t want to load it with technical details, so it’s further short, as it was roughly written in the "act of investigation of the preconditions for the accident": starting with ... the B-35 aircraft series, the manufacturer (PZL, Poland), made changes to the skin design. Instead of the initially used riveting of sheets "overlapping", the "joint-to-joint" scheme was applied. In the wing tips, which are subjected in flight cycles to large alternating loads and relative displacements, such a structure has lost its tightness as it wears out, which in turn led to the ingress of a significant amount of moisture onto the attachment point of the aileron rods rocking to the rib number ..., its corrosion and subsequent destruction.
P.S another "scarecrow", already from the driver's series. Again, the same flying club, late autumn, dull evening. On the An-28, we stepped in from another VIP flight. Arrived in the dark, so they sat down at the Kiev airport Zhuliany, and then the Chief gave up to the flying club where the car was parked.
The airfield is empty, the watchman recognized the Chief's car as a grandmother, a dandelion of God, went out onto the porch of the gatehouse, waved her hand. I waved back and stomped to the car park.
In the morning we flew out in the autumn - it was dry and snowless. By evening, the weather turned bad, it started snowing, and when I arrived at the parking lot, the "Nine" was a big snowdrift. Having tried to shovel at least a little of the window and found out that the snow began with rain and the glass was completely frozen over.
"Okay, I'll start, warm up, and then the glass will go away."
The car stands stern to the asphalt exit track, rolled over a day, a couple of meters you need to slip through the virgin snow, under which the ground is wet. He started the engine, turned on the heaters on the glass. The rear window of the "Nine" is heated by electricity, it's cool (almost like an aircraft POS), but it takes time in the cold, but it's cold, dark, and you generally want to go home.
"I'll start driving like this, and there it will freeze ...".
I'm trying to see what's behind, but since the rain was also with the wind, the mirrors are also barely visible. "What could be there, darkness and coldness!"
I give the car a little forward in order to accelerate backward along a clean track under the wheels, stick in reverse gear, abruptly release the clutch, gas and ...
The car, quite expectedly, takes off, breaks through the snow. I twist the steering wheel to fit the track on the road. With my peripheral vision, I notice that something big and dark rushes very close to the door and the mirror. Turning around and stopping in the headlights, I find the silhouette of the watchman grandmother.
While I was fiddling and warming up in the car, she came out of the gatehouse and stood right behind, not expecting my such a sharp start.
- Granny, what are you doing ?!
- Yes, I see that you haven't been driving for a long time, I thought - let me go out and take a look.
I suddenly get so hot that I have to take off my flight jacket ...
Conclusion comic: Do not sing, do not dance, do not stand and do not jump, where the leadership is going or the "roll" is twisted !!! (Roll - barrel in English).
The conclusion is serious: when Comrade Commander Arabas brought up this topic, I objected that this is not the best thing to remember. But his thought was that this experience should be shared, so that later the next ones would not come across. I would very much like to believe that this will help someone. Good luck to all of us !!!
Together with the pilots of S7 Airlines, I arrived at Domodedovo airport, passed the medical examination, pre-flight briefing, met the flight attendants, received permission to take off, took a ride in a minibus to the plane, inspected it, started the engines and ... did not fly away. However, I photographed the entire process of preparation for the flight ...
The pilots enter the service building through a separate entrance at the terminal. Just like everyone else, they go through a full search:
The airport is divided into 2 zones: clean and dirty. A clean area is an area within an airport that can only be accessed through security checks. The rest of the terminal building is called the dirty area:
2. 
Immediately after the examination, the entire crew undergoes a medical examination:
3. 
Here pilots receive a flight task, where all other flight marks will be entered. The medical examination can be done no earlier than 2 hours before departure and no later than an hour. The doctor measures blood pressure and pulse. He looks at the pilot and assesses his condition. If suspicion arises, additional tests can be performed:
4. 
In the next room, senior flight attendants receive first aid kits. After the flight, they return them. The contents of the first-aid kits are constantly updated, and a special doctor makes sure that all medications are with an unexpired expiration date:
5. 
After the medical examination, the pilots go down one floor and enter the briefing room:
6. 
At the end of the hall, in the window, the co-pilot receives the aircraft documentation in an impressive suitcase. It is always worn by the assistant commander. A kind of hazing:
7. 
In the middle of the room there is a large table at which the pilots are preparing for the flight. They study route documents, schemes for entering the airport of destination, check the weather report on the route, choose the optimal route, determine the amount of fuel needed, choose an alternate airfield, etc .:
8. 
9. 
10. 
It also receives data on the weather in all flight phases, wind speed and direction at altitudes, and possible turbulence. The entire route is divided into sections, and the pilots know in advance the expected force of turbulence on each of them:
11. 
S7 Airlines has a separate table with computers in the briefing room, where the Aircraft Commander (PIC) can watch additional information about flight:
12. 
If the commander has doubts about the weather conditions, then he can consult with the duty meteorologist:
13. 
At the centering dispatcher, the assistant commander fills out and submits a sheet with information about the flight. Information such as flight number, direction, tail number, weight of equipped aircraft (AC), total refueling, taxi fuel, takeoff fuel, flight fuel, flight time and number of seats are entered here. This information is used to determine where the aircraft will have its center of mass:
14. 
15. 
After completing the training, the PIC calls the senior flight attendant and instructs him:
16. 
The philosophy of the AIRBUS company is that the crew should not be sent off. Therefore, each time the PIC and the co-pilot are different. Same with the flight attendants. An explanation of this philosophy is in either the first page with comments to this). They get to know each other already in the lounge before the flight:
17. 
Here, the senior flight attendant gives instructions to the crew:
18. 
After completing training, the pilot approaches the controller and informs him that he has made a decision to perform the flight:
19. 
The pilots go to the plane in a special minibus. By the way, for the airline, each such trip costs 1000 rubles:
20. 
All people must wear green vests on the platform. Pilots are no exception:
21. 
The aircraft does not have an ignition key and is turned on with a button. An initial check of the system is carried out:
22. 
The second pilot conducts an external inspection of the aircraft Checks the absence of the "Remove Before Flight" check on the front landing gear, "because if it is present, the landing gear will not be removed:
23. 
Visually inspects the nose of the aircraft for damage:
24. 
Checks the status of the sensors. In no case should they be icy:
25. 
The technical door must be tightly closed:
26. 
Visually inspects the engine blades:
27. 
If they are icy, then a technician is called and warms them:
28. 
29. 
The filling hatch (black hole in the middle of the wing) must be tightly closed:
30. 
Examines wing mechanics and static electricity spark gaps (sticks sticking out of the wing):
31. 
In the early 90s, I had the good fortune to work in Nigeria, flying with a local airline on Tu-134 leased from our airline. Now, after almost 20 years, compatriots who are already accustomed to civilization may seem like a reference, but then it was a breakthrough into another life and invaluable flight experience, not to mention an order of magnitude higher salary compared to the impoverished Motherland at that time. And to make the picture of "happiness" complete, I will say that I spent in Nigeria honeymoon... No, I'm not a fan of exotic things - I just got married, finally, for the second time in between African business trips, and there were simply no options to leave my wife for six months. Such is the exclusive honeymoon. Some to the Seychelles, some to Paris, and we, why there - to Nigeria ...
The plane, by the way, in the photo is really one of those that flew there. We drove them almost all to Syktyvkar from Interflug after the unification of Germany. Even the coloration is basically the same. Only the company name, flag and registration have changed.
One of the stories from there:
Planes flew to Nigeria usually along the Syktyvkar-Sheremetyevo-Prague-Casablanca-B amako-Kano route. In Casablanca, we spent the night with pleasure, and in the morning there was a 4-hour, at maximum range, throw across the desert. And so one of the crews, consisting of a flight chief, a young co-pilot who was flying abroad for the first time, a navigator who rarely flies abroad and, thank God, a veteran of these flights - a boomechanic, started off for the adventure. They flew through Europe like clockwork. Upon arrival in Casablanca, the navigator told the flight mechanic how much kerosene should be refueled for the flight to Bamako. And this figure turned out to be one and a half times less than the usual filling. The flight mechanic was surprised, but did not delve into the intricacies of the calculation and filled, just in case, as usual, full tanks. Here it is necessary to clarify: on the Tu-134, the fuel system and its indication were invented, probably, to make life as difficult for the crew as possible. Pilots delved into its intricacies usually when passing off tests and immediately forgot them safely until the next time. Only the boomechanics knew the real gas station. Before the flight, they set the amount of fuel poured on the "clock" - a flow meter with a dial similar to a clock, which, as the fuel was consumed, rewound the readings back. His indication was a no brainer. Another device, the fuel gauge itself, showed the actual fuel in the tanks, but its readings were available only to the most gifted pilots.
So, our flight mechanic put the fuel calculated by the navigator on the "watch", and they took off into the unknown. Further, from the words of the co-pilot: When we were already in the middle of the desert, the navigator suddenly lit a cigarette (he had not been noticed smoking on board before) ... He began to count something hard again, lit a cigarette again, plucked up courage and confessed that we had fuel not enough ... He, it turns out, forgot during the calculation that he was dealing with nautical miles, not kilometers (all his previous international experience was in flights to Bulgaria and, accordingly, calculations in kilometers). A mile is twice as long as a kilometer, roughly speaking. Accordingly, the fuel. When recalculating, it turned out that it would have to end, at best, during the landing approach. A dumb scene. The curtain ... Together with the cold sweat, everyone has about one thought: “Y. your mother !!! " And, before my eyes, a picture of the wreckage of Tu-134 among the dunes. The co-pilot has an additional thought: “Why are you killing? For the first time abroad, and I haven’t had time to live yet ... ”. Out of hopelessness, the commander still tugged the fuel gauge selector, in which he still did not understand anything, and asked for a cigarette (he had never smoked before) ... Thoughts also flew through my head about the inevitable, albeit posthumous, shame, washing of bones during analysis, telegrams on measures to prevent similar incidents hanging in all navigational countries. And the journalists will not even write that the crew took the plane away from residential buildings due to the complete absence of these in the alleged crash site.
The flight mechanic gave them another ten minutes to enjoy the sensations of the inevitable end, and with the words "Your fuel has run out, now we are flying in mine," set the "clock" to the actual amount in the tanks ...
In general, boomechanics and flight engineers are sometimes peculiar people. Pilots often underestimate them. Well, and they sometimes respond with a refined reciprocity. Another example from the life of my current airline:
The plane landed at the wrong airfield ... Rarely, but it happens. I don’t remember the reason (usually they confuse closely located airfields with similar runway configurations), but that’s not the point. During the investigation, spicy circumstances emerged: the commander, a real ass hole, was very rude to the flight engineer during the flight and, as a result, ordered him to shut up and speak only if he asked him himself. With the Arabs, alas, this is in the order of things. Okay, whatever you say, but he naturally harbored anger. The opportunity to take revenge turned up a couple of hours later. After landing, the commander, when, to his horror, realized that they had landed in the wrong place, pulled himself together and told the flight engineer to contact the company's control center and report this unpleasant incident. The trouble lies, for a minute, in being written off as punishment from flight work for several years. "And I already said," said the flight engineer, "when we were still flying on the landing straight ..."
