HOW YOUNG WE WERE….

We have already talked about the pilot Vladimir Vetlitsyn from White Yar, focusing on his first working day. Today you can read the memories of Vladimir himself. Youth is beautiful, I do not want to forget it. So, the evening of the first working day.

On the same day, after flying in the house of the airport chief Konstantin Petrovich Grishaev, a very sensitive, sincere leader and skilful organizer of the production, the pilot Igor Enzhakov was escorted, who had been retrained to big equipment.

So my acquaintance with the team happened. This evening my friend Oleg Bortunov flew to White Yar, who also received a permit for flights. He was born in Novosibirsk, was brought up by his grandfather and grandmother. He had an original character and "stubbornness", which helped to overcome life and professional difficulties.

He finished his flying career in the eighties with the pilot of the Il-18 plane at Severniy Airport in Novosibirsk. Earlier, Yevgeny Sergeyev and Viktor Koldomov arrived in the White Sea for the reinforcements of the personnel, and by the fall two more pilots were sent to us: Alexander Andrejuk and Roman Nigmatullin.

True, by this time, Eugene had made a transfer to his native Parabel, where, since 1972, he became commander of the An-2, and in 1973, commander of the link. In 1979 he graduated from the Academy of Civil Aviation, where he mastered the second Mi-8 helicopter.

The further way is the commander of the flight detachment, then the Kolpashevsky squadron. In 1970 my family got an apartment. It gradually increased. Now I and my wife Valentina have three children and three grandsons. In the hostel of this "zhildomom" there lived pilots Alexander Andreyuk, Oleg Bortunov, Roman Nigmatullin - from Moscow, whose wife with a young child was not in a hurry to leave the Moscow general apartment of her parents and go to some kind of Siberian deafness.

Having ridden without a family, flying out of the clock, in 1972, Roman was recalled to the Moscow Civil Aviation Administration. Little is known about his further fate, although there was a rumor that he participated as a co-pilot on the Il-14 in the Antarctic expedition in the mid-seventies.

Alexander Andrenyuk was an excellent sportsman, participated in all major contests of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, it was not for nothing that he was nicknamed "Pan Athlete". In addition, he had a unique memory for names. I've never seen this in my life again. He knew and remembered the names and patronymics of the employees of all airports, where he had to visit at least once.

I remember their names, the names of their children, grandchildren, relatives and friends, not to mention their children. In 1972 he was sent as a second pilot to my crew. With him, I made my first flight as commander of the crew. With him we transported goods throughout almost Western Siberia: from Novosibirsk and Barnaul in the south to Strezhevoy and Nizhnevartovsk in the north, from Yeniseisk and Krasnoyarsk in the east to Barabinsk and Omsk in the west.

Then Sanya sat in the commander's chair, and then retrained to the IL-18 and got to Tolmachevo airport in Novosibirsk before retiring. In 1971, Valery Bocharov and Anatoly Osipov began to commission commanders. I was appointed second to Bocharov and tried my best to help him become a great commander. Valera at that time already studied in absentia at the Academy of Civil Aviation, which was very difficult.

After graduating from the Academy, Valera became commander of the Il-18, then was deputy commander of the Tolmachevsky squadron. Victor Koldomov became the commander of the aircraft in White Yar and soon moved to his native Parabel. In the winter of 1972, Alexander Kazantsev, the commander of the An-2, was deployed, who soon also retired to the Il-14 and left White Yar.

At the same time, Gennady Sumarokov transferred from Tomsk to us and immediately began to be introduced by the commander of the An-2. Subsequently, he was retrained to the Mi-8 helicopter and flew to Kolpashevo. After retiring, he moved to Moldova with his family.