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Source: trud.ru
Yesterday at 03:40 pm Moscow time the Zhukovsky Airfield authorized landing to a Su-30 flown by Anatoly Kvochur, Hero of Russia, Honorary Test Pilot of the USSR.
Thus completing a non-stop flight which was a repeat of the seventy-year-old trail Moscow – Udd Island (Far East) – Moscow blazed by Valery Chkalov. The total flight range was over twelve thousand and five hundred kilometres covered in less than fifteen hours. In order to cover this distance, four in-flight refuelings by Il-78s were required: the first one above Igarka, the second one to the south of Yakutsk, the third one on the way back after banking twice over Chkalov Island (formerly, Udd Island) near Neryungri, and the fourth one near Tomsk.
Anatoly’s Su-30 was stuffed with top-notch equipment. There was not a single electromechanical device in the cockpit, all digital. Kvochur was frank on the promotional nature of the whole affair aimed to demonstrate the advantages of the modern Russian military aircraft and satellite navigation. According to the pilot, the Russian aircraft industry desperately needs governmental support for a lot of promising research has been frozen due to lack of funding.
Incidentally, this was Anatoly Kvochur’s first long-distance flight. In 1999, he effectuated two unprecedented non-stop flights over the North Pole with five in-flight refuelings over the Arctic Ocean. Back then he also set a world record for a fighter to stay in flight for eleven hours and twenty-nine minutes.
Source: trud.ru
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