Andrii Pilshchykov "Juice"

As promised, let's talk about Andrii Pilshchikov, call sign "Juice".

First of all, why he had such a call sign?

Once in the USA, he had an opportunity to train a little on the F-15, so the local pilots gave him such a call sign, because he didn't drink alcohol at all.

Andrii was my first unit commander and I can talk about him for hours.

You will not find such a stubborn but experienced man. He always insisted on his position and it was always fair. In fact, he tried not to overload his subordinates with stupid paper work, but when it was, he was as demanding as possible, but he always suggested help. He always said: "You are a combat unit, you are pilot, you have to fly", so we spent hours listening to him about the technique of performing figures, aerodynamics and explaining what and why is happening. Even for misdemeanors, he never suspended from flying. If you sit until night at work - he will sit with you.

Why does the command not respect him? Why do you think he end the contract before the war?

It's because Juice was a man of modern views, he didn't rely on the soviet laws, he sought to spread his experience with the F-15, studied and proposed new types of maneuvers, and some service improvements in general.

Such people are usually considered by the command to be a thorn, because it is good for them [command] to live with the already old "good" system (fucking soviet bullshit, which we still haven't overcome).

Andriy sought to develop our Air Forces to the Western level, to develop our knowledge and views on modern aviation and its tasks. Juice loved to fly and did it as hard as possible. He was not afraid of difficult missions, vice versa, whoever flies on this mission need to "fight" with him. The most desperate person, bombs - okay, HARMs - okay, drones - he will be the first!

Since he was sociable and had many friends in the USA, good English level, he directed all efforts to improve the situation in the Air Forces. He gave hundreds of interviews, sat the whole nights negotiating with journalists so that they would tell the truth and thus put pressure on the Democrats.

New helmets for our helicopters pilots, Zuni [rockets], JDAMs, HARMs. All these ideas and many other things came thanks to him!

While everyone was sleeping before work, he bought dozens of helmets abroad, then repaired them, and at the same time gave interviews and developed some schemes for using weapons. With these actions, he showed the world that we want not to just to survive, we wanna and are ready to fight. He almost didn't sleep, but he was always ready to work under any conditions.

In your opinion, why are initiative people not supported in our country?

- soviet thinking

Why are these people not rewarded?

- same thing

No one took a possible war seriously, we were doing bullshit, flying around in circles, etc.

All my words are not about the brigade, the problem came from much higher... I can write a lot, but I think you have understood the main point.

There are chances of being fucked up.