Top-class champions
Mjr Krakowian was 1 of the fewer Poles who graduated from the American Academy of Air Force in Colorado Springs in place of our Military Aviation Academy in Dęblin, although Maciej Krakowian was a postgraduate of the Dęblin Air advanced School, in which he graduated in 2008. Later he trained on F-16 aircraft and slow climbed military career levels, becoming head of training of the 32nd Tactical Aviation Base in Poznań-Krzesin. On F-16 alone, he had more than 1,000 hours, a full of around 1400.
For a military supersonic plane, that's rather a lot. Flying on military aircraft is highly intense and abounds in events, even if the flight lasts only 40 – 60 minutes, there are quite a few things happening in it – they are flight chic at various altitudes, interception, air combat or simulated attack on ground, sharp maneuvering, exercise in cognitive situational orientation, that is, something that is most crucial for a military pilot. The pilot must be aware of the targets he is going to attack, anti-aircraft defenses and his own aircraft and enemy. Everything changes with all second, airplanes fly, creating a image of the situation very hard to capture, and after all, it is essential to make the right tactical decisions, at the same time skillfully maneuvering the aircraft. So we inactive have data on aerodynamics and flight mechanics. So much is happening at the same time, it requires the highest concentration and it is incredibly difficult. After a fewer minutes of flight, the pilot lands, but if he wanted to describe his 1 flight, it would take him quite a few pages. The communication pilot has a raid of 12,000 hours, of which 90 percent or more is simply a flight with an autopilot on, in a consecutive line, erstwhile the earth is lazyly moving under the plane and nothing actually happens. That's why on these flights, an hr is no match, it's a full different world, a full different story. The military pilot has no time to turn on the autopilot, due to the fact that besides much is happening. So a small over a 1000 hours is rather a lot. Pilots of combat aircraft sometimes have more than 2 1000 hours and more, but they are already top-class champions. There is besides an uncounted training in simulators.
The story must be dispelled here – there are no safe supersonic fighters. Flying on these machines is risky by its very nature, due to the fact that it is essential to learn to fight them utilizing a large number of different types of weapons, and this requires many risky maneuvers where there is no margin for error. The aircraft itself is besides very complicated and can undergo various failures. For the first 2 decades of usage of F-16 aircraft, the US Air Force lost 206 aircraft of this kind from nearly 2600 owned (as many were delivered to them in the following years). If we mention this to our fleet of 48 F-16s that have been utilized for 19 years, we should lose them about 4 – 5. But this plane is only the first 1 to crash. Why? In combat aviation we have managed to make a very deep professional culture in which everyone takes their duties very seriously. So the pilots learn quite a few theoretical knowledge, constantly practice their activities on trainers and simulators, repeat them, question each other, carefully prepare for flights to which they approach with focus and large concentration, and after their performance they review records from recorders, capture errors and carefully analyse them, discuss and discuss how to prevent them. That's what they live for, that's what's truly crucial to them. Identically, all ground services function in combat aviation units, so that no mistakes are made, and if they are made, they are repaired in time. Only this approach and this professional culture is due to the fact that we lose so fewer aircraft in combat aviation. On Su-22, which were purchased to Poland 110, a twelve were lost for the first 26 years of their use, later most of them were withdrawn and not 1 was lost from the remaining 18 in service.
We fly very hard.
We utilized to fly like this, although the strength and hazard did not decrease. We fly very hard, we take part in hard NATO exercises, including the celebrated Red Flag in the US, very demanding, during which many another states have crashed. We regularly send crews at Tactical Leadership Program to Albacete, Spain, for Frissian Flag exercises and others conducted in Germany, the Benelux countries, Denmark and organize specified exercises in Poland. It is worth noting at this point that a somewhat different situation occurred for any time in military transport aviation. Many experienced pilots and ground crew members left transport from the first decade of the 21st century as a consequence of erroneous staff decisions. These deficiencies marked 3 major disasters in 2 years: CASA C-295M in Mirosławec in 2008, An-28 in the Navy in 2009 and Tu-154M in the 2010 peculiar Regiment. All of these catastrophes have shadowed the reputation of military pilots, as they have shown cardinal deficiencies in training. This situation did not actually affect combat aviation, which perfectly performed very hard tasks and since 2001 only 3 MiG-29, 1 school-fighting M-346 and 1 F-16 in the last disaster have been lost. That's a truly large score.
Is it worth organizing specified shows?
I do not engage in speculation about the causes of the disaster, which will be handled by the committee. Even though I have my suspicions, I don't uncover them publicly. I'll just say that the hypothesis that a popular news portal has put up is completely missed. The question remains whether it is worth organizing air shows. And here it must be said that they service to stimulate interest and passion among young people. Without specified enthusiasts there is no later professional air force, and the military's bond with society is highly important. Besides, erstwhile demonstrating airplanes at shows, pilots perfect their professional skills, and so it is not money thrown into the mud. Let us not be offended by the fact that we lost the plane just in preparation for the demonstrations, as well as losing it during the exercise, just as the blind destiny decided. Let us remember about specified people as Major Maciej “Slab” Krakowian, but besides about others who thanks to their passion make the ethos of our air forces. I inactive keep in head 2 Andrews, Brig. Gen. Andrzej Andrzejewski and Gen. Andrzej Błasik, both flew to Su-22 and both created this ethos earlier. Both, unfortunately, are already dead, and – about the irony of destiny – died in the crashes of transport aircraft as... passengers. It's just that any people hazard their lives so that we can all sleep peacefully and not be afraid of the outside enemy, and the danger of war, unfortunately, is increasing.
