Glasnost Has Happy Landing at Show : Soviets, Americans Hit It Off During Week of Aviation Events

Glasnost, San Diego-style, was in the air at Air/Space America during the past week.

It started at the top, with Chairman Bob Wilson, the retired congressman who founded Air/Space America in 1986.

Wilson, the former ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, was ready, willing and able to play the gracious host to a 59-person Soviet delegation that included pilots, flight crews and marketing and business experts.

But Wilson’s graciousness was fueled largely by capitalistic motives: After all, the cavernous AH-124 transport plane that the Russians flew into town for the show was one of Air/Space America’s leading attractions.

The spirit of rapprochement also was evident at a booth operated by a company that supplies T-shirts and insignias to the U.S. military. The firm displayed many of its tamer wares but graciously agreed to keep its “Commie Buster” T-shirts hidden under a display table.

A Few Cold War Slips

There were a few occasional slips back into the Cold War era: One message repeated daily on a giant Diamond Vision television screen lambasted European and Asian countries that have forsaken friendly relations with the United States and sided with “The Enemy.”

Another advertisement showed graceful U.S. fighter planes flying rings around lumbering Russian observation planes.

When they weren’t meeting the press, pressing the flesh, or exhibiting the AH-124 transport, the Russian contingent usually could be found at the Russian chalet that sat alongside expensive chalets rented out by several U.S. defense contractors.

The chalet was easy to find because of the red flag fluttering above it.

Inside, the Russians ate and drank tea brewed in colorful samovars. The chalet also served as a welcome refuge to some Russians who sported sunburns after misjudging the strength of the California sun.

One Russian pilot found his way to a booth hosted by Logicon, a Torrance-based company that manufactures high-tech flight simulators that U.S. fighter pilots use to master aerial combat techniques.

After a few minutes of computer-controlled aerial combat, the pilot asked a Logicon staffer just what kind of airplanes he had been shooting out of the skies. A Logicon staffer told the pilot that the “bad guys” in the computer-driven simulator were actually Russian fighter planes.

“He looked at us and then gave this great big laugh,” said Billy Batson, a Logicon marketing representative.

‘Very Charming People’

The Russian contingent impressed La Jolla attorney D. Ivan Dirkes, who spent the past week acting as Air/Space America’s protocol liaison.

“These people are just now getting into the Free World market,” said Dirkes, who practices international law. “It takes years to do that, but these guys are very sophisticated businessmen. They’re not just some guys who fell off a truck in the Caucasus.”

“They were very charming people,” said Dirkes, who despite the Russian-sounding middle name actually boasts an Irish-American heritage.

Dirkes tested that graciousness when he provided the play-by-play for a group of Russians who attended a Padres baseball game.

The visitors had a good grasp on the basics of America’s grand old game. But the translator got hopelessly hung up when Dirkes tried to explain some of the game’s finer nuances.

“It’s a hard game to explain, and I grew up with it,” Dirkes said.