Flight Experience

In 1999, I had the chance to fly a great glider, researched and made exclusively in Romania, which is the wonderful IAR IS28B2.
First, I subscribed to the Romanian Airclub. At that time, Romania was still the only country in the world where people under the age of 21 could fly for free. Then came some serious physical and psychological testings, followed by several months of theoretical training. After all that, it was finally time to get down to business.

Flight started in early April, but a general confusion regarding students and instructors meant I was among many who didn't know which instructor did they belong to, and no one was informed enough to tell them that. I finally found out that I was submitted into the team of Instr. Cristian Duma, one of the 3 main glider instructors we used to have here on the airfield (he lives in Detroit now).
D-Day came in the 30th of April 1999, when I woke-up early in the morning and I went to the airfield, still upset because of all the flights I have previously missed.

Unfortunately, my instructor was just leaving by the time I got to the airfield, but he told the commander of the airfield, Cmdr Petru Cormos to fly with us (the guys in his team) on our first flight. Here is me (in the front) and Cmdr Cormos (in the back) waiting for the tow aircraft to completely stretch the cable and tow us towards the heavens. So, when it was my turn, I took off and left ground for the first time of my life around 18:00hrs April 30, 1999. Oh boy, this is why life disearves to be lived ! As one friend of mine used to say, "it was the begining of the rest of my life". This pic was taken by a friend, and I only found out about it a few months later, when I was mad that I missed the chance of doing a pic at my very first flight. Looks like someone did thought of it though, and I was so glad to receive this one. We are sitting in the best glider of our hangar, YR-352, a 1982-made model IAR IS28-B2
	Me at my first take-off ! :)
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It was the 6th of july, 1999. At 6am, my alarm clock rang, and I got up anxious and focused, as I knew that was the sleepy beginning of a wonderful new day: the day I will do my first Spin.

I didn't get to eat much, I just washed myself and then I got my flight clothes on and rushed on the 30min / 2km way towards my airfield. The road seemed pretty short, as I was rolling my eye-balls towards the skies all the time, scouting for first-gliders (to determine weather conditions), or some aircraft flying in the warm-up flight. I saw none, but as a result of that "eye-ball rolling", my neck seemed to be experiencing some problems by the time I finally got to my destination ;)

Aaahhhh, the airfiled.....that long flat field, full with sheeps and cows and horses, and on the far end, full with big Romanian sheep-watching dogs, as big as a poney and always ready to stick their multiple 2-inch teeth into your neck... The airfiled's drag cannals have absorbed last week's rain, whose aftermath have now disappeared into the Earth. There was still some, well, let's just say, some "material" from the sheeps', cows' and horses' "natural needs" ;), but we were all too used to that to even notice it anymore. It was a sunny morning with no clouds, and as I entered on the gates, the three dogs, one of them named after our president at that time, Iliescu, came as they smelled an "intruder", ready to bite me. When they saw me (I already looked like a pilot LOL), they looked pretty disappointed (Oh no, not him again!) and they went back underneath their favourite cars. I've then entered the airfield's ground, and walked on the large concrete pads, used for open storage and aircraft ground maneouvres.

I met my friends and team-mates there. One of them, being about 2yrs younger than me, barely reached the age for simple command (SC - solo) flight, as he got to be 16 just a few days before his first solo flight. Now that's what I call a real "obsessed" guy. He usually sleeps around 10hrs/day, but that night, he went to bed at 1:30am and got up before 5am, anxious about the day's upcoming events. He didn't even eat anything, and at 6am he was present at the airfield, long before even our instructors and the rest of us. So I met him and we exchanged opinions about the following flight. We were both tremendously excited, but apparently we weren't alone. Remembering the breakfast it was forced to skip, his stomach put up a concert, as it was begging for food. Obviously, we interpreted that as proof that even his stomach is excited, and you know what to do in times of excitement, right? No food!

We went into the briefing room....I don't actually remember how long we stayed there, but it was 2-3 times longer than usually. We had to repeat all the emergency procedures, braking of the cable during take-off, stall, spin, crack, instrument failure, emergency parachute jumping, colliding into the tow plane in front of us, altitude control, G-forces, wind direction, towing speed, towing maneouvres, etc etc etc. We were all so concentrated, it seemed like I'm in USS George Washington with my F/A 18 squadron in 1991, before striking Iraq. Luckily, there were no Saddam's around. Then we went outside, and we got all the gliders out. There were like 5 or 6 of them. We got the tow aircraft, the so-called ambulance (which didn't even had a working engine), the towing truck, the two tractors and some junks, as well as a tow for cars. We washed them all, then the instructors, the commander and the chief mechanics chose 2 of the 6 gliders. 307 and 352. Créme de la créme. Our best two.

Me inside IS-28B2 tail 307

Another great change came in 2001, when the old 28-type and T-4 round-canopy parachutes were replaced with two square-canopy parachutes, Manta 290 and Aerofoil. Also, the same year, the CYPRES security system was introduced. These 3 new pieces of equipment completely replaced the old equipment, which is something that has not happened in the Airclub in the previous decade. Fighting with a constant budget reduction, followed by a shutdown of public funding starting with 2007, the flight section of the Airclub has seen a drastic reduction in both pilots, as well as flight time.

In our local airclub, the number of flights/person went down, as well as the number of licensed pilots. The figures are as follows: Year Flights Pilots 1998 250 40 1999 180 25 2000 120 15 2001 45 7 2005 40 3

Me inside an Antonov An-2

An interesting fact, some of the inscriptions on the An-2's instrument panel were in Russian. That means that if you stall in mid-flight, you must search for the "NKAKOTA" button and then push the "KIHLKIMBAR" switch !:)

I'm kidding, of course, no Romanian pilot is allowed to fly these things if he doesn't know what all the switches are for, as in any real aviation in any serious country in the world.

Another interesting event happened when 6 of us (a mecanic and 5 of us young pilots) pushed the An-2 for about 40 m to its resting point on the pad.

Pushing such a big aircraft was an interesting endeavour, but it was not really that hard. Still, I believe that day was a great day, and if we were to do it again I don't think it'll be that easy, but I'm proud to say that 6 ppl, only one an adult (mechanic) and the rest all under 18 pushed an An-2 in a few minutes for such a long distance. After that some mechanic decided to play the goose and secretly went up in the cokpit and put the brakes on, thing which of course stopped the An instantly while we were still trying to push it. Try to imagine this as pushing a moutain and somebody pulls the "brakes" on that mountain.

They say "If Mohammed won't come to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammed". Well what about "If the pilot won't come to the Antonov, the Antonov will come to the pilot" ?

As I was saying before, the Romanian Air Club still helds many aircraft which are not operational due to financial problems. In our hangar we have around 8 or 9 gliders, about 2 aircraft, as well as trucks, tractors, and an ambulance that doesn't have a working engine. Out of the aircraft, only 2 or 3 gliders and the Wilga receive the flight permission each year. Yeah I know, this is a bad quality pic, but you'd have to forgive me, since it was taken with my old 35mm camera and then scanned. However you can still observe that even if the hangar looks big, the aircraft are pretty crowded, and the place where me and my friend are sitting in the pic is also occupied by other gliders, the Wilga, the reel, two tractors and a tow truck when the hanger is closed. Take a look at our hangar, as it looked in march-april 1999. I'm in the right, my friend is in the left side of the pic.

Me and my fellow pilot Tudor, inside the hangar. April 1999

In the 2000's, Romania remained the only country in the world where one could fly for free. Theoretical and practical lessons in both flying and parachuting were paid for by the government, for citizens between 15 and 22 years of age.

However, forced by the EU integration which forbidden such expense from the public budget, that was to change.

From January 1st, 2007, Romania completely changed it's policy towards the Romanian Airclub. The institution is now supposed to find its own paying customers for flying and parachuting lessons. However, as prices are arguably high, the survival of the Airclub and it's airfields is now a matter of debate.

Some airfields are confident, perhaps overconfident, that they will survive and prosper as a private company. Well, the airfields close to large cities will definetely survive, as there would be anough people there to buy flights and jumps every year. Maybe not at the prices they set right now, but as the airfields will be organized as private companies, marketing will come to place and reasonable prices will then be settled.

The problem is airfields which are near smaller towns, which won't have enough customers per year to be able to afford all the bills, revisions, fuels, spare parts and salaries, let alone make a profit. And they won't be able to afford all those even if the government will extempt them from all the taxes it should normally get.

We can only wait and see what the future reserves for the Airclub and its aircraft. It would really be a pitty to see some of the airfields to be transformed into industrial parks or residential areas, but I have to say the people inside the Airclub knew this day would come and for more than a decade they have done absolutely nothing in order to prepare for this shock.

Nevertheless, although I'm now longer in the Airclub, I'm glad I've had those days, with their goods and bads, I'm happy I've had the chance to fly, especially for free, and I feel special being one of the last to do that.

In the end, one thing is sure... I'll never forget those days !