Soviet pilot-cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya set eight world records in piloting, becoming a real ace. She became the second woman after Tereshkova, who conquered space. With these achievements, she added the glory of her surname. Her father is Marshal Savitsky, a pilot veteran of the Great Patriotic War and holder of two golden stars of the Hero.
The life of this whole family is connected with heaven. Lidia Pavlovna, the wife of the legendary ace, was also a gallant aviator during the war, for her exploits she was awarded the military order, "Red Star".
Evgeny Savitsky was brought up in an ordinary working family. In 1917, he, orphaned, left his father's house. The fate of a homeless child changed after he went to an orphanage, and then to a vocational school. After FZU, he, working at a cement plant, mastered several working professions and showed the ability to master complex equipment.
Following the motto of those years "Komsomolets - on a plane!" a nineteen-year-old boy became a student of the 4th Stalingrad Aviation School, where he persistently studied the materiel and mastered piloting skills. After its completion, the future Marshal Savitsky is distributed in the Far Eastern Military District, where already in 1929 he applies the knowledge gained during military operations at the border.
By the beginning of the war, he was already an experienced pilot, training a new generation of young pilots. Major Savitsky is eager for the front, but he is refused, motivating the need for high-class instructors in the rear. In the fall of 1941, he still manages to get into the combat unit as an intern. The LaGG-3 fighter is his first combat vehicle, and the pilot uses all its capabilities, shooting down the Messerschmitt 109 and almost dying himself. The new year, 1942, Savitsky Yevgeny Yakovlevich notes, performing a task of special importance, inflicting an ultra-precise blow to the German headquarters.
The pilot's insistence gives results, he is assigned to command the 205th air division, with which he happened to pass a glorious battle path. The Air Force is a special kind of troops, pilot-commanders participate in air battles on an equal basis with everyone. Now he flies on the "Yaks", which remains faithful to all four terrible years. The exception is the personalized “Lavochkin-5” with the inscription “Valery Chkalov” on the fuselage, donated by Gorky workers.
In 1944, the aircraft was shot down by enemy anti-aircraft guns, and during an emergency landing the ace received a spinal injury. On that day he was awarded the military rank of lieutenant general and awarded the first star of the Hero.
In total, during the war, the pilot Savitsky shot down twenty-two enemy aircraft, not counting group victories and the Storch headquarters already over Berlin. By the way, it was on this that Adolf Hitler could try to escape from retaliation.
After the war, the hero did not rest on his laurels, but mastered new types of aircraft and supervised the educational work in the USSR Air Force . Marshal Savitsky became the author of fascinating books about Soviet aviation and the history of the air war.
At the age of 63, the illustrious pilot made his last flight in his life. One can only speculate about the emotions he experienced while raising a supersonic interceptor into the air. Perhaps he recalled his Yak-3 ...
Marshal Savitsky passed away in 1990, not having lived to see the collapse of the country that he loved and defended as best he could.
Old pilots do not die, they take off and remain in heaven.