Starman_ The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin - Jamie Doran [11]
At the very least, ‘fun’ was supposed to keep you fit for work. Gagarin signed up with various sports clubs in Saratov and built up his small, undernourished frame with plenty of exercise and food. He played volleyball and basketball, and showed off to pretty girls sitting on the banks of the Volga how he could water-ski on one leg. If he fell off and clambered to shore wet and grinning, that seemed to impress them just the same. He had grown into a very fine-looking and confident young man, albeit slightly shorter than average and better suited for acrobatic rather than sprint sports. His good-natured charm and generous humour won him many friends.
The tutors at Orenburg were not so easily charmed. They were soldiers on active duty. Gagarin would have to commit to their discipline for years to come and, after they had finished with him, they might send him away to fight and be killed. Anna and Alexei Gagarin expressed dismay at the thought of their boy enlisting with the military, and this obsession with aircraft seemed reckless. However, Alexander Sidorov, a fellow member of the Saratov AeroClub, recalled in 1978 that Gagarin already had the keen self-discipline expected of a future military pilot:
On overnight stays at the Saratov airfield, Yuri would zealously ensure that our camp tent was kept perfectly tidy. He couldn’t bear untidy or slovenly people. At first he’d appeal to their consciences in a friendly way, but if that didn’t work he would demand in stronger terms.7
It was not easy to score top marks at Orenburg. Yadkar Akbulatov, a senior instructor, said in 1961, ‘Don’t imagine that Yuri was an infallible cadet, a child prodigy. He wasn’t. He was an impetuous, enthusiastic young man who made the same slips as any other.’ His worst marks were for his landings. He was in danger of failing Orenburg completely if he could not get his aircraft down without bouncing on his tyres. Akbulatov flew with him a couple of times to see if they could iron out some faults. ‘I took him up and watched him carefully. On steep banking turns his performance wasn’t absolutely perfect, but in vertical dives and climbs he put on a show that made me see stars from the g-load. Then came the touchdown. It was faultless! I asked him, “Why can’t you always land like that?” He grinned and said, “I’ve found the solution.” He put a cushion under his seat so that he could get a better line of sight with the runway.’ From now on, Gagarin never flew any aircraft without his cushion.8
True to form, Gagarin had worked on the landing problem with bloody-minded determination and had solved it, cushion and all. Now for the target practice. After all, what was the use of a military pilot who could not shoot the guns on his plane? At first, his practice gunnery strafes fell completely wide of the target, while his classmates at Orenburg scored bull’s-eyes. Gagarin re-sat all the theoretical classes on the ground, tried again from the air and eventually destroyed his targets in the approved manner.
One notable sporting incident boosted Gagarin’s career prospects while he was captaining the Junior Cadets’ basketball team. After one particular game, where they thrashed the opposition, the tutors at Orenburg praised him for his skilful play. ‘We didn’t win because we played better,’ he said. ‘We won by sheer determination. We were bent on winning, while the other side hadn’t made up their minds.’ This statement impressed some of the senior officers watching the game. Akbulatov and his colleagues began to think of Gagarin as a contender. No genius, but a winner for all that. Plus, he was a young man who loved pulling heavy g’s, an appropriate