THE SIGHT & THE SOUND 2/14 : Balkan Bulgarian IL-18 LZ-BEU documentary from Sofia to Tallinn

This documentary features a flight onboard Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Ilyushin 18 from Tallinn to St. Johns in Newfoundland, Canada, almost two decades ago. The first leg is a ferry flight and takes us from Sofia to Tallinn in order to pick up a full passenger load of fishing crews the next morning. This was one of the most awsome flight rotations I ever experienced in my life. I spent the next four days flying 24 hours onboard the Ilyushin, crossing the Atlantic in both directions. I learned to know one of the dearest friends, I had the priviledge to know, Racho Tossunov, who made all of this possible. Racho used to be Chief Pilot of the IL-18 department of Balkan. He was trying to keep the IL-18 alive for Balkan as long as possible. I tried to recruit some interest in the aviation enthusiast scene, published articles and more. However back 17 years ago, nobody was really seriously interested in chartering Eastern bloc aircraft for fun flights. A block hour on the IL-18 would have cost a mere 3.000 US$, which is a joke, compared to prices today. LZ-BEU went into history the same year and was stored until temporary flight assignments for Bulgarian Flying company and cargo kept her running.
I apologize for the poor quality of this video mostly because of the very first generation of digital camcorders.
Flight details
Flight : LZ 8633
Date : Thursday, March 13, 1997
Aircraft : IL-18V
Registration : LZ-BEU
Former registrations :
- CCCP-75870 (Aeroflot Soviet Airlines)
- YE-AYE (Yemen Government
- 4W-ABO (Yemen Airlines)
Later registrations :
- LZ-BFU (Bulgarian Flying Company and Bulgarian Flying Cargo)
- EX-75427 (Phoenix Aviation)
- EX-75427 (Daallo Airlines)
Built : 1963
From : Sofia (SOF)
To : Tallinn (TLL)
Take off : 10.12 h (0812 UTC)
Touch down : 13.36 h (1136 UTC)
Flying time : 3 hours 24 minutes
Flying distance : 2.080 km
Altitude : 8.550 m
Speed : 620 km/h
Captain : Tossunov, Racho
Captain : Bonev, Petr - in memoriam
First Officer : Medarski, Lavrin
Flight Engineer : Nedelchev, Christopher
Flight Engineer : Daskalov, Nikolay
Navigator : Spassov, Lubomir Stefan
Additional Crew : Hinkov
Additional Crew : Assenov
Additional Crew : Blagoev
Additional Crew : Parluzov
Cabin Crew : Georguieva-Yordanova Panayotova, Yordanka
Cabin Crew : Marinova-Ilieva, Elena (Lyonata)
Cabin Crew : Petrov

[@miroslavriessner7375]

Beautiful !!! I've flown a lot in this machine - mostly in Czechoslovakia, but furthest to Conakry, Guinea ... :-)!
My dad flew the navigator in it; in the seventies they flew, for example, from Conakry to Jeddah and back ... they took pilgrims to Mecca :-)
Well, well - just memories only...

[@Vovantro]

Самолёт детства, ааааааа... :______( забери меня с собою полетать! :_(
PS: В начале восьмидесятых на нём летал, через Красноярск в Москву. И обратно в город Мирный...

[@garynew9637]

Fabulous vid, love russian aircraft.

[@jackyclaiborne2142]

When I lived in Ithaca NY from 1991 thru Twenty O Two, I often flew back to my native Charlotte NC for special things like Christmas etc. I flew on various turboprop regional airliners out of Ithaca to a US Airways hub, New York LaGuardia, Philly, or Pittsburgh. The regional airliners, known as "puddle jumpers" because of the short hops they make, included the Beechcraft 1900 19 seat C and D models which were very primitive aircraft. No overhead, no lavatory, no galley, and no flight attendant. Same on the Jetstream 31, another 19 seat aircraft. Larger regional turboprops I flew on included the Shorts 360 (distinctive for it's square fuselage) known as the flying boxcar. It was a 36 passenger aircraft that had a 1 plus two seat configuration. In each row, one seat port, and two seats starboard. It had a lavatory, galley, and flight attendant. But of all of those aircraft, my favorite of all was the DeHaviland Dash-8 100. DeHaviland of Canada has since changed it's name Bombardia. The Dash-8 cabin was most like that of a regular airliner, with a two plus two seat configuration, and everything that a regular airliner has, a flight attendant, overhead compartments, a lavatory, and a galley. A fondly remembered Dash-8 flight was when our flight attendant was a young woman who used to waitress at the restaurant that I worked at in Ithaca. She well remembered me and my Rolling Stones lingo. During the cruise portion of the flight, after she had finished serving drinks, she kneeled in one of the two empty seats in front me my girlfriend and me, and we had a long conversation about my fondness for turboprop aircraft. I explained that lots of people say that driving a vehicle with a manual transmission is "Real Driving!". I say that flying in a propeller aircraft is "Real Flying!" I love the sound that the props make, the chafe cutter "box fan" sound in ground idle and taxiing, and the low pitched drone during takeoff and inflight that often vibrates the cabin.
Contrary to popular belief, a turboprop engine is a turboJET engine that spins the propeller. That's why it's called a turboprop. But many people, when they hear the word "Turboprop", they think of a turbocharged "piston prop" engine, that's basically a "Porsche" engine that spins the prop. Not so. The propellers provide 90 percent of the thrust, while the jet exhaust adds an additional 10 percent thrust. That's why turboprops are more fuel efficient than the fan jet engines of a 737, which rely mostly on the jet exhaust for the thrust. The air from the fan at the front of the engine that by passes the combustion chamber adds only a slight extra thrust. Basically, a fan jet engine is the other way around from the turboprop, though the turboprop IS a bit slower. Pure turbojet engines are used mostly on military fighter aircraft, like F-14's.

[@Vik4o0]

why its every time empty?