From former pilots and aircraft technicians, you can often hear a lot of colorful stories and tales about aviation alcohol. About how he helped some to become richer, and, unfortunately, to others to become an inveterate drunkard. There are many examples of how, in the hands of some commanders, alcohol turned into liquid currency and helped to equip entire aviation towns. Alcohol also became the cause of human tragedies, led to alcoholism, destroyed families, and sometimes lives.
However, aviation alcohol became the reason for the emergence of a real subculture in the aviation of the USSR. This liquid was dedicated not only to poems and stories, but even songs.
Why do you need alcohol on a plane?
In aviation, mainly rectified ethyl alcohol was used, as a rule, the highest grade of the Extra brand with reduced oxidizing properties, and, God forbid, poison the personnel. Chemical formula C2H5OH.
Diluted ethanol was needed in aircraft for de-icing and cooling systems, while pure ethanol was needed to cool radar sights and electronics. For this extraordinary quality, planes with a tank of alcohol-and-water mixture were called as soon as: And “drinker”, and “alcohol carrier”, and “cash cow”, “flying grocery store” and even “alcohol carrier”.
There were a great many names of aviation drinks based on alcohol.
The cheerful and grateful aviation people gave each type of this noble drink its own name:
"Sword", "awl", "helmet", "massandra" under these code names hid an alcohol-containing mixture that was used in aircraft of the USSR Air Force.
How and where did all these names come from?
They called it an AWL - pure, undiluted alcohol.
SHPAGOY - alcohol diluted in the classical way - with water to a strength of 50-70 degrees, depending on the time of year. The name "sword" came from a rubberized ruler used to measure the level of aviation alcohol in an aircraft tank.
Slam - aviation alcohol, a strength of up to 70 degrees. The name was used in parts of naval aviation.
LIQUOR CHASSIS - but this is just an aviation name. A mixture of alcohol and glycerin was used, which is used in the hydraulic systems of aircraft landing gear.
The name first appeared in the film Chronicle of a Dive Bomber, where Oleg Dal, in the role of pilot Sobolevsky, mixed an alcohol-glycerin mixture with raspberry syrup and called this mixture "Liquor-chassis".
A cocktail called "sultyga" has become no less popular. It was used as a de-icer, diluted with water in a ratio of 70 to 30. Alcohol was used in this case because other liquids acted aggressively on the aluminum component of the aircraft.
And of course MASSANDRA! This is a mixture of alcohol and distilled water, with a strength of 60 °. Used exclusively on MiG fighters.
The 60-degree liquid received the beautiful name of the Crimean wine "Massandra". In military folklore, the name was turned into an abbreviation, which was deciphered as follows: "Mikoyan Artem, the Glorious Son of the Armenian People Gives Joy to Aviators." Other options are also known. For example, "Mikoyan heartily supplied aviation with alcohol - the people are satisfied with the work of the aircraft designer."
There are versions that some names most likely came to aviation from the navy. After all, the navy existed before aviation, but there was always alcohol... In the old days, alcohol was stored in special sealed leather wineskins in the navy. Cunning sailors, in order not to break the seals, pierced the containers with an awl and collected a hot drink in their flasks. The alcohol obtained in this way was called "shil" or "shil". So the name "awl" appeared. Later it migrated to aviation.
MiG-25 and Tu-22 aircraft were considered the most alcohol-consuming.
MiG-25 pilots called the "flying deli". For one full-fledged flight of such a device, an average of about 250 liters of diluted ethanol was required, plus up to 50 liters of pure ethanol in an additional tank.
By the way, alcohol was also used in other military industries. In particular, on nuclear submarines.
On early versions of the Tu-22, a tank for an alcohol-water mixture with a volume of 460 liters was used. But in subsequent modifications, the Tupolev Design Bureau replaced the system with a 380 liter one, which they began to fill halfway, to the delight of the aviators' wives and superiors. They say that because in the Tu-22 regiments they began to write off officers with a diagnosis of "alcoholism" too often. Only about five liters of alcohol are poured into modern Tu-22M3s.
Now the topic of the value of free alcohol seems to be a thing of the past.
During the union, it was very relevant, given the times of total Soviet shortages. Everything that the military could not drink was put into business, sold or exchanged.
This business became especially popular during the dry law under Gorbachev.