KRASNODAR, March 7. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin recounted his flights on board warplanes at a meeting with female graduates of the Krasnodar Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots on Thursday.
"What I have flown on is a Su-25 attack aircraft, then a Su-27 fighter jet and later a Tu-160 [strategic bomber] and a Be-200 [multipurpose amphibious aircraft] while on a firefighting mission," the head of state said adding that he has only controlled a motorized hang glider once. "I was flying with cranes then," Putin said as he described piloting planes as a serious business.
The president also recounted that the pilot-in-command of a Su-27 fighter flight once allowed him to perform a rolling maneuver which he "did on his own."
In the fall of 2012, the Russian president took part in an experiment in Yamal in northern Siberia when he took to the skies in a hand glider to help endangered cranes on their migration route. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said then that Putin had spent six months preparing for the flight.