WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th June, 2020) A group of US and Russian enthusiasts is planning to conduct a memorial flight between Alaska and Siberia to honor veterans of World War II despite the COVID-19 pandemic and a funding shortfall that forced them to cancel the project this year, BRAVO 369 Flight Foundation President Jeff Geer told Sputnik on Tuesday.
An international team is planning to fly over the same 6,000-mile route from Great Falls in the state of Montana to the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk, used by American and Soviet pilots during World War II. The route, named ALSIB, was created in 1941 to deliver nearly 8,000 military aircraft from the United States to the Soviet Union under the Land-Lease Program.
"We selected this route to draw attention to this little-known aspect of World War II history," Geer said. "This program played an important role in the war."
In June-August 2020, project participants aimed to cover the distance between Montana, Canada, Alaska and Russia's Siberia. Members of BRAVO 369 Flight Foundation and Russia's RUSAVIA aviation company expected to use vintage World War II aircraft - the same type that were flown during the ALSIB program.
"Unfortunately, due to delays in getting project funding in place earlier in the year, compounded with the COVID-19 pandemic, we canceled ALSIB 2020, but refused to give up," Geer said.
The group has received support from the Russian Embassy in the United States and local authorities in Krasnoyarsk, he added.
ALSIB organizers decided to use the opportunity and to broaden the project, not only dedicating it to the World War II Victory anniversary, but making it as part of "citizen diplomacy" between the US and Russia.
"While we will most likely call the flight ALSIB 2021, we are naming the whole project by its original name, Warplanes to Siberia," Geer said. "We also had planned to begin production of our multi-part documentary film series that covers the entire history of ALSIB, starting with the beginning of Lend-Lease then all the way through to the deliveries of aircraft to Krasnoyarsk."
The BRAVO 369 Flight Foundation is a non-profit organization in the US, committed to education and the support of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs by providing scholarship opportunities and preserving historical aircraft.
RUSAVIA is the supplier of aviation parts, instruments, and equipment for Russian-built aircraft worldwide.
