Dozens of Soviet aircraft suitable for restoration and commissioning are located at airfields throughout Russia. However, the implementation of this task is complicated not only by the lack of spare parts, the production of which has long been discontinued, but also by an acute shortage of qualified personnel — in particular, flight engineers.
As noted by the Honored Pilot of the USSR, former Deputy Minister of Civil Aviation of the USSR, and current Chairman of the Civil Aviation Commission of the Public Council of Rostransnadzor, Oleg Smirnov, modern foreign aircraft such as Boeing and Airbus have a crew of two — the commander and the co-pilot. At the same time, domestic aircraft, including Il-96, Tu-204, and Tu-214, require a three-member crew with the mandatory presence of a flight engineer.
According to him, Russian aviation schools have practically stopped training specialists in this field in recent years. As a result, a serious personnel gap arises: there are no young specialists, and former flight engineers who had experience working on such types of aircraft have already reached retirement age and may not pass the medical commission for admission to flights.
Smirnov emphasized that without the urgent launch of targeted retraining programs or new flight engineer training courses, a large-scale restoration of the Soviet fleet will be technically impossible, despite the availability of the aircraft themselves.
Earlier, www1.ru reported that Russian airlines have begun to put old Tu-204, Il-96, and Boeing 747 aircraft back into service.