The Urals’ section of the All-Russian Stunt-Flying Championship began at Loginovo airfield a little while ago. Teams from flying clubs located in Kurgan, Kurtamysh, Ishim, Tyumen, Nizhniy Tagil, Magnitogorsk, Perm, Chelyabinsk, and Yekaterinburg took part in the competition, the spokesperson for Ural Airlines reports.

After the four-day contest, the winning team will be selected and some best pilots will get recruited onto the country’s national team. In addition, a school for young pilots is to be set up in Yekaterinburg at the end of summer.

‘Apart from the direct purpose of awarding sports titles, sports competitions also help to attract more children and young people into air sports,’ says Igor Tarasov, who runs the flying club in Yekaterinburg.

‘We aim to revive the practice of pilots’ primary training through making people interested in the air sports and aviation business from their very childhood. Air sports are spectacular, while doing them takes a lot of courage. We’ve got some pilots on our team who started with the sports airplanes; today, they are great professionals who we rely on to fly our customers,’ says Ural Airlines’ CEO Sergey Skuratov.

On average, the airline’s pilots are thirty to forty years old. By 2012, when more A 320 aircraft should arrive, the number of pilots will be doubled at least, largely through hiring new young pilots. The company only uses them for A 320 and AN 24 planes at the moment, but younger people are to start driving more of Ural Airlines’ planes in the near future.