Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Carlton
Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight, but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Fearful that a national hero might be killed, Soviet officials banned Gagarin from further spaceflights. After completing training at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in February 1968, he was allowed to fly regular aircraft. Gagarin died five weeks later when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.
- Wikipedia
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Gagarin was a Class act, They had already met the year before and befriended, so when Bob Hoover was visiting Russia for something to do with aviation. Bob did some fancy acro and amazed the crowd to the point it irked the local authorities.. and that resulted in the KGB causing trouble for Bob, soldiers , off to his room, and when Gararin found out, he was at the same venue.. Gagarin intervened and pretty much told the KGB to go F themselves and that was that, the KGB backed off.
That was the status he had in the old CCCP..
