They Are Here Too
AN-24 trundling around the base.
This is an AN-12 getting ready to take off.
This is a photo of an AN-24 taking off. It was rather dusty that day.
Here I am at one of the biggest U.S. military bases in this particular part of the hot zone. A place where the full benificent might of America is on display; a place that can dispatch death from the night sky in squadrons, medical care by the truckload and has 5 kinds of ice cream in the chow hall. A place where the electricity never fails and every building that isn't a hanger or a storage shed is air conditioned. And as I am flying in the skies over this place what do I hear on the radio? Russian accents.
Russian accents belonging to the voices of Russian pilots flying Russian airplanes, good old IL-76's, AN-12's and AN-24's. It felt kind of homey when I heard those guys, sort of like being back in the Congo.
This was a surprise to me. Of all the air cargo planes that land here to supply the base, it seems about 30% to 40% are Russian airplanes. If you see or hear an airplane overhead it is as likely to be an Antonov or IL as it is to be a C-130, C-17 or DC-8. Also I saw a civil version of a C-130 land here yesterday, just like I used to see civil C-130's (L-382's I think they are called) in Central Africa.
The economy of the DRC was very heavily dependent upon Russian airplanes and pilots. None of the towns in the interior would have had plasstic chairs and beer without them. I didn't know the American war effort depended upon them too. I wonder if the Russians overload the planes by oh, a lot, here, as they used to in Africa? I am pretty sure they don't crash as much. There are more people trying to shoot them down though.
posted by Carl at 11:36 PM
5 Comments:
Are the Russians private pilots working for shipping companies? Are the companies Russian shipping companies or are the affilaited with the Russian govt?
i don't know about here. in the congo they were all private companies and russian civilian pilots.
i suspect the same arrangement is in place here.
By the way, I just read an article in the Wall Street Journal that Vlad is in the process of - you guessed it - rewriting Russian history. That Napolianic little dwarf is basically "approving" the official Russian high school senior's history book full of all kinds of "COLORFUL" versions of history (according to Vlad).
Cheryl's theory OF the Russian poeple is that they have the national psyche of an abused child. "Daddy only hits me because he loves me. If Daddy didn't hit me, that would mean he didn't care. The harder Daddy hits me, the more he loves me." Well pucker up Russia, because Daddy Vlad is going to continue to do a whole lot of loving on you! That would be funny if it wasn't true. It really pisses me off.
P.S. Anyone reading this would be wise to read a book called "Kremlin Rising."
i like Cheryl's analysis.
What I have read on the Russian psyche is that they associate the more harsh living conditions with being a superpower. They rue the loss or being a world superpower, and consequently feel nostalgia for the "good old days". As the US is world scapegoat for all countries internal problems, they also blame the US for failing to help them convert to capitalism in a meaningful way, thus condemning them to a second class national identity.
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