18.12.2022
Mankind touched space. For his flight around the Earth, Gagarin received 15 thousand rubles – about the price of two Volga cars.
As cosmonaut pilot Alexei Leonov recounted, Gagarin lived in a four-room apartment with the best “Belgrade” furniture for that time under the kitchen and bedroom.
From then on, Gagarin was a superhero of the planet, whose life was filled with traveling the world and promoting Soviet achievements: meetings with state leaders and ordinary workers, appearances on television, participation in rallies.
Gagarin stayed in Finland for five days and arrived there by train. One of the workers gave him a pair of ancient Finnish tossut shoes, woven from birch bark – in such Finns in ancient times walked long distances. “When you go to the moon, take them with you,” the worker said. Gagarin kept them at home.
The same amount of time he spent in Great Britain. In Manchester, Gagarin met with foundry workers who gave him a medal with the inscription “Together we will cast a better world.” And during the lunch break at the engineering plant, he spoke at a rally of many thousands, climbing in front of the crowd on a truck with the sides folded up.
An important point was an invitation to lunch at Buckingham Palace from Queen Elizabeth II. In his book The Road to Space, Gagarin only mentions this reception, but without the details. The meeting was not originally planned and was not coordinated with the government. For British politicians, Gagarin is a Soviet officer and a carrier of foreign achievements.
That is why he was invited there by workers from Manchester and organizers of the trade and industrial exhibition in London. From the airport, Gagarin drove a silver Rolls-Royce with an open body and the company number YG-1. He greeted residents standing up and fought off girls who ran after the car. The mood of thousands of Britons softened the attitude and skepticism of the authorities.
Gagarin did not know English, but at dinner with the queen he made the audience laugh and was embarrassed by the number of instruments on the table. Writer Lev Danilkin in his book “Yuri Gagarin” explained: “He could compensate for his ignorance of languages with a constant smile, his lack of social skills with careful gallantry; the awkwardness of getting into an unfamiliar situation was usually smoothed out with unpretentious political humor.
Gagarin toured Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, and then found himself in another part of the planet: Cuba, Brazil, and Canada. Fleeing the heat, Gagarin wore all white, but Havana was flooded by a tropical downpour. Fidel and Raul Castro, Ernesto Guevara and thousands of Cubans were soaking wet and waiting for Gagarin to appear. He hesitated, but came out – to a flooded airfield, in the rain hitting his face.
In Cuba, Gagarin was on National Uprising Day, where more than a million Cubans gathered: there he visited a hospital and laid a wreath at the monument to the poet José Martí. As a gift from Fidel Castro, Gagarin received a uniform of a soldier of the Cuban revolutionary army; in return, he received an aviation cap.
Gagarin was also torn at home. Such was the case at the Italian Embassy in Moscow, where he went with Leonov:
“Gilded chandeliers, bent furniture legs, everyone bows… Yura is speaking. That’s when I first heard the words: “Ladies and Gentlemen!” And then, “Dear Mr. Ambassador!” He’s never been in any embassy!
I just opened my mouth, how great and how beautiful it was! Then he came over and kissed my hand. “Yurka, where did you get this?” – I asked. And he laughs: “I read it in Consuelo.” After that, the Queen of England wondered where he got such an upbringing.
Leonov said that fame did not spoil Gagarin: openness and responsiveness were not lost. When Leonov was preparing for the world’s first spacewalk, Gagarin monitored his health: “He was constantly calling doctors, asking about my condition. There were such trainings that many guys had microinfarcts, and they were written off. He really took care of me. Not letting me figure it out.”
Gagarin enjoyed status and shared influence everywhere. For example, in Star City he pushed for construction of a swimming pool and 14-storey buildings instead of five-storey ones – it was cheaper that way. As cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov recounted, they dragged bricks to the construction site, watched the layout of the apartments and celebrated their opening. Gagarin himself was not rich. “As a colonel and squadron commander, he received 380 rubles,” Leonov explained. – For a flight in difficult conditions he was paid two rubles per minute, in simple conditions – a ruble. That is, for these flights was another 150-180 rubles per month.
Gagarin got tired of traveling and without flights he put on 10 kilos. He was also very fond of basketball.
“Last time I saw Gagarin six months before his death. I asked him: “Where are you going now? He was always traveling abroad with Brezhnev. He sighed heavily and said: “I’m so tired of these trips! Our “dear and beloved” even takes me to the bath with him, like a servant…” – Valery Galaida, a world record-holder in parachuting, recalled in an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets.
Brezhnev’s kisses are a strange symbol of the era. Once the president of Yugoslavia had a cracked lip, and Fidel Castro fobbed off with a cigar
To unload, Gagarin hunted. Leonov did it with him and told: “Once [Gagarin] broke a lynx’s three paws with one bullet. It itched or something – how did that happen? He was never a greedy man when hunting. You know, some people demanded to be put in a special place, and he didn’t… In the general corral with the boys. Never got jealous. I remember when Zhenya Khrunov [a cosmonaut] killed a moose, and Yura was the first to run up and break the branch – an archer should anoint a pine or fir branch with blood and stick it in his hat”.
Because of the endless touring around the world, his physical condition sagged. Colonel General of Aviation Nikolai Kamanin, who trained the first squad of astronauts, wrote about Gagarin’s altered form in the first part of his book “Hidden Space.”
“Yura had a very strong character, he held firm in any situation, but even a steel robot would not have withstood the onslaught to which Gagarin was daily subjected by relatives, friends, ministers, marshals, academics and other big people. Everyone wanted to drink with Gagarin for friendship, for love, and for a thousand other occasions. In 1961, before his flight into space, Gagarin was a senior lieutenant and weighed 64 kilograms. Three years later he became a colonel, a deputy of the Supreme Soviet, a member of the Komsomol Central Committee and an honorary citizen of dozens of cities. He noticeably grew fat (up to 72-73 kilograms), got a little flabby and stopped exercising systematically”.
As a kid he tried different sports, but it was basketball that decided everything. It was constant work under the hoop and victories in college tournaments. From the book “The Road to Space”: “Back at the trade school I became addicted to this fast, lively game. Our team participated in city competitions and took first place among Saratov technical schools.
In the winter we practiced three times a week in the gym. I had a friend, Tolya Navalikhin. He kept dragging me to the track in the snow-covered suburban groves. But I preferred basketball. I went skiing, but not as much and often as others.
As Gagarin prepared for his flight into space and sent letters home, talking about sports calmed and distracted his family from thoughts of possible danger. His mother Anna Timofeyevna wrote about it in her book “Memory of the Heart”:
“Here and painted how they went skiing cross-country, played hockey. Missed his favorite basketball. There was no gym in the garrison. Yura suggested building one. The suggestion was discussed at the meeting of the Komsomol committee. The suggestion was accepted with enthusiasm and a great hall was built during the summer. Yura was at the head of one of the basketball teams and became the captain of the volleyball team. Training and preparation for new projects brought back the shape that had swollen after the space flight. Before his flight in 1961, Gagarin trained systematically. It took an hour-long warm-up in the morning, followed by classes on mastery of the body in space and pumping endurance:
“We exercised outdoors, in all weathers, under the supervision of doctors. There were special physical training sessions: gymnastics, ball games, diving from a diving board and a tower, exercises on bars and crossbars, trampoline, dumbbells. A lot of swimming and diving. People who can’t swim, who are afraid of water are not fit for astronauts. In Kirzhach, the parachutists suffered without oxygen at an altitude of 15,000 meters, carrying 40-50 kg and freezing at -60˚. Gagarin trained with them
The airfield in Kirzhach is a place where pilots-cosmonauts underwent parachute training, psychological and physical training. It is an important training base for the first cosmonaut squad, which included Gagarin. The Cosmonaut Training Center explained its choice by its closed nature, necessary equipment and specialists, and convenient location to Zvezdny Gorky and Chkalovsky airfield. Since 1958 a branch of the Research Institute of parachuting has been functioning at the Kirzhach airfield and parachute systems are being tested. Free wooden barracks, which were built during the war, became a platform for cosmonauts.
There is no closure now. Parachute systems are tested here + there is a flying club for jumps. The airfield area is surrounded by high concrete slabs – in the winter children jump from them in the snow. The road surrounding part of the area is also paved with the same slabs. The inhabitants call it a concrete road.
Pilot-cosmonauts have been training in Kirzhach since 1960. At the airfield, Gagarin became close to the Galaida brothers, who helped him with his jumps. Valery Galaida wore the certificate of the test pilot No. 1 at the Kirzhach airfield. Vitaly – died near Kirzhach in 1967 (as well as eight people on board), when the An-12 crashed partially through the air, fell in the field and exploded.
The jumps were regular – everyone jumped with heavy equipment and accumulated up to 35 jumps in a month. Pilot-cosmonaut Georgy Shonin, in his book The Very First, spoke of the strain:
“Parachute jumps in a month and a half were, perhaps, one of the most difficult and difficult stages of training… Great emotional stress (you are not jumping from a chair), lack of experience in landing led at the beginning to a slight, but rather frequent injury. Because of my desire to keep up with my fellows, I never told the doctors about my injuries (“It doesn’t matter! I pulled my leg! It’ll pass!”). But on Saturdays, in the steam room, they would blissfully lick their sores. It was a wonderful sight! No need to ask who hurt what: this place was steamed in a gang of steep boiling water. In 1966, Soviet paratroopers set a world record for jumping from 15,000 meters. The book “Idol of the Planet” describes their training:
“Trained on the ground, climbed in pressure chambers to great heights. We tried jumps from 12 thousand meters. In calm weather the parachutists were flying 30 km away from the place of landing. And we had dense forests all around! You’ll have to search for the jumper here!
At the height of 14 thousand meters oxygen deficiency was the main factor, all movements required a lot of effort, and sometimes even impossible. Besides, you have 40-50 kg of equipment. In the stratosphere we reached 60 degrees below zero. Everybody felt frostbite”.
So beginners mastered jumps under the guidance of the test skydiver Georgy Zhdanov – in honor of him in Kirzhach there is also named the street near the airfield:
“With their heads tilted back, everyone watched intently as the IL-14 aircraft circled over the airfield, gaining altitude. Zhdanov commented: “The altitude – 600 meters, 800, 1000, 1600 …”. The plane tilted and a dot separated from it. “Jump!” – Zhdanov said. And in a few seconds you could see the parachutist, he was falling at high speed. Zhdanov commented, “The speed of the fall – 40 m/sec, 50, 60…” The speed kept increasing. Everyone who has never done a parachute jump got scared. There were only a few meters to the ground, but the parachute would not open. And then the figure fell to the ground. The parachute never opened. Zhdanov said: “That’s right! Send a truck after him…”. Those who were on the field for the first time stood with frightened faces. Zhdanov laughed: “But the doll was jumping.
My grandfather Nikolay Zhivoglyadov was engaged in these dolls (by the way, my parents named me after him). In the 70-s he worked as a driver at the Kirzhach airfield: he was selecting, collecting and loading dummies into airplanes. They weighed 120-150 kilograms each – my grandfather would pick them up with a crane and take them back. At the same time he would pick up the parachutists from the airfield, though it was not allowed.
At the airport grandfather crossed paths with the cosmonauts and sometimes had lunch with them in the canteen. There was no separation: they ate together with all the workers. My grandfather told me that once Herman Titov treated him to fish while drinking beer with him. Going to the movies, crowds at the public bathhouse, and smoking a cigarette after failed jumps. This was how Gagarin filled his free time
In March 1963 Gagarin came to Kirzhach – to train and get back in shape to fly into space again. This is how Nikolai Kamanin saw his prospects in the first part of his book “Hidden Space”: “Yesterday Gagarin came by. He had just returned from Kirzhach, where he conducted six training parachute jumps. This is the first attempt since his space flight to regain his cosmonaut uniform.
Gagarin hopes that someday he will make more space flights. It is unlikely that this will ever happen – Gagarin is too precious to humanity to risk his life for an ordinary space flight.”
Four years later Gagarin became an understudy for Vladimir Komarov, but that flight ended with a hard landing due to parachute problems and the death of Komarov. The space flight of 1961 was the only one in Gagarin’s career.
Pilot-cosmonaut Shonin said: many pilots did not like parachute jumps. When the squadron first got to the parachutist-test pilot Nikolai Nikitin, Shonin tensed up: “So while listening to Nikitin, I pushed my tablemate Valery Bykovsky [pilot-cosmonaut] with my elbow and half-jokingly-half-seriously asked: “Valera! Don’t you think you and I are in the wrong carriage?” – “Yes, Zhorik, it’s time to get out of here before they remember us well.
An important stage of preparations – packing parachutes on their own. Gagarin could not manage it due to the mass of public work and once asked a parachute stacker to help him. Priborist Zharenov, according to the memories of local historian Sergei Krotov in his book “Cosmonauts in Kirzhach,” saw the situation and said that he did not appreciate it:
“And why should I work for you? Will you give me a bottle of beer? I’ll put you down!” Gagarin was embarrassed, but reached for the money. The stacker reassured him: “No need. I was only joking. I just wanted to see if you were turning into a gentleman.”
At that time Gagarin was behind the other members of the squad in parachute jumps, he caught up and jumped together with the cosmonaut Eduard Buynovsky. In Kirzhach he made his debut parachute jump. On such occasions the tradition to drink a glass of vodka and eat blinis worked. Buynovsky ate the pancakes, but did not drink the vodka. Gagarin did it for him.
After one of the jumps Gagarin smoked. He could not figure in the air, so he was worried. Valery Galaida gave him a light: “Gagarin really liked to jump. He was a thoughtful and attentive man, catching every word. This photo [of Gagarin smoking] was taken in 1963. Do you see, in the other photo, Yura is biting his lip? That’s him dissatisfied with himself. It was right after training, we were practicing the figure jump, when you have to turn left or right during a free fall. He failed, and he was very upset and even smoked. Although he was already a man of world fame at the time. By the way, in the photo he is smoking Bulgarian cigarettes “Shipka”. It was not recommended for them to smoke. And they could drink only on holidays.
In Kirzhach, Gagarin went to a country camp named after Matrosov, visited the factory “Red October” and the workshops of the silk mill. Local historian Krotov described how it was perceived on the ground: “No one to the future astronauts did not pry, did not interfere. On the contrary, they asked if they needed steamed milk. We took them to the best bathhouse at the silk factory.
At the cinema, which was near the airfield, they brought good movies. It was a small wooden movie theater. The cosmonauts used to walk there. Nikitin walked ahead, followed by the cosmonauts, dressed in regular mechanic jackets. Shonin wrote about it in his book “The Very First”:
“He [Nikitin] had a habit of his own: if we went anywhere – to the cinema, to the canteen, to the airfield – he always marched ahead of the group, and we followed him, like chickens after a hen. And if anyone talked and stepped forward, there would be a meaningful cough, and order was instantly restored. According to Krotov, activists suggested restoring and using the movie theater building as a branch of the Museum of Cosmonautics. But it was demolished – now there is a store of building materials.
Another popular resting place was a public bathhouse, where Gagarin used to go with everyone else. Buynovsky, in his book “The Everyday Life of the First Russian Rocketeers and Cosmonauts,” said:
“Almost every evening of our stay in Kirzhach, Nikolai Konstantinovich [Nikitin] took us to the city bathhouse for a steam bath. The first night in the steam room and locker room, none of the local residents paid any attention to us. True, we heard phrases: “Look, there’s a man who looks a lot like Gagarin. And in reply: “Come on, what does he have to do in our bathhouse?
But when we were leaving (flight uniform, bus, black “Volga” of Gagarin) local people understood that the first cosmonaut of the planet really was in their bathhouse, but it was too late – we left.
Next time we came for another steam bath, we entered the bathhouse through a thick corridor of locals, and from the rows along with a legal “There goes Gagarin!” we heard: “And there goes Titov! This double cheer continued in the steam room. Valery Galaida appreciated unity. Already in Star City Gagarin made a toast to the parachutists in his honor. As he did it during the trips to the countryside: “During the exercise the coaches and cosmonauts became very close friends. They played volleyball together, went fishing, then cooked some fish soup. At this gathering over the soup, Yuri Gagarin once made a toast: “I want to drink to the guys who are ahead of the first ones. To the testers. In Kirzhach, Gagarin rested on the river for ukha and met crowds of residents
An eternal legend is Gagarin’s phrase: “The road to space is through Kirzhach.
We have not found its literal version and the original source, where and when Gagarin said it. Perhaps this phrase did not exist. Or Gagarin said it informally. For example, communication with the city leadership often took place in nature, when the cosmonauts were resting. For the first time Gagarin met with Kirzhach residents in March 1963 at the district house of culture. Evening school teacher Nikolai Andriyanov recalled this meeting in his book “Kirzhach – our home”: “All townspeople knew that Gagarin would speak on this day at the House of Culture. That day I was working at the school and was released in the evening. It was a sunny March evening, but it was still pretty chilly.
I walked up to the house of culture and waited for the meeting with Yuri Alekseevich to end. Gagarin came out of the side door of the house of culture, accompanied by representatives of the district party committee. A huge number of residents escorted him down a lively corridor to the district party committee building. Gagarin and his entourage entered the building.
At that moment, someone called me. I looked around and saw Kolya Shishkov, a projectionist, standing there. He said he wanted to see Gagarin and talk to him, as he served with him in the same regiment in the polar region. We approached the door and Gagarin, seeing Nikolai, ordered to let him in. I got in along with him. Gagarin told those around him that Nikolai was a letter carrier and projectionist in the regiment. He was very glad to see him. He shook our hands”. Several pioneers made a model of a space rocket, others – read poetry. Gagarin and the assembled residents applauded when the rocket lit up. To meet him, all the copies of his published book “The Road to Space” were bought up from the bookstore. Gagarin signed each one with a smile and the words “I’ll have to work”.
“Sasha Golovanov, a pupil of School 1, handed Gagarin a working model of a rocket that was taking off, while dropping a vase of flowers and getting Yuri Alexeyevich’s pants wet. He made a joke: “He didn’t get his reputation wet when he flew into space, but he came to Kirzhach and got his pants wet,” recalled Alisa Aksonova, Director General of the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve.
The House of Culture, where Gagarin performed, is on a street that was named after him. There are such in other countries of the former Soviet Union, as well as in major Russian cities: Arkhangelsk, Krasnodar, Samara, Chelyabinsk, and Kazan. Gagarin Street is central in Kirzhach. The entrance to the house of culture is decorated with high white columns and a memorial plaque.
Across the street – on Seregin Street – is the city administration building. Around the corner from it, a two-story brick house with a whole wall of Gagarin graffiti is knocked out. In 2017, the Kirzhach Printing House bought several apartments in it. The plan is to turn the house into a six-room mini-hotel and name it after Alexei Leonov. “Why the name ‘Leonov’? Because he was also the first, – explains general director Yevgeny Fedorov. – Gagarin Street, 33 – but the hotel “Leonov.” We have a logo document – a man soaring in outer space. Leonov himself liked it. On the sketch he wrote: “If only it would help our cause.
The apartments we bought have already been renovated. They are ready to live in and are made in apartment style, but canned. The rooms are styled like a spaceship. One will be made to look like the Soyuz, the other will be made to look like the Apollo. With a common corridor. The interior decoration will be the same as in the ships: we’ll make instruments, portholes.
But it’s one room that will interest families with children. They will live like astronauts inside the ship. Parents will play Americans, children will play Russians. Or vice versa. And through the airlock they will go and visit each other. Not to fight, but to be friends, as it was in space.”
At the exit from the city is “Lousy Hill” – a location near the river with a beach, separated from the road by a wooded area. For the 55th anniversary of the first manned space flight, two sites appeared here – “Cosmonauts’ Bonfire” and “Cosmonauts’ Beach”. In these places they rested after training. The name “Lousy Hill” is associated with the period of the war against Napoleon. At that time the Vladimir militia liberated Moscow and caught typhus. When they were returning home, they deliberately did not go into the city, but stopped on the river bank in the woods so as not to infect the residents. There the militiamen recuperated and were treated. Near the “Lousy Hill” is a Kirzhach cannery – specially for the cosmonauts here cooked mushrooms without vinegar and with a little salt. These mushrooms were Gagarin’s mother’s favorite. Factory workers treated and sent them to her, and in return they received letters of gratitude.
Gagarin said that even before he flew into space, he often came to Kirzhach to relax: he bathed and fished on the beach, strolled through the pine forests, picked berries and mushrooms. The cosmonauts liked to stop at “Lousy Hill” and then talk with the local leaders by the fire about space prospects and the possibility of World War III. Meetings in the countryside were held for fish soup. One day Krotov helped cook it. There was almost no fish, so a liter of pork stew went into the bucket. “We asked the cosmonauts and heads of district organizations to bear with us for a minute, while we had a shot at the vinaigrette. And then they solemnly presented Gagarin with a plate of soup on the newspaper table – in it, with his tail hanging down, there was a pikeman,” Krotov recalled in his book “On the Road to Space”. On one of these vacations astronauts on the beach mastered a pole that was used to catch fish. When it broke, they used it as a horizontal bar: two of them held on the outstretched arms, the third one performed exercises.
How Gagarin died. The last cautious smile, the corkscrew, the unknown
March 27, 1968. Morning.
10:18. Yuri Gagarin and military pilot Vladimir Seregin on a MiG-15UTI took off from the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow. Their flight mission was planned for about 20 minutes, but lasted only four minutes (the climb was not counted).
A monologue by pilot Marina Popovich from the book “Autograph in the Sky”. She saw Gagarin an hour before he died – smiling and excited:
“A gloomy March morning. Slush. The air is damp and chilly. Melted snow squelching underfoot. The temperature is not blissful: +5-7 degrees. Cloudiness is 8-10, the lower edge is about one thousand meters, we are in a haze, so visibility is somewhat impaired. “General minimum” – as the pilots jokingly say about such weather. The usual preparation for flights is going on. Nothing foretold of a tragedy that would erupt in less than an hour and shake the world. I was here at the airfield at the time. Leonid Tatarchuk (a helicopter ace) and I were to test the operation of the radio altimeter in a closed cockpit (under the hood) at a low altitude (1 to 10 meters off the ground).
Behind the MiG-15 fighter jet trainer I noticed a car, and by the plane itself there was Yura Gagarin, in light-colored flight pants, leather jacket, with safety helmet fastened on his head. After a long break in flying (almost seven years) he managed to get the permission to fly by himself.
And today he will have that opportunity, if Vladimir Seregin (Yuri’s commander at the time) will check his piloting technique and give him the permission to conduct training flights. Yura at that time was preparing for his second spaceflight, was already an understudy for Vladimir Komarov and now had to finish his training before he stepped back to the stars… From the early morning Jury was joyful and excited about the forthcoming flights, but reserved: evidently he feared, as all pilots do, that enthusiasm will not turn into excitement, and then the doctor will not allow him to fly. But now the doctor’s examination was behind him, Gagarin, running merrily down the stairs, suddenly heard the voice of Andriyan Nikolayev [the third Soviet cosmonaut]: “Yura! Are you flying solo today? Then you owe me!”
Yura turned to Andriyan, smiling merrily, jokingly replied, “Don’t say goop until I’ve done at least one solo!” He got in his car and headed for the parking lot. When he saw Lenya and me, he waved and smiled.
“That day our crew was making a training flight, we returned home early because of bad weather just an hour before Gagarin’s death,” Valery Galaida told Moskovsky Komsomolets in an interview. – Suddenly we were called at the checkpoint: ‘The plane crashed, we have to find it. We did not even know who died there. That day Gagarin was performing a training flight, under the leadership of Seregin, at an altitude of 4000 meters. Ours – at 1500 meters. They worked for 10 minutes and asked to return to “Chkalovskiy”. Suddenly at an altitude of 2000 meters the plane abruptly changed course. It was called several times, but the plane did not respond. The locator detected it. What happened there is unknown. But if the crew was conscious, they would have kept in touch and managed to transmit something…
They were found in Kirzhach, behind the village of Novoselovo. We searched for a long time for the crash site, flew to refuel, and then one woman came running: “My mother called, their plane crashed behind Novoselovo. The picture at the crash site was like this: a circle of fallen trees and a nine-meter-deep crater. The emergency situation was sudden and short-lived. This is said in the conclusion of the expert investigators. The first investigation into the deaths of Gagarin and Seryogin lasted a whole year. There were 29 volumes of the case, but the commission never presented a unified conclusion. Inside there are several versions of what happened with one main one.
The case with the documents of the catastrophe was classified until the year 2000. It is kept in the central archives of the Defense Ministry. The presumable cause there is named as possible loss of crew performance due to the collision of the plane with a balloon (or something else) or performing an abrupt maneuver to prevent the collision.
Test cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov simulated the flight of Gagarin and Seregin on a special simulator. This is shown in the documentary “Yuri Gagarin. The Last Moment”. He checked the official version – a collision with a balloon-probe. The result: the plane of Gagarin and Seryogin could have gone into a spin, if there was a collision or avoidance.
Arseny Mironov, chief scientist of the Gromov Flight Research Institute, doctor of technical sciences, also investigated the catastrophe. In 2010, he said in an interview with Interfax: “As you know, there is no official version of the tragedy. The government commission has not made any decision based on the results of the investigation. Even the version of a collision with a balloon-probe was later denied.
Calculations confirmed – only in a spin could Gagarin’s and Seryogin’s plane reach the ground in a minute. To bring MiG-15UTI out of stall from about 400 meters is impossible – from about this height, Gagarin and Seryogin tried to level the plane to the last moment. To successfully perform the maneuver, an altitude of about 800 meters was necessary.
The design of the MiG-15UTI also prevented the pilots from saving the plane. On that day it had two suspended fuel tanks. Each had a capacity of 260 liters. They reduced the permissible overload of the aircraft. It was also difficult to eject from the MiG-15UTI. The design of the aircraft suggests that the first to eject is the instructor, who sits behind. Only then – the pilot.
