“But I was in New York when those two planes hit those 'Fingers' there. So I woke up, I had the TV on and now there was a live broadcast of that one northern "Finger" steaming, burning and so on. And then they were saying on TV that a plane had flown into it. And we lived in Wellington, it was under Central Park on Seventh Street, so I opened the window and stuck my head out and I saw those "Fingers" and that one was really steaming. In addition, I kept looking and after a while, I saw another plane hit the building, so I saw the second one too. Therefore, my colleagues and I were supposed to get up at one o'clock and go to the airport and go to Prague. Well, they closed all that airspace. There was no flight to New York for a week, so we stayed there an extra week.'”
"We were just the first and last time in Italy in the 69th World Cup. So of course the comparison was big there, because it was after the sixty-eighth, so those Italians, when we won and now we were going up for the gold medals for the world champions, everyone was chanting, clapping and shouting: 'Dubček, Dubček!' Because it was after the year 1968. That was 1969, that was the first time we got out and the last time we could travel to the West. And under communism, those races were the so-called Races of countries of the socialist camp - ZTS. So we were either in Poland, Hungary or Germany."
"When I came back from work flying, I was always really exhausted for a day or two. The worst was the time zone changes and we always had a two day break there. When I returned from the exit, the return from that exit was always a little better in time. We had two days off and we were already flying to the other side to America. It was all right flying there, but worse back from America, having to go against the time difference. Because it was six o'clock there and it was eight o'clock there, so 14 hours of time zones and there the jet lag was so terrible that we were completely in pieces. For me, when I stopped flying, it took half a year for me to get back to normal people´s level, health-wise and physically."
Miloš Fiala was born on September 21, 1941 in Prague. He was inclined towards aviation from an early age and piloted sports planes from the age of 15. He trained as an aircraft mechanic at Avia in Letňany, where he also worked until he left for the army. After his military service, he atended a technical school and then the Czech Technical University. From 1970 to 2002, he worked as a pilot with the Czech Air Service. In the meantime, he also devoted himself to sport flying. In total, he became national champion ten times and world champion six times. From 1985 he started teaching at the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports of Charles University, where he also worked as the head of the Department of Technical Sports. In 2022, he lived in Lidice, he was already retired, but in addition to working at the faculty, he still worked as a flight instructor.
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