After meeting the famous test pilot Vladimir Kokkinaki in 1937, who told him to enter the Kerch aeroclub with a Komsomol ticket, he pursued his aviation career.

In that regiment he gained the majority of his aerial victories, but was recalled from the front in September to train pilots at the Lyubertsy Higher Aviation School in Moscow.

After retiring he tried to return to his homeland Crimea many times; under Soviet law retired military personnel had the right to move back to the place where they enlisted and get a household registration, but this did not apply to Crimean Tatars, who had restricted movement under the special settlement regime and were rarely allowed to enter Crimea even after the abolition of the special settler status.

Even though Çalbaş was exempted from special settler status, he was still not allowed a propiska to live in Crimea until the Crimean Tatars received the full right of return despite applying four times during the Brezhnev era.

After moving to Crimea only in 1992 he found it incredibly difficult to find housing, and did not get an apartment in his native Alushta until ten years later; he died shortly thereafter on 6 August 2005 and was buried in the ally of heroes.

His son followed in his footsteps by becoming also pilot, but received as fatal dose of radiation in his duties flying a helicopter over Chernobyl while working as a liquidator for the disaster.