Sky Flagmen

Since Belarus joined the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) the country has had to meet a number of international obligations and standards. Radiotraffic will have to be in English for all air traffic control specialists, both military and civilian. However, the military are supposed to know more than civil specialists, for they must be absolutely perfect in military terminology. They are real pros. Since quite recently there have been no establishments training radiotraffic specialists in English, and only trainees of the higher military aviation schools were getting some basics of how to communicate with foreign aircraft. Officers willing to improve their knowledge were getting extra materials to read them on their own.

A couple of years ago the Defense Ministry thought of having a special school to train “air flagmen”, but it took about 24 months to draw up curricula and training programs. Colonel Igor Chersunov, the head of the airmanship and tactical employment of aviation department, was supervising the preparation of the programs. Tatyana Galozhina and Petr Grin, senior lecturers of the foreign languages department of the Military Academy, are also involved in re-educating the servicemen of the 570th air traffic center.