in the air. According to his colleagues, Oleg was of dutility and great capacity for work. He liked to write letters at home in his spare time that he knew that he was always being waited. “Everything is normal with my work. Lately began to fly on airplanes. But all the time I want to come home to squat around the house with son Oleg on my back, drink teas, eat shi, enjoy life and laugh at happiness ".The links of design department with the were strengthening, and the new machine step by step went towards production line – the dream of any pilot-test and sometimes they go to it all life: ups, downs, crashes, fractures, hospitals and again in a new circle- such is the ruthless life of a test pilot.
In Kubinka in 1973, Brezhnev personally with the generals was present at the demonstration of Yak-38 capabilities and was delighted with the skill of the pilot.
– Who is it? Asked Brezhnev Marshal Grechko. Brezhnev wasin a white shirt without sleeves and a tie, and so it seemed thin unlike the current General Secretary from the TV screen…
“This is Oleg Kononenko,” answered the marshal with pride. He was on top of all. – A true master of his craft. Would be in the army all, such as he.
“Call him to me,” ordered the Secretary-General.
Oleg Kononenko shook hands with the Secretary General and with excitement looked into his smiling eyes, overspread by wide eyebrows, taking from him a personal watch with thirty precious stones on which was engraved: “From Brezhnev.”
To increase the combat power of the aircraft, especially in the south hemisphere, where high air temperatures reduced its functionality, constructors decided to use a short take-off on the deck. And how can we do without Kononenko again -he turned from a “student” into an authoritative and confident in itself a “teacher”. Just his appearance on the deck of the cruiser evoked delight of the pilots. But by that time he was numbered in the cosmonaut detachment of Igor Volk.
“Oleg, you’re not going anywhere,” said the Wolf. – Leave yourdangerous jokes. There are enough pilots to do that without you.
“I can not, Igor Petrovich,” Oleg said sadly. – If they called, then they want me and besides, I started this business and should finish it. Wolf perfectly understood Oleg: any test pilot must polish the apparatus and pass. He is the ultimate link and decisive. Igor Petrovich said nothing and sadly said goodbye to Oleg.
December, 1979. “Voice of America”: “Today at 13.00 in the area of Vladivostok was wrecked by an airplane with vertical takeoff and landing of deck aviation of The Soviet Union. Nothing is known about the fate of the pilot …”
Larissa, Kononenko’s wife, picked up the tube bursting phone.
– Hello, Larissa, – Oleg’s voice rang out. “Put the kettle on, I’ll be home soon.”
As soon as Larissa saw her husband, her joy disappeared: Oleg under the eye had a blue hematoma, and when he entered thebath she was horrified – the whole body was bruised.
“What’s the matter, dear?” Larissa asked with horror in her eyes.
“I’ve been catapulted,” he said with a stiff expression. He lowered his head: his wife had never seen him like this- killed and confused.
At the end of August, Oleg was summoned to continue the test. His son and wife saw him off at the airport. Wife for the wholelife remembered his open palm with outspread fingers pressed against the cold glass with an external stoons. He said goodbye to his family, and there were tears in the corners of his eyes. He then seemed small, helpless: the feeling- somehow knew that he sees his family in the last time.
September 8, 1980, at 6 hours 13 minutes Moscow time time, in the South China Sea with the rise of the same self-summer from the same ship with the same operation – working off methods of truncated take-off in the limiting modes are not
The valves of the nozzle of the lifting and moving engine the plane “dipped”, hit the wheels on the bar. After leaving the deck, the plane became a hollow decrease. Kononenko did not catapult, until the last trying to save the plane. Before hitting the water in 150 meters ahead of the ship with bubbling streams of water, raise the engines, from the plane, the flap was torn off, the car turned 180 degrees. Yak-38 with the number 45 onthe board was still afloat for a minute, but no movementsin the cabin was not. The combination of lateral and vertical cargo caused a sudden loss of consciousness of the pilot, this could not be catapulted. He was killed and buried in Zhukovsky in the same row as his comrades.
With a new set of “wolf pack”, many pilots refused to go to the program “Buranю” Could not do thatVladimir Turovets, Victor Zabolotsky, Ural SultaNov, Magomed Tolboev, Sergey Tresvyatsky, Yuri Sheffer and Yuri Prikhodko – they really, since childhood, have been sick of space. Superstition and rumors did not concern them The renewed squad for the first time gathered together forfuneral for Oleg Kononenko.
Vladimir Turovets
At a wake at a small table in a small room the dark-skinned faces of the members of the detachment were dark. Wolf was mysterious but was silent – his “pack” continued to melt in his eyes. Vladimir Turovets unfolded the scratched, crumpled sheet and read out a verse, ending with the words: “Who will be the next?” And following February 8, 1982, Vladimir Turovets was himself. He, along with Nikolai Bessonov worked out the “edge mode of landing of the Mi-8 helicopter. After three blessings, with both engines switched off (on modes of autorotation with “undermining”) the regime was planned on “small gas”. The fourth regime was fatal: the helicopter fell with a large pitch angle, turned around and flashed like a match. Turovets was killed in a fire at 13 o’clock 40 minutes.
After the death of Turovets in the detachment, all the air crashes again were analized with the competent commission and no trace of foreign intelligence services did not find. Accidents recognized as accident and resumed tests.
Anatoly Levchenko went to space in December 1987. On the ground, he returned with the crew of the station “MIR” by Yuri Romanenko and Alexander Alexandrov.Landing took place in difficult weather conditions: iIn the Kazakh steppe was raging storm. The descent device strongly hit the ground, all the cosmonauts received bruises. But if Romanenko and Alexandrov were immediately hospitalized, Anatoly Levchenko had to perform an experiment on piloting the aircraft. Physicians who arrived at the site of the earth, recommend to the cosmonaut to interrupt the experiment, since his state was unstable. But Levchenko insisted on the continuation of the tests. He successfully copes with the program that Igor Volk has already passed and is awarded a honorary award – the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. But since that ill-fated day the cosmonaut is beginning to torment severe headaches. He could not resist for a long time and died. The official version – death came as a result of injuries sustained during a failed landing of the lander. And I adhere to another version, according to which he was poisoned with medicines, which, according to the program, h e experienced on board of a spaceship.
Alexander Shukin
The sixth squad lost Alexander Shchukin. He crashed into Zhukovsky on the sports Su-26 in August 1988.At the funeral of Shukin, the traditional passage in the sky over him was done by Rimantas Stankevičius, who, in a conversation with me recently confessed that he felt some sort of shadowing…
Igor Wolf – a special person
Childhood and youth
With
