The day-to-day life of a Russian pilot

These couple of lines you are looking at is an excerpt from the , - "GRAPHIC" - a schedule graph, which is itself a document drawn on an A2-size sheet of paper, in the format of a calendar-table, and which is always laying on the squadron commander's desk.

As I can recall, the has always been a kind of focal point, a center, attracting attention of all the pilots in all divisions of all the airlines all over the former USSR, and the nowadays' Russia as well.

And there must necessarily be one more word, written in Russian, to give you 'hints to some basic principles' that rule the (far and foreign to you western people), inner world of Soviet / Russian aviation.

This word (though, not of a Russian origin) simply gives a name to the structural unit of any independent body belonging to the world of aviation in Russia. It alludes as well to the most universal and characteristic notion that carries a special sense to any aviator in identifying himself/herself as a member of the aviation community.

Implied by this word, is a notion of a 'home', or a 'spiritual center', which for his/her whole professional life an airman is going through. This identification is so strong that uttering this word, the Russian pilots can feel much more intimacy, than while saying the name of their company or airline.

And this word is  , 'russificated' SQUADRON. We prononce it somewhat like ascu'drill'ya. The word, ages ago borrowed from the terminology of military, has evidently secured for itself for eternity, should the Russian aviation get over through all of today's odds.

God bless   !

On this simplified airline structure fragment you can see the place of the .

The point is that it is in the  where all the s are being originated from. For it is in all but every case the , that has an exclusive authority to execute the final stage of the flight planning job in the airline, even if there are some other OP PLANNING units in airline's structure. Normally, these units are to deal with the STRATEGY of flight planning, and MONITORING the markets' demands.

The business of assigning such things as to WHAT PARTICULAR CREW ON WHAT PARTICULAR DAY IN WHAT PARTICULAR DIRECTION WILL FLY is totally of the . 

Well, let's look again at those lines of  that are assigned to me.

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
	P	3071		P	3035		B!	B!	3071		P	9717		P

16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31
	P	3035			TP2			T!		3071		9717			P

They are not too complicated for understanding. I'll give you a decoding table to interpret the cells of this FLOW CHART (a calendar), which in many aspects determines my Day-to-Day life, in so far I am a pilot of this or that  .

P		Actually, it is not a 'Pe' , it is a russian 'R' to indicate that I am to go for 'Reserve' duties this day. Coming in along with the today-flying guys we, a   second cast of crew, are usually covering the preflight ongoings against the 'anything unexpected', e.g. - somebody's non-appearance. Which is surely a rare case.
3071		It means I have a flight number 3071 this day. This is an international charter Krasnodar - Aleppo (Syria) - Krasnodar. It can also be routed Krasnodar - Beirut (Lebanon) - Aleppo (Syria) - Krasnodar. Normally, it is scheduled to depart from Krasnodar at 11 o'clock local time.
B!		This exclamation is to highlight the most desirable dates for days off: say, you are having your step mother's birthday party, or any other reason to have this day "very off". Again, it is not a 'Be', it is a russian 'Va', -the first letter of the word , - a day off.
9717		This is for a domestic charter flight to Siberia. We carry the oilworkers' shifts to their working places that are sprawled across the vast region of Western Siberia. The flight No. 9717 is bound to Raduzhny - one of several our Siberian destinations.
3035		The number of another Intl charter: Krasnodar - Ras Al Khaimah (the UAE) - Krasnodar. It is also departing from Krasnodar at 11.00.
TP2		This day is assigned for a simulator session. (TP:  - simulator). The TU-154's FFS is located in the Rostov Training Center, Rostov-On-Don, 270 km north of Krasnodar. It usually takes us one full day to complete the 3-hr session. We go there by train.
T!		This time the exclamation mark is to stress on a more serious thing - the dead line when the 'one-quarter-plus-a-month' sim currency is expiring.

I will develope the Day-To-Day theme in further series of 'insights'.