First pilot tests "made in Vietnam" aircraft

(Baonghean) - Although he is over 60 years old, the veteran still exudes a strong and sturdy appearance. Of the 43 years he served in the military, 40 of them were directly flying planes. He said, it seems like he was born to... fly. He is also the first pilot to test a plane made in Vietnam. He is Colonel pilot Nguyen Van Suu.

Prime Minister Pham Van Dong shook hands to encourage pilot Nguyen Van Suu during a demonstration flight of a plane now made in Vietnam.

Colonel Nguyen Van Suu was the third child in a farming family in Hung Nhan commune, Hung Nguyen district (he currently lives in Hanoi). Growing up amidst the rumbling bombs of the anti-American resistance war, as a secondary school student, he repeatedly begged his parents to let him join the army. However, it was not until he was 20 years old, during the first pilot selection round in the Central region, that he was officially allowed to join the army.

With his contributions of time, effort and intelligence to the Fatherland, he was awarded dozens of medals and orders of various types by the Army and the State, including 5 medals of military merit, a commemorative medal for the cause of science and technology, and many certificates of merit from the Army Corps and the Minister of National Defense.

Brave under the sky of bullets and fire

In 1966, Colonel Nguyen Van Suu was sent to study flying MiG-17 aircraft in the Soviet Union. More than 2 years later, he returned to the country to serve the revolution. He was assigned to air force regiments to carry out missions such as high altitude flying, flying captured American war planes, or sometimes being assigned to build new battalions... When the country shed blood in the war to protect the southwestern border and then the war to protect the northern border, he directly participated in flying fighter planes.

To serve the war to protect the southwestern border, in 1977, Colonel Nguyen Van Suu was transferred back to the 917th Air Force Regiment of the 372nd Division, both directly participating in combat and training new pilots. As the squadron leader of the reconnaissance squadron, he was present in most of the campaigns. Thinking back to those days, sometimes he does not understand why he survived.

During that time, there were many memorable battles, but the most memorable was the time he commanded the bombing of the enemy's artillery site, about 10 km from Chau Doc town towards Cambodia. To determine the exact location of the artillery site among 10 predicted locations, he had to risk his life to fly the plane down low, close to the enemy's gun barrel to check. The moment the plane touched the enemy's gun barrel, he thought he was seeing the face of death because in just 2 seconds he could have been blown into a hundred pieces. However, it was also because of those moments that Mr. Suu realized that nothing could defeat his courage and will, not even death.

There were times when he dared to do things that no other pilot would dare to do. One time he ordered the regimental commander to change the decision of an entire squadron. It was during a campaign to destroy the Khmer Rouge invaders, not allowing them to cross the Vinh Te canal and retreat to the other side of the border. The battle was intense, the squadrons were coordinating with each other to destroy the enemy troops gathered at the Nuoc Luong ferry.

While the helicopter squadron 2 was preparing to attack the target, they received orders from the squadron leader not to attack with the intention of capturing the enemy alive. However, in the position of a reconnaissance pilot, Mr. Suu was sure that there were 4 enemy helicopters circling to an altitude of about 800 degrees. At that moment, someone shouted, "Watch out, they are shooting at us." Furthermore, on the ground, our attack points were being blocked by the enemy and could suffer casualties.

As someone who knew the whole situation, in a moment, he courageously interrupted the platoon leader: "focus all firepower on attacking the ferry terminal". After that order, looking down from above, he saw a series of Khmer Rouge soldiers cornered.

That moment was a mixture of joy and sadness, joy and fear. On one hand, he had “resisted” his commander without knowing what the consequences would be. But on the other hand, he was happy to save the lives of his comrades. Fortunately, the battle was a great victory. Even the platoon leader was very pleased with him and his fighting spirit.

“For pilots like me, if we are not reckless and daring, we cannot survive,” he shared. People can be born on a bamboo bed and die on it, but as pilots, those whose “feet do not touch the ground, whose backs do not reach the sky,” are always teetering between life and death. They are forced to “look at the sky as a lid,” disregard bullets and bombs, disregard enemy cannons to be able to overcome those fierce years.

Volunteer to be a "die-in pilot"

“Die-hard pilot” is the familiar name for experimental pilots. Because no job is as dangerous and risky as that job.

After 1975, in Vietnam, there were some people who had the idea of ​​building airplanes. However, it was not until January 1978 that the project "Building a basis for designing and testing small propeller aircraft" was born. The project was approved by the Central Military Commission, allowing the Air Force to organize and implement it. The project manager was Associate Professor Truong Khanh Chau. The product of the project was the TL-1 reconnaissance and communication aircraft, which was designed and built in more than 2 years.

Colonel pilot Nguyen Van Suu, test pilot of Vietnamese-made aircraft

In early 1980, on a trip to Hanoi, Mr. Suu traveled in the same car with officers from the Air Force Military Technical Institute. When he arrived at the Air Force, as invited on the car, he was taken by the Institute Director Truong Khanh Chau to see a very strange aircraft - the first aircraft made by Vietnam itself, called TL-1, which was in the assembly stage.

Before parting, Mr. Suu left a joke saying, “If you can’t find a test pilot, just call me.” More than a month later, he received a decision to transfer to the Air Force Military Technical Institute to become one of the first test pilots of the Vietnam Air Force.

At that time, he also received a lot of advice to “withdraw”, why was he so foolish and reckless? Some people also thought that he must have dared to gamble his life for the large remuneration. With a glint of pride in his eyes, he said that it was only because he loved the sky and wanted to contribute to the development of Vietnam’s aviation industry.

After 2 years of hard work, the plane was finally brought to Hoa Lac airport to prepare for a test flight. At that time, each time he let the plane take a "fake takeoff" to gradually determine the plane's flying ability, he experienced feelings of extreme tension.

The most memorable was the third fake takeoff, when the plane was about to leave the ground when the engine suddenly stopped working due to a clogged fuel pipe. After a moment of shock, he happily shouted "thank goodness". All the departments and technical staff were surprised, but only he and the other pilots understood that if the engine had stopped a little later, both the pilot and the plane would have been in trouble.

However, on September 25, 1980, after several checks, the pilots decided to let the plane take off. The moment he walked around to check the plane one last time and then quietly entered the cockpit, he felt his heart filled with excitement, anxiety and tension like soldiers about to enter a big battle. During that flight, pilot Nguyen Xuan Hien was the main pilot, Mr. Suu was responsible for using the engine, monitoring the status, adjusting data and participating in control when absolutely necessary.

The first Vietnamese plane flew to an altitude of 320m, maintained a speed of 160km/h, flew in a “garlic” shape - as Mr. Suu described it - and landed in the opposite direction. Everything went very well. “I felt as if I had fallen from the sky” - Colonel Nguyen Van Suu recalled.

For him, it has been 30 years since the successful test flight of the TL-1 aircraft, but everything has not faded. Even after 40 years of flying dozens of different types of aircraft with nearly 3,000 flight hours, the 7 minutes and 30 seconds of that test flight will forever be the most meaningful and profound moments in his life as a pilot.

Vinh - Hoa