Pilots don't die, they fly away to the sky!

Sections: General industry information, Air, Structure and personnel

666

0

April 15 marked one year since the death of Hero of the Russian Federation, Honored Test Pilot of the USSR Anatoly Kvochur.


Hero of the Russian Federation, Honored Test Pilot of the USSR Anatoly Kvochur.
Source: Valery Ageev

"The Russian flying legend", "The Pilot from God" – that's what domestic and foreign experts and the media called him during his lifetime. Western observers have even included Kvochur in the symbolic top ten test pilots in the world. It was the Su-30 crew under his leadership that made a record non–stop flight of 12,417 kilometers from Moscow to the Far East and back along the Valery Chkalov route.

During his years as a test pilot, Anatoly Kvochur's total flight time was about 4,800 hours, of which the test flight time was about 3,500 hours (mainly on fighter aircraft). He mastered about 90 types of aircraft (with modifications), including tests of experimental MiG-29, MiG-29M, MiG-29K, MiG-31M aircraft, factory tests of serial Su-17 and Su-22 of various modifications (including 40 aircraft delivered to a foreign customer in Libya), He also mastered 9 aircraft of NATO countries.

A lot has been written about this pilot, but the most honest and truthful memories remained with his family, friends and his colleagues in the test work.

Do you know what kind of guy he was?

Of particular interest are the unique aerobatic performances of Russian pilots around the globe. "Circus act" was how Kvochur sarcastically emphasized the insignificance of the publicly ostentatious side of demonstration flights in comparison with the entire scope of his testing, research, and semantic activities.

However, he himself often participated in this circus and this participation brought quite decent dividends. In particular, as the Hero of Russia, Honored Test Pilot of the Russian Federation A.Garnaev told, in 1999 in Malaysia, Kvochur brilliantly demonstrated aerobatics on the Su-30 fighter. The head of the Malaysian state, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, was so impressed by this demonstration that he signed a Russian-Malaysian deal worth more than one and a half billion dollars for the supply of eighteen Su-30 vehicles with expanded sets of weapons. And this happened in the absence of representatives of Rosvooruzhenie and the management of the fighter manufacturer!



Source: Valery Ageev

However, Kvochur himself almost became a victim of this "circus". On June 8, 1989, during a demonstration of the MiG-29 in Le Bourget, France, a bird got into the engine of his plane. The pilot had to eject.

Later, commenting on the incident, Hero of the Soviet Union test parachutist Oleg Khomutov, who at one time tested the type of K-36 ejection seat on which Kvochur escaped, would say that great luck was decisive in this situation.

Anatoly was definitely lucky this time. And a month and a half later, he flew to demonstrate the aerobatics of the MiG-29 at the Canadian international airshow Abbotsford-1989. In August 1990, his second ejection from a MiG-29UB took place over the Saki airfield.

As the honored Test pilot of the Russian Federation Vladimir Biryukov stated, Anatoly Kvochur was a milestone and, for all his modesty, left a mark, he was a pioneer with the character of a real man - it was evident even by his handwriting in flights.



Source: Valery Ageev

Its character was especially evident on September 8, 2006, when pilots of the Flight Research Center (PIC) Anatoly Kvochur and Sergey Korostiev carried out a non-stop flight on a closed route across the country, unprecedented in its range and duration for a fighter aircraft - from Zhukovsky near Moscow to Chkalov Island in the Far East and back.

The flight, which was carried out on a two-seat Su-30 fighter and included five aerial refueling, was dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the historic flight of Valery Chkalov's crew on an ANT-25 aircraft to Udd Island, now named after this legendary Soviet pilot. In 13 hours 09 minutes, the PIC pilots covered 12.5 thousand km along a closed route.

To refuel the fighter on the flight route, the Russian Air Force allocated two IL-78 tanker aircraft from the 203rd Orel Separate Guards Aviation Regiment of tanker aircraft. One of them was piloted by Vladimir Biryukov.

He recalled the joint development with Kvochur, which allowed for aerial refueling in the clouds.

- We came up with a system, one of the authors of which was Anatoly. They tried to implement it on long-range aircraft in order to optimize and secure the refueling process itself. Usually, the aircraft of a refueled tanker docks in visible visual conditions. The system we tested allowed us to refuel in the clouds, with an accuracy of up to one meter..

Biryukov noted that the persistent and tough nature of the Quota helped Russian aviation in the 90s "not to bend, not to die." Kvochur was also at the origin of many important developments that propelled the Russian aircraft industry forward.

According to the pilot's wife Olga, Anatoly Kvochur flew fighter jets until the age of 65, "burned" with ideas, loved his profession and constantly improved in it. Everything he touched, he tried to do as well as possible.

– This is a man who has never rested. Constantly at work, constantly in ideas, in some kind of activity. Our family has suffered an irreparable loss. We grieve, but we know that his memory will remain in the hearts and souls of people for many years to come.

Teacher, educate the student so that there is someone to learn from later!

Throughout his life, the concept of "Teacher" with a capital letter played a huge role in the formation of a Teacher. For him, these were his father and mother in childhood, then his grandfather and godfather, the first teacher Nadezhda Petrovna, teachers of mathematics and physics in high school.

Anatoly Kvochur was also lucky to have teachers at the Yeysk Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots named after V.M. Komarov. His teachers, instructor pilots Senior Lieutenant Ivan Nikolaevich Zasko, Captain Kim Vladimirovich Nikitenko and Senior Lieutenant Valery Ivanovich Kondratiev, were true patriots of their work, good, and in some ways even the best specialists in the training regiments of the school.

And after college, when in 1973 Lieutenant Kvochura was sent to serve in the Group of Soviet Troops in Germany, he was lucky enough to meet real masters of his craft. One of them, the deputy commander of the combat regiment Leonty Nikolaevich Grigoriev, was for the young pilot a model not only of flying professionalism, but also of courage. One day, an engine stopped on Grigoriev's Su-7B plane with a bomb load during exercises over a populated area. At the risk of his life, he took the plane to a safe area and ejected from almost zero altitude.

As the pilot himself recalled, it was the meeting with Alexander Vasilyevich Fedotov, an outstanding test pilot and chief pilot of the Mikoyan Design Bureau in December 1975 that made such a strong impression on him that he kept memories of it all his life.

He was a man with a strong-willed face and a penetrating gaze. He seemed very strict to Kvochur. In a conversation with the pilot, Fedotov told him:

- You know, they don't pull into our profession by the ears. I won't drag you either. I'll tell you everything that needs to be done, the rest will depend only on your efforts.

After graduating from the Test Pilot School, A.V.Fedotov was emphatically not interested in the fate of his protege. It was only in 1981, when three leading test pilots at the Mikoyan Design Bureau, including Fedotov himself, were out of action for some time due to injuries sustained in accidents, that Fedotov organized an order from the Minister of Aviation Industry to transfer Anatoly Kvochur, a test pilot at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aviation Plant, to the OKB. Mikoyan.

Anatoly Kvochur, like many other test pilots at the Mikoyan Design Bureau, considered themselves students of A.V.Fedotov. It was he who became the developer of the philosophy of flight testing for them. Before him, the same role in the development of the flight test school was played by the chief pilot of Kvochura, Grigory Alexandrovich Sedov. Anatoly Nikolaevich called the Sedov-Fedotov school a school of safe and effective tests. Thanks to this school, many pilots have lived their flying lives and brought considerable benefits to the state.

As the Hero of Russia, Honored Test Pilot of the Russian Federation Alexander Garnaev wrote, Anatoly Nikolaevich Kvochur's greatest achievement is his professionally nurtured “pupils”: among us, his pets, there are a number of Heroes of Russia, Honored Test Pilots of the Russian Federation, bearing his bright name with honor and dignity through the years-decades of the most difficult flights on the most advanced aircraft technology.

At an age when you're well over 60 (you've flown for more than 40 years), Garnaev reflected, sometimes you look back and somewhat overestimate your teachers, mentors, and instructors – you're immensely grateful to all of them for shaping you into a Flying Person. But the memory of some, very few, continues to excite you: even simple memories of them make you rethink yourself- the current one – you want to continue to follow their example, strive to be like the departed.… My Teacher Anatoly Kvochur is one of them, he continues to live in me every day!

Anatoly Kvochur died on April 15, 2024, 1 day before his 72nd birthday after a long illness. The funeral took place on April 17, and a funeral service was held in Zhukovsky at the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, after which the pilot set off on his last journey to the burial site at the Federal War Memorial "Pantheon of Defenders of the Fatherland."