In the end I selected two mountaintops called Malý and Veľký Javorník, a few kilometres above Rača, on the eastern edge of Bratislava. They were in environmentally protected area, with the only access being along muddy forest tracks. There was no infrastructure of any kind within several kilometres; there were no funds available, and, naturally, no interest on the part of my management.
As to the infrastructure, I was completely ignorant of everything. I began to borrow, buy and read technical literature of all kind, water reticulation systems, sewerage systems, electricity, telephone, gas, building of roads, architecture, etc. I began to see my radar phantasy in an entirely different light, like an almost unsurmountable and complicated reality. I was lucky to have a couple of unexpected breaks.
The mountain nearest to Rača, Malý Javorník, was covered by mature trees, mainly by oaks and beeches. I happen to know a person in the forest management agency, whom I managed to persuade to clear the peak of the mountain under some pretext (it was, I think, infestation by some beetles), and he obliged! Suddenly, I had a nice cleared mountaintop, with nearest tree some 100 metres away in all points of the compass. What next? Well, a kind tornado turned up to assist…
About a kilometre uphill from Rača something akin to tornado flattened trees in a path some 100 metres wide and some 400 metres long. At the time I had a friend in the organisation that was responsible for designing and building roads in state’s forests. He was in charge of building the road from Rača to the path devastated by the tornado, in order to provide access for timber machinery and trucks. The job had already been approved when I managed to persuade him to lengthen the road a little, which eventually happened: he lengthened the road by 2 or 3 kilometres, right up to the forester’s house called Biely Kríž, which is less than a kilometre from “my” mountain.
And I not only had a cleared
mountaintop, I had an access road to it!
Around the same time I met with a young weather forecaster, who became interested in my efforts – more about him in the previous article about radars.
I duly informed my managers about “my” mountaintop, and “my” new road, which information was received with expressions of pain in their faces, and snide remarks of the kind “will you ever stop stirring”, “can’t you stop fantasising”, etc…. Needless to say, in the atmosphere of fear of which the socialist system is redolent, none of my colleagues were in the least interested. Every time I raised the topic they all started eagerly studying their shoe laces...
By the way, I am presenting my management here in a bad light; the individuals involved were not bad people by any measure, though! Absolutely not!!! They were decent guys, and personally I was with them on good, even cordial, terms (there were two of them, Area ATC manager Jozef Mihalovič and his boss Ferdinand Barborák). They reported to the Central Administration based in Prague, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia. Both my bosses were former telegraph operators and I doubt that that their secondary education came dangerously close to matriculation. Their native tongue was Slovakian (a village dialect, even), whereas the Central Administration spoke Czech (from among some 300 employees there was but one Slovakian). My managers were afraid that by presenting some outrageous demands – in Slovakian language, at that – that they may demonstrate their education and knowledge, and so they resorted to playing hide-and-seek game with me. My contacts in Prague were good, but I was referred by them back to my managers, or, by the cheeky ones (nazdar, Zdenĕk Pohl), directly to the State Security, ŠtB, in Slovakia (the real power behind the puppet government).
As to this ŠtB, at least as to the individuals I was in “working” relationship, I can say almost the same as about my managers. Many of them, especially the older ones, were doing the job for money. Various admonishments, even threats, were administered almost with resentment, with disdain. Most often it was in the form “we have no idea why you are chasing your bats, but if you feel that it is important just turn the noise down a bit”.
Nobody ever asked why exactly it is that I feel the need to “chase my bats”. “What is it that you consider so bad, even in the breach of some laws) that you keep at it so much?”. “Why do you think that the safety of air transport is under threat?”. Questions like that I was waiting for, I was looking forward to!, and had my answers ready – to no avail, the opportunity to present them never came… Like the Church before them, the State Security was in the business of defending apparatus of the State; safety of the air transport was not in their Manuals. Maybe, just maybe, if I was able to construct my reasoning by linking the air transport safety with some sort of threat to the security of the State, I might have succeeded, but I was not a lawyer, nor a philosopher (and I was but 25 years old, with no relevant qualifications or deep wells of knowledge of any kind).
In 1967, after our first son was born, I was allowed to visit neighbouring Austria, with whose Area ATC we had close and fairly cordial relationship (conducted entirely via the one closely monitored telephone line) I was planning to have a chat with our Austrian colleagues about possible cooperation around our “planned” radar centre on top of Malé Karpaty mountains. It just happened that from materials available to us though international aviation organisation (ICAO) I deducted that their radar coverage may be also difficult due to the Alps running through the middle of their country, and that a radar located somewhere sideways could provide a valuable angle of view. I had a meeting with their Area ATC manager, also with Vienna Airport radar engineer, and two Area ATC controllers (Höglinger a Mittelmüller), whom I knew through our telephone contacts. They all demonstrated lively interest in “our” ideas (a welcome difference after the Slovakian apathy and lethargy). Discussion ran along the lines of the possibility that Slovakia would provide a suitable site, infrastructure and buildings, and Austria would provide radar equipment. I had another meeting with the same people in Vienna in December of the same year, in order to inform them about our progress – there was none…
It was during these months that I fully realised that the so-called socialism is a system that is destined to wither on vine. System, which suppresses individual's efforts, talents, striving, etc., and replaces it with edicts from "above", that is from the highest positions of the ruling groups, cannot compete with political systems where individuals have freedoms. When I saw that the fruits of my labour, "my" radars are about to become reality despite opposition from my management, I began to regret the "free gifts" I had been donating to that "socialism". At that time, I decided to walk away from it!
Third such meeting took place in September 1968, when a week earlier I, with my wife and two infant sons, escaped Czechoslovakia following the Soviet occupation. I was offered a position at the Austrian Area ATC, which offer I declined with thanks. Reasons? Well, from what I saw in the few days between the invasion, and my escape to Austria, I was convinced that the occupation of Czechoslovakia was but a preparation by the armies of the Soviet bloc to invade western Europe, and I was desperate to take my family right out of that Europe, and as far as possible. At Bratislava airport I saw Soviet air fighters MiG-21, some fifty of them, together with vast array of ammunition and supporting machinery and personnel. It was heart-rending to see De Havilland Vampire jet fighters of the Austrian Air Force – all six of them – practising at Vienna Airport, with pluck and courage: six of WW2 vintage airplanes, against hundreds of up-to-date weapons... At the time all civilised nations (and even some of the less so) threw their doors open to the refugees from Czechoslovakia – thank you, thank you one and all!!!. We chose Australia, and by the end of September, 1968, we found ourselves, my wife and two infant sons, on the tarmac of Sydney Airport, courtesy of Qantas diverting to Vienna one of their half-empty 707s on the London to Sydney "Kangaroo Route".
This is us in Melbourne, Australia, around Christmas, 1968:
What you see on us all is what we arrived with, plus a couple of shirts and a bundle of nappies for the boys. The building behind us, where we lived for a few months, courtesy of the Australian government, is the Australian Army corrugated iron "Nissen" hut at Broadmeadows, Victoria.
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