At airfields across Russia, there are dozens of Soviet aircraft suitable for restoration and return to service. However, implementing this task is complicated not only by the lack of spare parts, whose production was discontinued long ago, but also by an acute shortage of qualified personnel, in particular flight engineers.
As noted by 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 under Rostransnadzor Oleg Smirnov, on modern foreign airliners such as Boeing and Airbus, the crew consists of two people: the captain and the first officer. At the same time, domestic aircraft, including the 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 in recent years practically stopped training specialists in this field. As a result, a serious personnel gap has emerged: young specialists are absent, while former flight engineers who had experience working on similar aircraft types have already reached retirement age and may not pass the medical examination required for flight clearance.
Smirnov emphasized that without the urgent launch of targeted retraining programs or new flight engineer training courses, the large-scale restoration of the Soviet fleet will prove technically impossible, despite the availability of the aircraft themselves.
Earlier, www1.ru reported that Russian airlines have begun returning old Tu-204s, Il-96s, and Boeing 747s to the skies.
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