| Rozhovor | interview | интервью
▾ Z ruzyňského letiště startoval Stanislav Fiala k letům do celého světa. Pohled na dnešní terminál 3 v 60. letech minulého století. — Stanislav Fiala took off for his flights to the whole world from Ruzyně airport. A 1960s view of what is nowadays Terminal 3. — Из рузинского аэропорта Станислав Фиала летал по всему миру. Вот как выглядел нынешний Третий терминал в 60-е годы прошлого века.
aircraft, the comrades came to the opinion that Vršinský knows all too much and fired him. He went to work in Waltrovka, Walter motors factory in Jinonice, as a mechanic. He handled the work others were doing all day in a couple of hours and in the remaining time translated articles from foreign literature. Walter factory then produced engines for training fighter aircraft we supplied to Iran and one day, the Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi came to see their production. The comrades in charge of the factory of course did not speak English, and so they remembered Vršinský. He agreed to interpret but refused to take off his overalls, since he was just a mechanic afterall. That made someone realize Vršinský was a smart man and he was sent to develop jet engine brakes in the closed military area in the woods by Stará Boleslav. There were many cases like that. I suppose the Ruzyně airport then also looked different than today. The airport was basically an open field. I remember that when I was learning to fly in the Aeroclub, we had our training flights on the 31/13 runway. To runway 22 we went to fly radio-controlled models, which is completely unimaginable today. Air shows were held at the airport. When we had free time, we used to go to pick mushrooms in the grass. When the decision was made to
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erect a fence around the airport, we took it pretty hard. It was a time, however, when hijackings of aircraft began to occur and airlines had to implement stricter security measures, so the move was inevitable. Without the fence the airport was accessible to anyone. What were the airport facilities like? Czech Airlines always had extremely skilled technicians who are still considered first-class experts today. We were unique in that our technicians could handle just about any machine from a hang-glider to a Boeing. One of my colleagues, Pavel Vykouk, with whom we fly at the Kladno Airport, has long been retired but is still very much in demand, because he knows how to work with Duralumin sheet metal – pretty much no one else can do that today, even though there are many pilots flying small sports planes who need someone like him. Air transportation is commonplace today. Was it something special back in the old days? It certainly was. Firstly because back then it was tricky to get a permit to leave the country and secondly because ticket prices were astronomical. I remember a ticket to the USA costing CZK 21,000 – that was a year’s salary for some people.