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People have always sought to conquer the sky. At first it was the dream of the romantics, with which the heroes of myths rushed, to take at least Daedalus and Icarus, and then the geniuses of the Renaissance. But when progress came and the first test designers nevertheless soared towards the sun, the development of aviation went by leaps and bounds. Today we cannot imagine life without airplanes and helicopters. They have become the same ordinary transport as a bus or a train. In this article, we want to talk about the professional holiday of people who are engaged in the transportation of goods and passengers – everything about Civil Aviation Day in Our Country, its history and traditions in 2023.
When is Civil Aviation Day celebrated?
This holiday has a fixed date. In 2023, as before, Civil Aviation Day in Our Country will be celebrated February 9. We want to warn readers against a factual error: you may come across the claim that industry professionals celebrate their holiday on December 7th. Everything is so, however, with a caveat – the holiday at the beginning of winter has the prefix “international”. The celebration is scheduled for February.
The history of the holiday and the formation of civil aviation in Our Country
Historians give a figure of 1000 aircraft that were in the Empire on the eve of the 1917 revolution. Even the first private airlines appeared. To an uninitiated person it may seem that this is a solid park, probably one of the largest at that time. Here they look with what to compare. If with Asia, then the country was strongly ahead. But the European powers lost. In the UK at the beginning of the 20th century, there were 60 times more aircraft, and in France XNUMX!
The civil war did not allow the aviation business to develop, and vice versa, it ruined it. But with the end of the conflict, the young country of the Soviets began to actively invest in the industry, and not only its military part. Already in 1922, the Inspectorate of the Civil Fleet was created, which began work in its own direction. And a year later, a new structure appeared, with the formation of which the holiday is associated with the Day of Civil Aviation of Our Country. It was named the Civil Aviation Council. Date of establishment – February 9, 1923. Centenary is coming soon. Note that the holiday itself was approved only in 2013. Then a Presidential Decree was issued, which fixed the date.
Holiday traditions
Civil Aviation Day is not marked by any special traditions. Perhaps this is due to the fact that workers in this area have other similar celebrations, for example, Air Force Day. According to passengers, it is known that on February 9, aircraft commanders sometimes congratulate people in the cabin during the flight. Individual airlines or airports may host ceremonial events on their territory. However, there is still a region in Our Country where Civil Aviation Day is regularly celebrated – the Ulyanovsk Region. It is called the aviation capital of the country, as there are an aircraft building plant and an institute of civil aviation. They necessarily hold festive meetings, concerts, meetings with veterans and dedication of young cadets and employees.
Interesting facts about civil aviation in Our Country
- The first airline was called “Dobrolet” and was founded in 1923. But how to develop an enterprise that has appeared in a country where there is no market and where the war ended not so long ago? The state simply did not have an extra penny. The way out was invented by Leon Trotsky – the same father of the revolution, who would later be killed in Mexico. He ordered the establishment of the Society of Friends of the Air Fleet. His task was to popularize the first airline and collect donations for its development. Agitation unfolded. Slogans thundered from the posters: “He is not a citizen of the USSR, who is not a shareholder of Dobroleta.” Mayakovsky also added a pen to the campaign, and the avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich drew the logo of the society. The measures worked: millions of proletarian and peasant rubles flowed into the treasury of society.
- If we talk about the first passenger flight in the country, then it can be considered the route “Moscow – Nizhny Novgorod”. He took off from the Khodynka field in July 1923. And if today planes soar to a height of 10 km from the ground to make a flight, then the pilot Yakov Moiseev climbed only 200 meters – they flew in this echelon for a long time. By the way, the travel time then took seven hours. The German glider Junkers F13 was put on the route, which can accommodate four passengers.
- Civil aviation began with the active exploitation of Western developments and even pilots. Their specialists in the young country of the Soviets have not yet been brought up. But already ten years after the first flight, 90% of the ships in the fleet were domestic developments. Here begins the engineering feat of the legendary designers Ilyushin, Tupolev, Antonov.
- The longest flights from Our Country are Moscow-Los Angeles (12 hours) and Moscow-Cancun (14 hours). Within the country, flights from Sochi or Moscow to the Far East (8,5 hours) are considered the longest.
- The more passengers a ship can carry and the less time it spends on land, the more profitable it is for the airline. Therefore, firms strive to load their flights to the maximum. The business dream is supersonic passenger aircraft. In total, two of them were developed – our Tu-144 and the French Concorde. The first sample flew only seven months, the second – 27 years. Both are now not used in passenger traffic for the same reason: high fuel consumption. The flight turns out to be so expensive that an ordinary passenger is not able to afford to buy a ticket for the full price. However, engineers are trying to develop the next generation of supersonic aircraft that will be more fuel efficient and less loud to the people in the cabin.