Chapter 3 – First Lift
---
Yeisk Military Aviation School — March 2016
The wind smelled different on flight days.
It wasn't cleaner, or sharper, or filled with meaning. It just smelled different — like scorched rubber, oil vapor, turbine exhaust, and sun-baked concrete. A cocktail of purpose. To anyone else it was just pollution, but to Leonid Vostrikov, it smelled like arrival.
He stood on the outer edge of the airstrip, helmet tucked under one arm, visor glinting under the pale southern sun. Beside him, eight other cadets waited in identical postures, faces expressionless, bodies taut with readiness. Their helmets bore no names, no insignia — just numbers. Today, Leonid was Cadet 17.
The aircraft lined up before them were L-39 Albatros trainers — stubby, sturdy, low-wing jets painted in dark gray with orange safety bands across the tail and nose. Their cockpits were open, tandem-seat, with instructors already strapped into the rear positions. Each aircraft's canopy was raised like the jaw of a steel beast waiting to be fed.
Captain Sidorov paced down the line.
His limp was less pronounced today, but the cane was still in hand.
"Today is not symbolic," he barked. "It is not spiritual. It is not an Instagram photo. It is a test."
He stopped in front of Leonid.
"You will not fly because you deserve it. You will fly because we decided you won't die doing it."
Leonid didn't respond. His heartbeat was steady. Focused.
"You will complete two circuits. No stunts. No improvisation. Your instructor will say nothing unless you're about to kill both of you. Understood?"
A chorus of "Yes, sir."
"Helmet on. Move."
Leonid stepped toward aircraft #217.
The heat radiating off the tarmac distorted the air. He climbed the ladder, careful not to slip — everything felt ten times more serious now. The cockpit wasn't new, wasn't spotless. The instruments bore scratches, the throttle lever was smooth from thousands of hands. But the seat embraced him like it had been waiting.
The instructor behind him — Captain Zubarev — said nothing as Leonid ran through pre-flight.
Battery, fuel pump, hydraulic check, flaps cycle, canopy lock. Everything rehearsed a hundred times in the simulator. Still, every muscle in his body felt like it might betray him.
He settled into the final checks and keyed his intercom.
"Cadet 17, prepped for ignition."
Zubarev's voice was flat. "Proceed."
Leonid's thumb hovered over the engine start. He pressed.
The turbine whined. A low growl. Then a rising scream as the engine spooled up. Vibrations crept up his spine, into his ribs, into his jaw.
Then the aircraft breathed.
He couldn't stop himself — a slight exhale, as if he were hearing the voice of something divine. The canopy hissed closed. The glass sealed them off from the rest of the world. The only sound now was the turbine, the faint rustle of his gear, and the slight click of the stick under his palm.
Taxiing was slow and measured. He followed the lead aircraft, kept the nose centered on the painted line. No swerving. No overcorrecting.
On the runway, they held for thirty seconds.
Zubarev's voice again. "Throttle. Full."
Leonid pushed forward. The jet roared.
His spine pressed into the seat, wheels screamed beneath him, and then—
Lift.
---
Altitude: 300 meters. Speed: 350 km/h.
Leonid checked his climb angle. Ailerons stable. Flaps fully retracted. He glanced left — the sea shimmered at the horizon like liquid mercury. Right — farmland and roads like a chessboard unrolling beneath the sky.
He had flown this route dozens of times in the simulator.
But nothing — not one second of simulation — matched this.
Every gust was alive. Every bump of turbulence a nudge from something ancient and powerful. The jet wasn't just flying — it was fighting, testing, asking if he was worthy.
He leveled out at 1,000 meters. The cockpit steadied. The nerves began to melt away.
He was flying.
For real.
Zubarev's voice crackled in his ear again. "Turn left 30 degrees. Begin pattern."
Leonid obeyed.
Each movement of the stick felt heavier, realer, more sacred than anything he'd touched in his life. There were no dramatic rolls. No acrobatics. Just smooth, clean piloting. The way he'd been taught. The way Grigori drilled into him with barks and black coffee and stories of friends who'd turned too sharp, too fast, and never came back.
The plane responded well. A slight bump of turbulence near the ridge, but nothing serious. He corrected naturally, his mind working faster than his nerves could argue.
Down below, a speck of light reflected off the sea. He thought about his father — how many times he'd done this exact flight, in different airframes, over different warzones. Somewhere in Donetsk, there were people who still remembered the sound of his Su-25's engines.
And now, the son flew too.
---
"Begin descent. Pattern two," said Zubarev.
Leonid eased the throttle back. The nose dipped slightly. He guided the jet around in a long arc over the bay.
He could feel the air pressure change — the rising drag as the aircraft slowed. Landing gear down. Flaps out.
Altitude dropped in precise steps: 800. 600. 400.
The airframe responded like it had been waiting for him.
Final approach.
Runway lined up.
Leonid kept his hands firm. No overcorrections. No second-guessing.
At 20 meters, he reduced throttle further, trimmed pitch. The tires touched down with a screech, then a bump, then a long, roaring deceleration.
When the aircraft came to a complete stop, he sat still for a moment.
Zubarev said nothing.
Then, at last: "Taxi to return line."
---
Back on the tarmac, Leonid climbed down the ladder and removed his helmet.
His knees were weak. Not from fear — but from adrenaline withdrawal. His heartbeat was slower now, but steady. Focused.
The other cadets hadn't landed yet. He could hear their engines circling above.
Captain Sidorov approached with his cane.
"How'd it feel?"
Leonid stood at attention. "Correct, sir. Smooth."
"That's not what I asked."
Leonid paused. "Heavy."
Sidorov nodded. "Good. If it ever feels light, you've done something wrong."
He turned and walked away.
---
Back in the hangar, Leonid sat alone on a bench, helmet in his lap.
Yuri joined him, still sweating from his own sortie.
"Let me guess," Yuri said. "You didn't vomit, you didn't panic, and you landed like you've been doing it since birth."
Leonid didn't answer.
Instead, he opened the chin strap and looked into the helmet's inner lining.
Tucked there — invisible to anyone but him — was the blue patch his grandfather had given him.
MiG-21. Silver thread.
It didn't have to be sewn onto a uniform.
It just had to be close.
He folded it back into place and closed the helmet again.
He wasn't done yet.
But he had begun.
---
The following week was a haze of sun, jet fuel, and repetition. The cadets were split into pairs and rotated through aircraft every forty-eight hours, flying both morning and afternoon sessions under a strict pattern. There was no time for ego. Each flight was evaluated in silence, then dissected in brutal detail during evening debriefs.
Leonid's flights were consistent. Not flashy. Not perfect. But steady — the kind of consistency instructors noticed and valued. Each takeoff was smooth, each turn precise, each landing by the book. He made mistakes, of course. Everyone did. But his corrections came fast, and his recovery discipline was clean.
On day three, he caught a tailwind too late and flared too high on final approach, causing a long landing and a moment of engine strain as he applied power to stabilize.
Captain Zubarev didn't scream. He simply stared at Leonid during the post-flight inspection.
"You were four seconds from overshooting the runway," he said.
"Yes, sir."
"Four seconds in a combat zone is death."
Leonid nodded. "Understood, sir."
"Fly it again. Watch your wind vectors."
"Yes, sir."
And he did — better the next time.
---
The airfield was their entire world now.
They woke with the sun, briefed, suited up, ran system checks, and took to the sky. On the ground, they practiced emergency shutdowns, brake failure drills, and cockpit egress with speed timers. Every cadet was expected to be able to evacuate a smoke-filled cockpit in under eight seconds.
Twice a week, they entered the spin-recovery simulator — a nauseating, full-motion capsule designed to mimic control loss during stall or airframe damage. It was mounted on hydraulic arms and twisted without warning. The goal was simple: survive the disorientation and stabilize the virtual aircraft.
Most cadets left it pale and shaking.
Leonid exited with his jaw tight and his hands sore from gripping the throttle. But he didn't stumble.
"Your vestibular system's stronger than it looks," the operator muttered as he recorded Leonid's time.
---
Outside of flights, their academic classes shifted focus.
Gone were the basic schematics and introductory theory. Now they studied battlefield airspace, real-world IFF transponder logs, and combat zone traffic control systems. They analyzed radar data from Syrian operations and reconstructed the final approach paths of downed pilots over Ukraine.
One session focused entirely on thermal imaging — understanding heat signatures in varied terrain, and the art of visual deception. The instructor showed footage of insurgents in Afghanistan using sun-warmed rocks to confuse missile seekers.
Another course was dedicated to cockpit failures: what happened when you lost HUD visuals, or canopy pressure, or suffered partial engine loss in crosswind conditions.
They weren't just learning to fly. They were learning how to fail and live.
---
One rainy morning, during a rare indoor PT drill, Cadet Dobrynin approached Leonid during pull-up rotations.
"You still think you're untouchable, Ghost?"
Leonid was on his thirtieth rep. He didn't reply.
Dobrynin stepped closer. "You know they're watching you, right? Every instructor. Every visiting officer. You're the golden boy now."
Leonid dropped from the bar and landed silently.
"I'm just trying to survive," he said.
"Then maybe stop making the rest of us look like amateurs."
Leonid turned, eyes calm. "That's not my problem."
Dobrynin laughed — but there was no humor in it.
"Don't screw up on final checkride, Ghost. I want to see you fall."
---
The final checkride was announced three days later.
Each cadet would perform a full solo flight — no instructor, no assistance. Takeoff, climb, pattern circuit, emergency simulation, and landing. The instructors would monitor from control towers and chase aircraft, but no one would be in the rear seat. This was it.
One mistake could mean grounding.
Or worse.
It was dawn when Leonid stepped out onto the airfield with his flight gear slung over his shoulder. The runway was still slick from overnight rain. A faint mist hovered low over the grassline. The L-39 he'd been assigned gleamed with a thin coat of condensation.
His helmet was tight. His gloves flexed perfectly around the stick. The seatbelt ratcheted down across his chest with a metallic snap.
No one spoke to him as he taxied into position.
Tower cleared him with a clipped voice.
"Cadet 17, runway clear. You are go for solo."
He took a breath. One second. No more.
Throttle forward.
The engine roared.
The aircraft surged forward — tires humming, nose lifting — and then he was airborne.
---
His climb was steady.
No jerks. No stalls.
Altitude: 1,500 meters.
Heading: 140.
Wind: 12 knots northeast.
He felt the jet in his bones now — not just in his hands. Every tremor, every tick of vibration, every tiny response from the stick was a sentence in a language he was starting to speak fluently.
Midway through the second circuit, a red warning light blinked on the secondary display.
Oil pressure drop.
Leonid's breath caught for a fraction of a second. Then his training took over.
He confirmed the reading. Cross-checked the backup gauge. It wasn't a system failure. It was a simulated malfunction.
Part of the test.
He scanned the terrain. Checked distance to base. Adjusted throttle to reduce strain.
He called tower.
"Yeisk control, this is Cadet 17. Simulated oil pressure failure. Requesting pattern adjustment for priority landing."
"Cadet 17, approved. Right turn heading 220. Clear for immediate approach."
He rolled the aircraft slowly — careful not to bank too hard — and began his descent.
The runway loomed into view.
Wind shifted slightly.
He compensated.
Landing gear down.
Flaps at 25.
Throttle idle.
At ten meters, he pulled back gently.
Wheels touched.
Slight skid — but corrected.
Reverse thrust.
Brakes.
Rollout complete.
The jet slowed. Came to rest.
Silence.
Then the tower: "Good recovery. Proceed to taxi."
---
Back on the ground, Leonid exited the cockpit slowly. He peeled off his gloves and removed his helmet. The air felt warmer now, even though the temperature hadn't changed.
Captain Zubarev stood near the hangar with a clipboard.
"You handled the failure well," he said, not looking up.
Leonid nodded. "Wasn't real."
"No," Zubarev said, "but the decisions were."
He flipped the page and signed the bottom.
"You're cleared for next stage."
Leonid's jaw tightened just slightly.
He had made it.
First solo. First simulated emergency. First full flight with no voice in his ear.
He didn't celebrate.
He just returned to the barracks, sat on his bunk, and opened the notebook that still held Grigori's old MiG-21 patch.
Under the sketch of the L-39, he wrote:
"The sky waited. I answered."
Then he closed the notebook and rested. Not because he was tired — but because tomorrow, the real learning would begin.
---
Leonid didn't realize how tightly he had gripped the stick until much later, when the cramps in his fingers lingered deep into the night.
The successful solo flight marked a turning point in their training, not only because it proved they could survive the sky alone, but because it filtered the cadets into two groups — those the instructors trusted, and those still under scrutiny. It wasn't announced. It wasn't written on a chart. But everyone knew.
And Leonid was clearly in the first group.
He never asked for it. But recognition found him anyway.
---
Their next phase was night flight.
Twilight fell quickly over the Azov coast. By the time they suited up, the sun had already dipped behind the barracks, casting long shadows across the airfield. Spotlights flickered on. The taxiways gleamed under the misty glow of sodium arcs. The runway itself stretched ahead like a ribbon of uncertainty, disappearing into black.
Flying at night was nothing like flying in daylight.
In the simulators, they had practiced the routine countless times. But real darkness was different. It wasn't just visual absence — it was sensory starvation. The body became hyperaware. Every shift in wind, every vibration in the fuselage, every flicker on the panel felt like a heartbeat skipped.
Leonid strapped into the aircraft with practiced fluidity. This time, he would fly in formation — two L-39s, wing to wing, maintaining tight spacing at 1,200 meters while navigating a coastal circuit. One mistake could mean collision. Or worse.
He could barely see the instructor next to him, but he recognized the voice in his headset.
"Maintain spacing. Eyes on lead's wing light. No independent corrections unless ordered."
"Copy," Leonid replied.
Takeoff was smoother this time — cleaner throttle application, more confidence in the push through ground effect. The runway vanished beneath them like a memory. In the blackness ahead, the formation lights of the lead aircraft blinked faintly, green and white.
Leonid kept his eyes locked on the starboard light.
He imagined it as a tether — a thread between himself and the other pilot. The world beyond it didn't matter. Not the ocean below. Not the stars above. Just the rhythm. Just the spacing.
Their first turn over the bay tested everything.
Wind shifted. Instruments blinked. The light dipped.
Leonid adjusted — barely. No panic. Just small, precise corrections. Like breathing.
It felt like dancing in a hurricane.
But he held.
The flight lasted twenty minutes.
When they landed, the instructor said only one word:
"Stable."
---
The next day, they practiced formation in the daylight, this time over land.
Yuri flew lead.
Leonid followed.
Over the rust-colored fields, they formed a tight diamond pattern with two other cadets. They dove low, climbing in response to simulated threats, practicing snap breaks and rejoins. Leonid found it almost easy now — a blur of instinct and habit. His hands needed no convincing.
Until Yuri faltered.
It happened during a rapid bank to avoid a simulated missile strike. Yuri, slightly delayed in roll, overcompensated on pitch. His jet drifted wide.
Leonid saw it in the corner of his vision — the left wing sliding too far out, the tail beginning to yaw.
"Ghost, my vector's off," Yuri's voice cracked through the comms.
Leonid could've pulled away.
Instead, he nudged throttle, cut under Yuri's vector, and slid into protective cover, effectively shielding his flight partner's angle long enough for the instructor to re-stabilize the formation.
They finished the circuit and landed without incident.
After they shut down and returned to the locker room, Yuri caught up to him.
"You saved my ass up there," he said.
Leonid unzipped his flight suit and shrugged. "You'd have corrected."
"Not fast enough. That was textbook spacing assist. You could've just pulled back."
"I didn't."
Yuri stared at him. "You know why they call you 'Ghost'? It's not just the silence. It's the way you fly — like nothing touches you."
Leonid blinked. "That's not true."
Yuri smirked. "Well, it sure as hell looks that way."
---
Three days later, a new instructor arrived.
Major Vasily Arsenyev — an Su-30SM pilot recently rotated from deployment in Syria. Word spread fast: two confirmed kills, one aircraft lost, walked back to friendly lines after ejecting near Aleppo. A real combat veteran. Not the clean kind.
His arrival changed everything.
Drills became sharper. Feedback, colder. He tore apart checklists. Disassembled briefings. He failed two cadets on the first day for "thinking like civilians."
He watched Leonid during an engine re-light drill and said nothing.
Later, during the debrief, he stood behind him.
"You're too precise," he muttered.
Leonid turned. "Sir?"
"War isn't precise. It's messy. Unpredictable. If you train only for perfection, you'll freeze when chaos hits."
Leonid hesitated. "Shouldn't we aim for perfect?"
"You aim for control," Arsenyev replied. "You fly for survival."
---
That evening, Leonid reviewed his checklists again.
Not to memorize — but to challenge them.
He ran them out of order. Simulated failures mid-sequence. Practiced blindfolded throttle resets and emergency trim realignment without power.
He didn't want to be perfect anymore.
He wanted to be adaptable.
---
By the end of March, they were flying full combat simulations.
Simulated ground strikes. Multi-target engagements. Defensive maneuvering under radar lock. Leonid led his first mock combat sortie against a target convoy in the desert map — dropping inert training munitions from 1,000 meters and banking out before simulated return fire.
He hit 3 of 4 targets.
On the debrief board, Captain Sidorov left only one comment:
"He thinks like a fighter. He flies like a survivor."
Leonid read it once.
Then folded his helmet strap and went back to study.
---
The final test for Phase I came on a Saturday morning.
All cadets were evaluated one-on-one — an oral exam followed by an emergency field landing scenario. No radar. No GPS. Simulated power failure. They would be dropped over unfamiliar terrain and ordered to land safely at a reserve strip.
Leonid was flown blindfolded to the drop point, then given control.
The map was unfamiliar. The cloud cover low. Visibility reduced to six kilometers.
He read the terrain. Found the ridge. Calculated the wind by tree sway. Cut speed. Trimmed his descent. Found the gravel airstrip tucked between pine lines like a scar.
He landed.
Rough, but safe.
When he stepped down from the cockpit, Major Arsenyev was waiting.
"No chatter. No panic. No hesitation," he said. "Not bad."
Leonid nodded.
"Still flying too clean."
"I'll work on it."
"You better. Because next month, we test you for something real."
Leonid tilted his head.
"What's that?"
Arsenyev smiled. "Combat selection."