Originally Posted by
Mechta
How about a history of DOSAAF? It seems to be pretty central to sport aviation activities in former Soviet Union, but there doesn't see to much about its founding, structure and activities from what I've seen.
History is history. It all went downhill after the USSR collapse and now DOSAAF is pretty much amorphous and drastically underfunded structure with unclear legal status (at least in aviation) that is run by retired and not always competent military generals in central HQ (the ones who are competent are overly attentive to paperwork). The only aviation branch of DOSAAF that lives more or less normally is parachute jumping (mostly off commercial jumps). Also they operate a network of driving schools (quite good, by the way, available for anyone just like any other commercial driving school) and have still some commitments about training 17-year-olds to become lorry drivers (C, D, CE, DE categories) and vehicle technicians as army conscripts. Government isn't exactly interested in tens of thousands of flyers. Of course there are some airfields that use DOSAAF as a cover to be somehow legit in the eyes of certain officials, and, of course, DOSAAF-only fields, but the whole structure is long rotten and, frankly speaking, I don't know why it still exists. Probably only thanks to mantras of some nostalgic bureaucrats and their need of reports about “patriotic upbringing of youth”, that allows to lobby some budget drops via military. Also, they earn something with parachute jumps and driving courses.
DOSAAF is very difficult subject to cover, really hard to explain in several forum posts, especially to people who aren't aware of many details of Russian reality. They don't like journalists unless it's federal TV channels like Channel One, VGTRK (Vesti 24, Russia 1), NTV, Zvezda or regional TV that positively report about their events on Victory Day and Military Day — May 9th and February 23rd, respectively; or their own magazines (Aviation and Sport and some other).
Their mindset (I mean HQ) is rusty, and, since not that I'm anonymous for them, I don't like an idea of making a huge explanatory feature about them, moreover in English. Why? They are very “anti-abroad” in many cases, and our team will have, let's say, some problems with them if they'll get a whiff that Flight TV or anyone else produced an investigative (read: bashing, when it comes to gliding and airplanes, and helicopters, with exceptions of some branches) video about this rotten dinosaur of organization that lives with memories about past might and glory. That's corrupted bureaucratic structure that has little money and even less desire to develop anything that requires any investment...
So, if private pilots and real enthusiasts are allowed to rule and run at least flight branches of DOSAAF, will be given about, say, 10 million Euros annually from state budget and the organization will be given clear legal status (and not something non-civilian, non-military, non-governmental, non-GA and non-private, as they are now), that would be enough to make something decent with present resources and even some development, although I doubt that even this kind of money is enough to resurrect all clubs nationwide and supply them with enough new Yak-152, Aeroprakt, Borey and SR-10 planes, AS-4, AS-5 and some two-seater (maybe imported) gliders, and Ansat helicopters (those Ansats are really, really buggy yet), or at least modernized Mi-2 (goes as Mi-2N), let alone the resurrection of Mi-34 project.