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Heinz-Dieter Kallbach - Pilot With a Passion
Among
aviators, Heinz-Dieter Kallbach is a legend. It was him who landed a long-haul
jet on a 900 metres long meadow in Stölln, Brandenburg in 1989.
On purpose. The pilot, who's only 5'4, is even rumoured to have his own fan-club. But let's start at the beginning.
Like many a pilot, this son of a worker, whose family moved to the Lausitz after the 2nd World War, started his career on the ground - with an apprenticeship as a lathe operator. In 1957, at the age of 17, he joined East Germany's People's Army - not because of conviction, but to be close to his beloved planes - if only as a mechanic. "The dream of becoming a pilot seemed unattainable to me at the time," says Kallbach in hindsight. But luck was on his side. Because the training of mechanics had already begun and Kallbach's passion for airplanes had made the rounds, he did end up in front of the examination board for prospective pilots. He aced the test and learned to fly in Brandenburg-Briest and Dessau on the Antonov An 2-Biplane and the twin-engine IL-14.
A career in the military eludes him, though, because his mother-in-law - Kallbach has been married for 41 years - lives in West Germany. Fortunately, Interflug - still named Lufthansa like its West German counterpart - is looking for pilots and doesn't automatically rule out candidates with ties to the West. As chief-instructor on a four-motor IL-18, Kallbach briefs crews in Tashkent on the new connection to Hanoi. 'Solidarity-missions' with Aid supplies for developing nations take him all over Africa and Asia.
In
1978 he switches to the four-turbine IL-62. Ten years later, he is confronted
with a crazy idea: to land an about to be decommissioned long-haul jet on a
meadow near the Lilienthal Airport Stölln in Brandenburg. It's supposed
to become a flight-museum. The Iljushin needs 2,500 metres to land - at least
under normal circumstances. Complicated calculations lead Kallbach to the conclusion
that he could land the plane on 864 metres - after stripping the machine of
all unnecessary weight. Nobody wants to sign off on this idea, since nobody
believes that it can be done. But Kallbach sticks to his plan. October 23,
1989 is the big day. Surrounded by a thick cloud of dust, the Iljushin lands
on the meadow. 100 metres before the end of the 'runway', the machine safely
comes to a stop. At this point, Heinz-Dieter Kallbach has already been retrained
on the new Interflug Airbus. Then the wall comes down. When the end of Interflug
becomes inevitable, Kallbach switches to Germania. Since then, he's been flying
sun-worshippers outhward.But the pilot with a passion is not content with one job alone. In today's planes, you spend more time with the computers than with the control stick, he claims. His compromise: on weekends he pilots Air Service Berlin's Dakota-?raisin-bomber' on sightseeing flights from Tempelhof Airport - without even the option of an autopilot. But that's not enough: this year Kallbach plans to return to his 'roots' as a pilot and renew his license for the An-2 biplane.