I flew a lot around Europe, to America, and across America, and I didn’t feel any sense of emotional uplift. You’re sitting in a comfortable armchair in a rumbling flying carriage and you’re bored. However, for fun, I took a radiation monitor with me and measured its level depending on the route and altitude of the flight. The route did not matter, according to the monitor (Alpha-Beta-Gamma radiation), and the altitude was very significant. The higher the airliner flew, the higher the radiation level was than at sea level, and not by any percentage, but by 50-100 times! Solar and cosmic gamma radiation and cosmic rays (streams of charged particles of non–solar origin) – when flying at night and shielded from the Sun by the globe.

But overall, it’s boring!

Only twice in my life have I REALLY felt FLYING, once when I flew a small two-seater Cessna with a military pilot, who moved the plane into a tailspin several times at my request, and, most impressively, on a Li-2. The Soviet version of the American cargo-passenger and military aircraft Dakota, named “Li” NOT because of the License on the basis of which it was produced in the USSR, but after engineer Boris Lizunov, who was the lead designer, who studied all the intricacies of the design of this remarkable aircraft for two years in America.

A great versatile machine!

And so, on the twentieth of December, I flew to Yekaterinburg in order to continue flying to my friends in Petropavlovsk (in Kazakhstan). The distance is approximately 600 km, an hour of flight for an ordinary airliner.

Arrived and… ALL FLIGHTS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED!

A strong winter storm is raging on all these six hundred kilometers. I slept the night in a hotel and am sitting at the airport again, “waiting by the sea for the weather.”

And the storm is raging…

NON-FLYING WEATHER and, according to forecasts, for a week!

Suddenly they announce:

“A special flight to Petropavlovsk for doctors and military personnel. On the personal responsibility of the passengers themselves!”

I ran to the exit to the airfield. The ticket inspector, an officer of the Interior Ministry troops, asks sternly: Are you a doctor?

I nod to him with a sternly focused face, saying that I’m risking my life for the sake of fulfilling my MEDICAL DUTY: “Urgent operation! I skipped it without further ado. There’s a blizzard on the field, it’s hard to see, it’s day, but it’s dark! The officer, thanks to him, pointed out where to go. There is a small Li-2 standing somewhere to the side with a ladder for several steps attached to its door. There are several military men around him, all officers. I go into the cabin, drag my suitcase in and sit in the left row, if I stand facing the cockpit. The suitcase is big and heavy. I need to have a place to put it so it doesn’t stick out into the aisle, and there are just TWO chairs! It fit right into the double gap between the rows of seats. I sat down on the remaining edge…

We take off without delay.

There was a slight wobble at first, but nothing particularly interesting.

But when we climbed a couple of kilometers, then THE REAL FLIGHT BEGAN.

There are no more than five or seven officers in the cabin, and I am the only civilian.

The plane began to toss from side to side, pitching, falling into deep “air holes”, and suddenly, with an acceleration of a couple of “G”, it was thrown up, and all this under thunderous blows to the fuselage, which shook the entire aircraft. I quickly realized that these were storm–like dense snow charges – vortices hitting the plane and the speed of the plane itself passing through them at a speed of, I think, about three hundred kilometers per hour is also added to their speed.

I am completely euphoric from these wonderful sensations of a strong and reliable aircraft fighting a storm. I’ve lost my mind completely, although I don’t drink at all.

But, looking up from hmy raptures for a moment, I looked at my fellow travelers. All of them have gray-green faces, they blend right into their overcoats, they’re stuck in “hygiene bags” and they’re shaking. Not from blows to the body of the aircraft, from internal cramps.

I realized that I needed to help the guys, grabbed my bag, took a dozen more from all the available pockets and went around the salon to distribute to the unfortunate sufferers. They thanked me with their eyes, because they couldn’t speak. I returned and blissfully absorbed the pleasure of REAL FLIGHT with all my senses.

We flew for two and a half hours, but the storm had already weakened near Petropavlovsk, the roar of two engines became audible and the plane flew “softly”.

Made soft landing. My doctor friend was waiting there. That was the end of the magic.

I flew back on a Tupolev. It’s more interesting than on Western airlines due to the steep climb (similar to the rate of climb of military bombers), but it’s NOT THE SAME!

This feeling of bliss is firmly recorded in my memory. and even now, remembering and describing it, with a little piece of my soul, I felt like I did back THEN!

Wonderful moments OF FEELING OF FLYING THROUGH A STORM!

Unforgettable!

30 IX 2025