The organizers of the airshow found a way to advertise not only their next exhibition, but the president's favorite political party as well (the yellow balloon).
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Crash and Burn
// Vladimir Putin tried out the equipment
Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the 2007 International Aviation and Space Salon airshow, known as MAKS in Russian, in the Moscow suburb of Zhukovsky. In three hours, the president saw almost all the exhibits, crashed on landing at Komsomolsk-on-Amur in a flight simulator and met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.
MAKS is the only exhibition in Russia that the president habitually inaugurates. That is a tradition dating back to Boris Yeltsin. Putin made his entrance in a helicopter, which is already a tradition with him. Other place-placed guests, including First Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov, came by land, causing huge traffic backups on the two-lane highway. Regular visitors, leaving Moscow at 8:00, only got to the show around noon. The presidential helicopter was also half an hour late. A Kommersant source blames fires in a peat bog east of Moscow for it. Indeed, the Gromov Flight Research Institute in Zhukovsky, home to the airshow, was shrouded in a smoky haze all morning.
Putin gave a three-minute opening speech, giving special mention to “the programmatic character of the airshow, its scientific conferences and seminars.” He singled out the Russian United Aviation Construction Corp. exhibit, taking the opportunity to urge it to “maintain its leadership in the production of military aviation equipment.” With that, the official opening was complete and the president set off for the Rosoboronexport chalet.
There, witnesses say, Putin congratulated company head Sergey Chemezov on his recent 55th birthday and then greeted Ukrainian Prime Minister Yanukovich. Svetlana Kapanina, world aerobatics champion, caught up to the president on the chalet terrace, overlooking the runway. She asked him to support sport flying in Russia. “We have the best sport planes in the world, the best pilots, the best flight school. But we are brought to our knees by the lack of state support! I tried to explain that to the president,” she recalled later. “The president promised he would try to help.”
The demonstration flights did not seem to make a great impression on the president, but he had seen practically the same thing at three previous MAKSes. Therefore, after watching the first few flights, he set off to see the exhibition. That is also a ritual of sorts. In previous years, numerous Russian and foreign exhibitors complained that the presidential administration promised a personal visit to their exhibits by the president and then he didn't come. Yesterday, Putin made nearly full rounds. The smoky mist had been replaced by 30-degree heat by that time, but the president walked methodically from pavilion to pavilion dressed in a dark suit.
He began at the children's pavilion, an innovation this year. There young model airplane and spaceship builders awaited him. There were several competitions before the airshow and the prizewinners were given the opportunity to tell the president about their models personally. A girl from Kazakhstan gave the president a knitted airliner.
From there, the president proceeded to the United Aviation Construction Corp. stands, where he even got into the Sukhoi SuperJet 100 flight simulator. (The real plane's maiden flight is expected to take place in October or November.) The simulator completely recreates the plane's cockpit and the landscape around Komsomolsk-on-Amur and the Komsomolsk Aviation Construction Association airbase, where the plane is being developed, are depicted through its windows. The president sat in the commander's seat, while the plan's chief pilot Alexander Yablontsev sat in the copilot's seat. First Deputy Prime Minister Ivanov and Sukhoi chief Mikhail Pogosyan stood behind them, and Pogosyan provided commentary.
The president wanted to take a more hands-on approach, however. “What will happen if I push this lever that way?” he asked. “You will plunge into the earth,” Yablontsev answered readily. The president did it any way and the instructor shook his head. “That's it,” he said. The sky flashes on the monitor and then it turns green with fields and freezes. “That's all, crash and burn,” the instructor says and resets the machine.
The second try went better. With a few hints from Yablontsev, the president successfully landed the plane at the airbase. “Not a bad landing,” Pogosyan acknowledged. “250 km./h. – permissible. Vertical speed 60 cm./sec. with 1 m. permissible.”
Putin did not skip hardly anyone in the foreign section either. He stopped at the stands of EADS (which includes Airbus, one of the world's two largest planemakers), the French Safran Group (which, along with the Saturn scientific production association in Rybinsk, is making the engines for the Sukhoi SuperJet) and the American Boeing. At the Great Wall exhibit, they asked the president “when a Made in China' sticker will appear on Russian spacecraft.” “Maybe someday, but I don't think it will be soon,” Putin answered. Only Britain's Rolls Royce was left out. When one of the lady representatives of the company tried to take the president's arm, security people pulled her aside and Ivanov explained in good English that “the president is in a hurry.”
He hurried to the Ukrainian pavilion, where Yanukovich was waiting for him. Their second meeting was as joyous as the first, with a new set of handshakes and greetings. The prime minister, suffering badly from the heat, urged the president to work closely with the Ukrainian aviation construction industry. Putin, in his damp suit, clearly had no strength left to resist.
With his heroic trial through the stuffy pavilions of Zhukovsky behind him, the president got into a car. The limousine had hardly started, when it stopped again. The resident got out and went up to a kiosk. “What do you sell?” he asked the salesgirl. “Hot dogs for 40 rubles,” she stuttered. The president was obviously hoping for something cold. He shook his head and went back into the Rosoboronexport chalet, where he net Yanukovich a third time. It seems that had things to talk about without witnesses as well, since their scheduled half-hour talk went on for an hour. Then Putin authorized Ivanov to sign a memorandum of mutual understanding on the development of civil and freight aviation technology and left MAKS in a helicopter.
Konstantin Lantratov
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 22, 2007
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