First Albanian pilot to break record in Yugoslavia sports competition

He introduced me to this fact by chance a former helicopter regiment colleague, adding that a particular scripture would be of interest to him. “It's the first Albanian to fly by engine-free aircraft and break records during studies in Yugoslavia”, he harassed me and, to convince me, extended me a bunch of documents and photographs. It was there that I started to look around, not without begging. It was flight book, Slavic-language confirmation of record break and Albanian newspaper “Sport”, dated June 12, 1948, with top news of the record break by pilot Koco Kotepano.

Moved by them, I looked for his address. Kocho Kotepano had the house in the middle of the Block but not the block. The householder, Amalia, a woman who seemed to be noble and expected, opens the door to me. A modest home like most Albanians but clean, beautifully furnished, and with many photographs on walls. I walked right into Kocho's room. The heat, age, and above all, waited on me lying on ice - white pillows. Next to him, Ben Blues' last book. We were greeted as two popular friends. For over two hours just the two of us.

Fred stayed in the waiting room with Kocho's boys walking in and around his fingers. Amalia, put me in a tray of coffee and beat the mania in the chair next to me. I speak to Koco jokingly in Serbian language: “Eh, where I understand it, but I can't speak it anymore. It's been years. Then I start digging into his life...

Mr. Kocho! You from the Dark of Korca, Yugoslavia's record in a difficult and special sport, while you were only eighteen years old...

My life is like a fast film. We were just out of the war. It was 1945. Me in the village, my brother, an officer in Tirana. Mother got sick. What was I doing? I took him to Tirana, to my brother. After a few days, the mother was healed and returned to the village. I stayed in Tirana, my brother kept me. I took jobs as a printer, as a chik-chuk as a rookie in the consumer co-operative for a while at the Interior Ministry. In the spring of 1947, I volunteered on the Durres-Peqi Railway.

It was years of reconstruction. The whole youth was enthusiastic then. Anyway, I was assigned to the exercise brigade for a month. As I recall, we were in a section near Rogozyna. We, Tirana shareholders, were just like the air there. After the action I was summoned to the Federation of Sports here in Tirana. I was assigned to go to school in Yugoslavia. We were going to Belgrade.

) In those years, even first combat pilots have gone to study, as I recall, Bosnia and Croatia.
Yeah, yeah! They left the Defense Department. We had nothing to do with them.
How many students were you from Albania?
We were four friends. We flew from Tirana to Belgrade. There we appeared at the Ministry of Culture and Sports, where we were told that two of us would study rowing and go to Trieste, and two others for sports pilots. We were going to Vojvodina. I first insisted on the pilot. I didn't want the sea, I don't like the beach, I just want it fishing. And so, along with my colleague, Telat Verzivollin, a Tirana-based dybrana, took us to Vrsac Sports Air School in Vojvodina, very close to the Hungarian border.
How was school, airport, training?
I was the youngest. The others were over 20 years old. Vojvodina was the Hungarian province of the Yugoslav Federation, as was Albanian Kosovo. It was endless. The plane was about ten minutes from the building by car.
What about language? I guess you didn't know Serbian. How do you know?
No, how would I know? There were not only Yugoslav republics but all Eastern countries. I knew some Italian. With us was a Slovenian from Trieste. He certainly spoke Italian. He was translating and helping me until I learned it after five or six months. First the technical language.
How was a day of training there?
In the morning we had two hours of theoretical instruction. Then the instructors explained the aircraft, parts, maneuvering, and so on. We went to the airport in the afternoon. The first six months we flew to a low altitude on a car - drawn plane. I connect the plane to an approximately a thousand feet long. We would rise in the air 100,200 feet to get used to. So every day. Radio was off, we had signs, colored flags. Then we started flying by a motorcycle plane, with a drag of about 100m long. When we received the necessary altitude of 8,800,000 feet [800,11,000 m] and more, I was cut off from my plane, and I kept on flying. We were flying either alone or on a plane with two cabins with a friend.
How'd you like the first flight by yourself? Were you emotional?
Emotion and great satisfaction. I felt like a god in the air. I would take him for a fun song, what I would do in the cabin for hours.
How did you regain your altitude to stay in the air as long as possible?
In front of the plane was a high hill about 900 feet [900 m]. Each afternoon around it, there were vertical currents to rise. We would go far, certainly losing altitude, go back to the airport, head over the hill, and take up to 2,000 to 2,500 feet. If I wanted more. There are a number of cymulus clouds, such as white cotton cones, that vertical currents lift up. If you walked around them, you could get altitudes of up to 10,000 feet [90 m], but we were forbidden to rise over 4,000 feet [400 m] because dangerous turbulence was created for our small aircraft.
Now let's get to those two historic flights. First with your colleague and then alone.
Dates I remember correctly, written on your flight book. We got up with Croatian Vladimir Shagal. In the first cabin he and I both. We stayed in the air so much, we got bored, we had no hours. When we landed, our commander and others told us that we were champions of Yugoslavia. We had flown 12 hours and 30 minutes. After two weeks we flew out on a pilot. There were five planes in the air. We circled, crossed, approached each other with respect for the distances, placed on the airport in front of the hill to regain altitude. Five hours later, the first one landed. And so on. We finally got two planes, me and one girl. Anna was called. We went on for a long time just the two of us. I got close.

I opened the cabin and signaled if I asked: “to sit down? She said no. And I insisted. I said to myself, "I'm at the bottom, you screech! It's dark. An hour at night. Fires lit up on the edges of the airport. Anna gave up. I saw him look at the plane. I recovered once more altitude. About ten o'clock in the night I sat down. I didn't know I broke the record. Only when I saw my commander Paul running toward me. He jumped on his neck. Then all my friends, including Anna. They had no jealousy or envy. Everyone wished me luck. I had stayed 10 hours and 35 minutes in the air. I had broken the Yugoslav record. In my booklet, he writes that I had also set up an Albanian record, as the first to fly into this kind of sport. The next day journalists and photographers arrived. Download and “Sport” in Tirana. But... when we got back, they kept all newspapers and photographs on the border.
Who confiscated? Ours?
No, no, the Yugoslavs. We had almost been forgotten north of Vojvodina because we were only two students. We returned from February 1949. There were then hundreds of students in Yugoslavia. Everyone came back from the end of 48. On school command, he begged us to stay two or three more days and take us on a plane to Tirana. Maybe I could have missed all those pictures and materials. But we didn't. We left by train. On the train and on the buses they treated us like everybody else...
How did you Albanians in particular treat you?
I understand the question. By the end of 1948, politics had begun between Enver and Tito. We didn't know anything there. We were treated very well, just like everyone else. Especially me. First, as the youngest and then as their champion.
Do you remember the aircraft guys you flew in? What about flying, hours?
How can I remember? They had bird names. Vrabac, Chavka, Jastreb, Chimbora, Zedar. Yugoslavia was then a powerful state, producing aircraft itself. Not only our sports, but some fighters. For two years I've been flying over 130 hours, flying, in vain, is hundreds. Not even on the flight note were they all written. Then... only the first year's booklet did I take with me.
How did your life turn out?
You returned to Albania with broken studies, to an unknown sport in your country, only 20. When we got back, I worked in the Federation of Sports until the end of '49. The Albanian Philharmonic was being created by Koco Traco. As a raven, I had a little voice. He tried me and put me in the philharmonic. I worked a few months before I was taken away by a soldier. I was taken to Korca. Gaqo Avrazi was creating Army Ansamble.
He was looking for talent. How he had found my name unless I saw him in Korca with the commander of the department and the command order in hand. I was transferred as a soldier to the Army Ansabble. Even after military service until 1955, I stayed there. Brodha half the world with Ansabble, that east. The ensamble was excellent. One show worked for five ambassadors. Art and sport are of great value, come on! That's me, who was I? I broke a Yugoslavia record and wrote newspapers for me, but it also writes about Albania necessarily. Because I was Albanian and I represented my country.
What then?
In 1955, I was removed from the ambient. They cut almost half of us, with that famous ten thousand, that's what they cut ten thousand quadros. Then I was twenty-six years old. I joined Polytechnikum (now Harry Fultz). After I finished, I started working at the geology company, up at Ali Demi. There I retired in 1989, full of 60 years.
What about family?
My wife, Amalia and three boys. The great, Petriti, is the inspector of education. Second, Arian is a folk teacher. Little Genc, works with the English mission in Butrint. We live here with this little one. Amalia has been a lab worker all her life. We both worked honestly to raise and educate boys. We've suffered like all Albanians, in line and in talons...
After all these years, why didn't you continue for a fighter pilot? Then dozens from Albania to the Soviet Union went by then.
Come on! How did you know this weak spot?! That's right. I was called to the Ministry of Defense and just came by and proposed because I was ready, prepared. But I have a nail left after. You mean why didn't I leave? I had my brother officer, I knew how many officers suffered, then my military uniform got busy. Then I met a lot of pilots, like: Pecho Polena, Niko Hoxha, Vasil Trasha.

It was late. That's it. I remembered something. When the first aid supplies came from China, airplanes, helicopters, and so forth, nondeserved aircraft came to the crates with them. I learned late from a Defense Ministry friend. Why do you mean late? When the crates were opened, some non-compliant people failed to eat these planes, closed the crates, and returned them to China. They told the Chinese you got them wrong, they're not for us. I gave a shit. We would have sports planes since then, and this air sport would take place as everywhere.
Have you had any breakdowns or remarks during those hundreds of flights?
One day I was coming down. I was about a hundred meters above the plane. In an effort to make a second turn to lose altitude, I turn the plane to a peak of 5-6 feet [5-6 m]. Those on the ground freeze. I sat down exactly at the white line. The Commander comes and yells at me. “Who taught you this?” You're punishing me for five days without flying. I stayed in the kitchen. I watched my friends fly, and I felt like shit. I told myself: “H Mo, Albanian fool, do you see what you did? Cut the potatoes now! ”
Do you have any particular memory from the time you broke the record flight to Yugoslavia?
I had something, but whatever you want, let it go!
Perhaps it would be of interest to the reader...
Well, it was the end of 48th school commander picks us five people and says, "You have a month to prepare for a special flight." At the end of November is Yugoslavia's holiday and a large parade will take place in Belgrade.” I as champion assigned the first in line, the other four would fly behind me. That's it. A day before the parade, we flew 400km with a pull from cars to Belgrade. It was a big party. After the land troops and jets passed, it was finally us. I first flew 100 meters. Tito was in the stand. It was the glory of Yugoslavia. I had opened the cabin and waved my regards. He from below shook both hands toward me.

Two hours later we were getting ready to go back to school, when the commander comes in and says, "Come and get Marshall." He'll say goodbye to you” Apparently someone in the Tribe told him I was Albanian and champion of Yugoslavia. Their leaders were in a large hall at a festive banquet. I joined the school commander. Marshall had a glass in one hand. The next thing he saw, he signaled to me to get closer. He hugged me, wished me for the results, then told the photographers to take a picture. I'd love to have one left, but I got it.

There you go. That was for conversation, it's not worth writing. This was the first champion of sixty years, Kocho Kotepano. Simple and modest beyond normal. That's why he and his record remain anonymous. For the air sports pioneer, it is worth writing even once in sixty - five years. /Panorama.al

http://www.panorama.com.al/e-recognition-e-aber-aero-pilot-i-pare-Albanian-that-theu-record-on-raat-sportive-in-Yugoslavi/