Tony Cunnane's RAF Years

There was a general reorganisation of aircraft seating before leaving Leningrad for Kiev. The British Ambassador, Sir Rodric Braithwaite, and Lady Braithwaite hitched a lift in the BAe 125 with the Air Attaché, while the Doctor and I transferred to the support Hercules. In addition we had picked up a couple of Soviet interpreters who flew in the Hercules. They could have been KGB, I suppose, but at least they were friendly and helpful. It was obvious that the Soviets did not want us to overfly certain areas and so there had to be lengthy negotiations about the precise routes to be flown. However, the weather was excellent, the flights uneventful, and the entire detachment arrived at Borispol in mid afternoon.

Borispol is situated about 50 kms east of Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, and is both the civil international airport for Kiev and a Soviet Air Force base. The Ukrainians are very proud of their country and it quickly became obvious that they had no great love for their near neighbours, the Russians. It was made quite clear to us as soon as we arrived, that the locals preferred us to refer to the Ukrainian Air Force rather than the Soviet Air Force. They even provided their own interpreters who seemed to spend as much time with the Russian interpreters as they did with us.

Kiev itself was the third largest city in the Soviet Union, after Moscow and Leningrad, and the Ukraine was the third largest republic in the union, after Russia and Kazakhstan. The Ukraine was one of the four original republics that formed the USSR after the 1917 revolution. It has more than 50 million people and stretches over 1300km from east to west and over 800 km from north to south. Although everyone could speak Russian, Ukrainian was given equal prominence in all public places and in newspapers, radio and TV. Ukrainian has a strange mixture of Cyrillic and English letters and it sounded, to me an English student of Russian, familiar yet almost totally incomprehensible.

We were met at Borispol by another 3-star officer, Lieutenant General Nikolai Petrovich Kryukov, deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Air Forces Kiev District. Also in the line up were a large number of other military personnel and a delegation from the Antonov Aircraft Design Bureau based at another airfield close to Kiev. The Antonov design team whisked the Hercules crew off almost immediately for a trip in the Soviet equivalent of the Hercules, an AN12 transport aircraft which they had specially flown in for the occasion. Wing Commander David Guest, the Captain of the Hercules, spent much of the hour-long trip at the controls of the aircraft and he reported later that he found it unsophisticated compared with the Hercules. They flew 180 kms to the north of Kiev to take a close look at the still very hot nuclear power station at Chernobyl before returning to Borispol. They then all moved from the AN12 to the Hercules for another familiarisation flight which ended with the Hercules’ speciality, a tactical short landing. The Antonov crew were most impressed.

In the meantime the Red Arrows pilots were airborne in an MI-8 helicopter for a survey of the display site at Chaika on the other side of Kiev. After that we were all taken to an air force briefing room to do some pre-flight planning for the air displays. The walls of the room were covered with charts and diagrams comparing the performance of Soviet fighters with equivalent NATO fighters. Whilst the diagrams had obviously not been put up for our benefit, no attempt was made to hide them. One of our pilots was caught surreptitiously trying to take a photograph of one of the posters while others clustered around him but one of the Ukrainian pilots merely smiled and indicated that there was no problem photographing anything we wanted. The data on the charts was accurate as far as it went and clearly showed the superiority of many of the NATO aircraft over their Soviet equivalents.

Eventually, just as everyone was beginning to feel rather tired and grubby, we boarded a fleet of luxury coaches for the long drive into Kiev city centre, with yet another police car with flashing lights leading the procession. Our hotel, the Libyed, was located right in the centre of Kiev, one of three major Intourist Hotels in the city. It was a fine hotel by any standards and would probably rate 3 or 4 stars from the AA or RAC.

The two air displays by the Red Arrows took place at Chaika, a small grass airfield about 10kms NW of the city centre, used mainly by the Soviet equivalent of our Air Training Corps as a flying club and for model aircraft flying and go-kart racing. To get to Chaika from Borispol took the Red Arrows 7 minutes and involved flying at low level over part of a magnificent forest, past the enormous and imposing Mother Russia statue, across the river Dneiper and around the northern outskirts of the city.

On the Saturday the weather was poor with a lot of low cloud and rain and so the Red Arrows could only perform a rolling display. Squadron Leader Mick George delivered the public commentary in Russian, his own translation of the Red Arrows Manager’s text. He travelled from Borispol to Chaika in a Soviet Mi-8 helicopter and was accompanied by Warrant Officer Fleckney who carried a large pile of Red Arrows Brochures, in English and Russian, plus stickers and other publicity material. With the benefit of hindsight, we should have had the glossy brochure printed in Ukrainian rather than Russian but the public did not seem to mind.

The Soviets had not advertised the event in advance, for reasons best known to themselves, and so the crowds at Chaika were small, hundreds rather than thousands. In fact there were probably more casual observers at Borispol watching the Team take off and land than there were at Chaika. This was rather disappointing because, like any artists, the Red Arrows perform best when they have a large audience. However, those who were there were in raptures – they had never seen anything like it before. As the Red Arrows cleared off to the east, Squadron Leader George and Warrant Officer Fleckney were besieged by autograph hunters and souvenir-seekers and eventually the airport officials had to come to their rescue so that the helicopter could take off for the return flight to Borispol.

After the debriefing, the Red Arrows pilots met a group of MiG-29 fighter pilots who had been flown in from a nearby air force base and an interesting and lively question and answer session. The MIG pilots were interested in how the Red Arrows pilots are selected and they seemed very surprised that the RAF do not pay them extra money whilst they are serving with the Team! Although of course we did not know it then, we would meet several of those pilots the following year at Scampton.

That afternoon we were all taken for a cultural tour. Actually most of us would have preferred to have been left to our own devices to wander around the city centre shopping for souvenirs. However, our hosts had laid on a special visit to a Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Life on the south-western outskirts of Kiev. The museum was set in rolling, green countryside that could easily pass for England at first glance. Within these grounds were set over 200 rural farmhouses, barns, windmills and cottages representing all parts of the Ukraine from the Crimea to the Carpathian mountains. They were spread out along an 11 km trail of paths.

Above: Some of the 'blues' unloading on arrival at Borispol. The ground crew were worried about the poor state of the parking area, with lots of loose rubble that is liable to be sucked into jet engine and cause damage

Below:The enormous Mother Kiev statue in Kiev; the 'flying club' at Chaika; a lone Soviet guard taking photographs on the Borispol flight line; children of Soviet staffs at Borispol doing what children always do; the Hercules crew after their flight overhead the still 'hot' Chernobyl nuclear power station; intelligence briefings on the walls of Borispol Operations Centre; one of the Reds posing with his 'cheap' trumpet bought in a Kiev department store. He had no idea how to play - but that didn't stop him trying!

The buildings, and their very life-like interiors, showed Ukrainian life from the 15th Century to the present time but in truth it was difficult to tell the difference, in spite of the valiant efforts of the Intourist guide and his pretty interpreter. Unfortunately, long before our group reached the end of the 11 km trail, we had broken up into many small groups and the guide and interpreter were eventually left talking to themselves. I found it rather sad and I felt rather guilty but I suppose this is an occupational hazard for guides everywhere.

Later that afternoon most of us had, at last, an opportunity for doing some shopping but there was depressingly little to buy apart from the inevitable matrioshki, the famous wooden Russian dolls with other smaller dolls inside. Two of the Red Arrows ground crew bought accordions – not that they could play them but they seemed too cheap to ignore! Later Red 5, Flight Lieutenant Dom Riley, not to be outdone, bought a cello for £12, while others bought trumpets, bugles and cymbals at knock-down prices. Later still, fortified by some beer, there was an impromptu musical concert on the 15th floor of the hotel in a lobby close to our rooms. Unfortunately, although everyone played with great gusto and enthusiasm, not a single person knew how to play the instruments they were clutching so the appalling noise can be imagined. What the Ukrainians thought of it I cannot imagine: they probably thought it was decadent western music.

Dom Riley’s cello stood, inconveniently, in the toilet compartment at the back of the BAe 125 during the flights back to Scampton, the only place Dom deemed safe enough for his prize!