Timur Apakidze
Returning, even for a day, back -
From the state of the Air Force
Leaving us again ... forever ...
TIMUR APAKIDZE - an outstanding pilot, ship pilot - fighter № 1 Russian Air Force
For thirty years of service, I had to serve, fly, study and just be familiar with hundreds of military pilots, but Timur Avtandilovich Apakidze, with all due respect to the others, stood out from everyone and tried to put himself or someone else on a par with it’s probably just incorrect and unethical. Timur is Timur! He was superior to any other military pilot in everything. The pilot - from God, he whole himself, with unattainable and impossible for others stubbornness and fanaticism, gave his beloved profession - to fly. Fly on everything that can take off the ground. With encyclopedic knowledge in matters aviationPerfectly owning the aircraft, he was a wonderful teacher and aviation commander, diligently, patiently and skillfully growing real air fighters from green lieutenants. Being the owner of a black belt in karate, he also prepared real "special forces" from his pilots, in the literal and figurative sense.
It is difficult to write about him without superlatives.
Together with the test pilot of the Sukhoi Design Bureau, Viktor Georgievich Pugachev and Sergey Nikolaevich Melnikov, Timur Apakidze created a school for the training of ship pilots of the country's naval aviation. The methodology for managing boarding on the deck was created by Nikolai Alekseevich Alferov, also a representative of the Sukhoi Design Bureau.
Our acquaintance took place in 1989 year. The self-training of students of the aviation department of the Naval Academy in Leningrad came, after three accidents, taken shortly before from the post of commander of the fighter aviation regiment in Saki, Lieutenant Colonel Apakidze.
Arriving on vacation in St. Petersburg, where he was born and raised, he came to us, asked everyone to gather in the same room and frankly, objectively and, not for years, wisely, as a friend, told us about the reason why one catastrophe in his regiment, what mistakes did he make himself in the training of pilots who committed accidents, what mistakes in flight training methods contributed to this, what conclusions (except for the conclusions of the commission investigating the incident) did he himself make of this and what should we, the future commanders on Cove not to repeat in the activity of his mistakes. Nobody asked him about this meeting, but Timur, who burned himself, considered it his duty to share his, in this case negative, experience, so that we would not step on the same rake.
Relegated to the inspector - pilot 1063 Pulp and Paper Mill and PLC (Saki), Timur continued to be engaged in ship subjects.
In the 1992 year, in my office - the commander of the garrison of Severomorsk - 3 and, at the same time, the commander of the 987 mrap, we met again. Timur Apakidze, who did not wish to take the Ukrainian Oath, following the Admiral Kuznetsov trademark who had gone to the Northern Fleet, with a group of his pilots, came to serve in the military division of the Federation Council. That day he came to me with a request to allocate him a one-room apartment in the garrison, as his family still remained in Saki. Calling on the communication of the chief of OMIS P.Yu. Shchukin, I set him the task of showing 12 one-room apartments vacant in the garrison and preparing documents for selecting the one that Lieutenant-Colonel Apakidze would like. Apakidze did not stay long in the position of the head of the 57 SCT, he was soon appointed deputy commander and then commander of the 57 mixed naval aviation division consisting of one regiment on Su-33 (Su-27k) airplanes, another on Ka-27, Ka - 29. While still in Saki, having received a spinal injury from an upturned plane during an ejection, Timur hardly passed the medical flight commission, but continued to fly to the deck, during which landings the overload reaches 4,5 units. Experiencing severe pain after an injury, he, he said, owned the body only through well-trained back muscles. While still a regiment commander, in the mornings, every day, voluntarily - forcibly, took all the regiment's pilots to charge, instilling in all of them a love for martial arts. Having stopped, after the injury, he was actively involved in martial arts himself, immediately upon arrival in Severomorsk - 3, he organized a karate section for boys and girls. At the section, everyone had to bring their diaries. Timur personally checked them, at the same time, having “troika” from classes, with tears, but ruthlessly they were expelled, until the ratings were corrected. Only those who studied at “4” and “5” could take part in the training. There was no end to those who wanted to enroll in the section. Classes Timur conducted himself, but, to a greater extent engaged in it, trained by them, pilots - fighters of the ship's regiment. In the gym, and in the garrison, boys and girls huddled around Timur like chickens near the hen. Practically, while living in the service, Apakidze also found time for the children, encouraging them to study well, better than their parents.
He himself and paired with his own, unchanged for a dozen years, led, now colonel, Viktor Dubov, Apakidze, worked wonders in the air, evoking the admiration of the audience at numerous air parades and shows of aviation equipment in Severomorsk, Murmansk, St. Petersburg, Moscow and others cities.
I cannot say that Timur and I were close friends, but we were definitely like-minded people in seeing the problems of naval aviation, since we served in approximately equal positions and became generals with a difference of two months. For five and a half years I was the Deputy Commander of the Air Force of the Federation Council for Combat Training and I, in terms of functional duties, had to constantly communicate with the commanders of flight regiments and divisions, including Timur, who himself preferred to personally resolve issues with all deputy commanders without entrusting it to anyone else.
About military service in 1995 - 1996. groups of ships, led by the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov, on which the commander of the wing was Major General Apakidze, needed to write a separate book, but, in short, it was planned, and carried out along such numerous "stretches, along the line, not only aviation ”That, in the case of a number of dangerous situations that had taken place, it only ended with a miracle without incidents and the death of the pilots.
He entered, soon after the BS, the Military Academy of the General Staff, who, he said, fed only canned fish with his family in order not to starve the listener, Hero of Russia, Merited Military Pilot, Major-General Apakidze at night, worked as a security guard in some the co-op, in whose premises he was locked up for the night, and in the morning, having received, for the last night, a cash payment, he went to classes at the Academy! So in all Academies both the last 15 years studied and study, almost all the officers. It is unlikely that in any other country it is possible that graduates of military academies pass “by inheritance” to newly-arrived weightlifters' belts so that, working in the evenings and nights as loaders, senior officers for graduation do not earn a hernia!
After graduating from VAGSH, General Apakidze was appointed Deputy Commander of Naval Aviation of the Navy, but he rarely visited Moscow, constantly moving around on business trips to the Northern Fleet, Pacific Fleet, Black Sea Fleet, to the pulp and paper industry and the training complex ("NITKA") in, which became Ukrainian, the city of Saki.
Unfortunately, not (as is customary in aviation) “extreme”, but, as it turned out, the last time we saw Timur several months before his death, when he flew for three days to work in the fighter regiment in Nivenskoye. All three days, in the evenings, we discussed the "sick" issues of aviation, exchanged views and forecasts. He, as always, was full of plans and hopes, although he looked very tired. Never drunk and did not smoke, Timur could not be on vacation for more than two weeks, managing to take short vacations, and even while studying at the Academy, flying "underground" at flying clubs, retraining centers and on private jets and helicopters. That time, even my wife, who had known Timur since the time of our joint service in Severomorsk - 3, drew his attention to the fact that he urgently needed to rest in a sanatorium. Timur, having smiled guiltily, agreed that it was necessary, but immediately apologizing that he still needed to prepare for tomorrow's flights today, went to his room in a dispensary, where with the diligence and accuracy of the cadet, donating time for sleep, carefully filled out the notebook flight preparations, flight book, flight sheets and knee pad. An hour and a half later, as we broke up, I went out to smoke and, seeing the open door of his room working at Timur’s table, went back to him. He plotted a scheme of care in the area of technology of piloting the airfield of Nivenskoe. I said that in five hours he had to go to the flights, and he, who had repeatedly flown from Nivensky and carried out flights tomorrow only as a pilot - instructor, re-draws the schemes of this airfield he knows already (in his tablet) ? Reproachfully looking into my eyes, Timur rather sharply said: “Well, you know that until I prepare myself as I see fit, I will not sit on the plane!” And, after a pause, calmly, he added: “Habit”. And this, again, was all Timur!
Having taken over all the work on the preparation and conduct of the celebration of 85 - the anniversary of Naval Aviation of the Navy in Ostrov, physically and mentally tired, in 32 - degree heat, almost finished showing the most complex complex of aerobatics on your beloved Su - 33 - Timur wrong…
With his experience, he could not fail to realize that, suddenly, because of the high temperature, the plane that had sagged on the dive-board would collide with the ground, but, deservedly considered the first and best of the best, Timur would not be 6000 viewers can eject from a working car ...
A year later, with the deputy ship fighter pilot No. 2 who came to me, at my request, Colonel I.S. Kozhin, we opened a plaque at the entrance to the headquarters of the BF Air Force (in the picture), in memory of General TA Apakidze, who was at the beginning of his flight service in the regiment at the Chkalovsk airfield, and during the training of naval aviation command personnel, a memorial plaque was opened on Ostrov Apakidze Street in Ostrov, and a board was installed in Severomorsk - 3 in the street , now bearing the name of the legendary sea pilot Timur Apakidze.
The titles of the Hero of Russia, besides Timur himself, were awarded to four of his pupils, ship fighter pilots, VV. Dubovoy, I.S. Kozhin, I.I. Bohonko, P.P. Kretov.
Timur was a fighter. And, now, “there are really few riotous things - there are no leaders” ...
Apakidze was a “legend” in his lifetime ...
Here is a separate thread about Timur: forum.evvaul.com
I also wrote quite a lot on it.
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