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HE ENTERED THE MEDICAL INSTITUTE AND END UP AS A…PILOT
There lived a harmonious family in Yerevan. The father of the family- Tadevos Yesayan and his wife were famous doctors in Armenia. They did their best to make their son- Ruben another follower of Hippocrates’s work. The topic of discussion at home was medicine, the recent achievements in medicine. The parents were sure that their son was going to choose the doctor’s grateful work. But there was a circumstance: the boy studied at the school after Belinski. This secondary school differed from the others with its many pupils visiting the aeroclub in Yerevan. Ruben was one of them. We need to say that more than two dozen graduates of that school subsequently became pilots. At the 10th grade Ruben was already able to ride a glacier. His parents didn’t know that. When it was time to enter the Institute, he Ruben applied…to the Medical Institute not to disappoint his parents’. But he hadn’t given up the idea of becoming a pilot. To his parents pleasure he successfully passed the exams and entered the medical Institute.
In his dreams the student of the Medical Institute Ruben Yesayan saw himself at the wheel of the plane, flying in the sky. He realized very well that medicine wasn’t his calling, that he had taken somebody else’s place. And in the middle of the semester he appeared in the pilots’ college in Sasovo city near Mosvow where he manifested the future pilot’s qualities. Here he applied the knowledge, received in Yerevan aeroclub. After finishing the college with honors, Ruben Yesayan was sent to Armenia to work in the Armenian bureau of the Civic aviation. Here he worked for 13 years.
During his work in the Armenian bureau of the Civic aviation, he was sent to Angola. Ruben Yesayan was entrusted the responsible position of the personal pilot of the Minister of Defense. At those years there were civic fights in the country. And every flight might be the last one. One day in 1983 Ruben Yesayan in his YAK-40 aircraft had to take a delegation of Cuban specialists to a specific place of destination. The plane hadn’t yet elevated height when the enemy’s hit the right engine of the plane and a fire started. The commander of the plane had only several seconds to make the right decision. And he took the direction of the airport. Thanks God, they hadn’t managed to get far from the airport yet. Thanks to the high professionalism of the Armenian pilot, the commander of the plane managed to save not only the Cuban specialists’ lives, but also the valuable aircraft.
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Ruben Yesayan received his first state award for this feat- the “Nations’ friendship” medal. Of course, that took place after returning from Angola in 1985.
After working in Angola for three years, Ruben Yesayan returned to Yerevan and was appointed as the head of the Pilots-navigators’ department in the bureau of the Civic aviation.
On January of 1987, Ruben Yesayan became the tester-pilot in the State Research Institute of the Civic aviation. The pilot of the first class seemed to begin his work from the beginning because it was one thing to be the pilot of the Civic aviation, even if it was a first-class pilot, another thing was to be a tester-pilot. He very soon became one of the leading testers, the Deputy commander of detachment. Ruben Yesayan was assigned to realize the most difficult trial flights. Besides the trial flights, Ruben Yesayan was also entrusted with the so-called Certification flights. Today he is the only tester-pilot of the Russian Federation, who give the “Life travel” to the American “Boeing”, French “Earl bus” and other planes. Yes, without our compatriot’s “verdict” no air-plane of foreign production may enter the Russian Federation and also other CIS countries air spaces.
The testing pilots are not realizing testing flights only on new planes. Sometimes they are also having flights which are aimed at reproducing the situations that resulted in an accident of planes of different brands. Specifically, Ruben Babayan was assigned to help find out why the TU-154 air-planes had crushed in Krasnovodsk and Aleppo in 1989, also in Khabarovsk in 1996.
The government of the Russian Federation has highly appreciated our compatriot’s service. In 1999 he was awarded with the honorable title of the experienced tester-pilot of the Russian Federation, some time later with the honorable title of the hero of the Russian Federation.
At the testing there have been a lot of critical moments when both the pilot’s life and the flying aircraft’s fortune were endangered. But there hasn’t been any case when the situations were caused by Ruben Yesayan. In all the emergency situations the tester-pilot has always acted literately, confidently with courage and coolness, the precise skills of flights.
It was our compatriot Ruben Yesayan’s 70th anniversary lately. May this Armenpress small essay serve as our congratulations and the expression of the best wishes to him.
May all your flights have a safe landing.