The Russian Lindbergh

On December 15, 1938, sixty years ago, the world of aviation lost one its most famous test pilots and researchers – Valery Chkalov. His name evokes the worldwide boom in aviation development in the 1930s. For Chkalov was the first to make a non-stop transpolar flight from Soviet Russia to the US.

Valery Chkalov was born in 1904 in the village of Vasilyovo, Nizhny Novgorod region (the village is now named after him – Chkalovsk). His father worked as a boiler repairman for steamers sailing down the Volga. In 1919, when civil war was raging in Russia, the 15-year old Chkalov went to work at an aircraft plant as an aircraft assembler. This allowed him to study in depth the technical characteristics of different types of aircraft. In 1921, the capable and promising Chkalov was sent to the Theoretical School of Aviation in Moscow. He graduated two years later, and continued his studies in the aviation schools of Borisoglebsk and Yegorievsk, then at the Higher Pilot School in Moscow.

In 1927, Chkalov married Olga Orekhova, a secondary school teacher. One year later, they had a son, Igor. But there was little time for family life. In 1930, Chkalov became a test-pilot, first at the Scientific Research Institute of Aviation, then at an aviation plant. There he developed a reputation as a risk-taker (when he was a trainee, he got in trouble with his superiors for flying a plane under a bridge spanning Leningrad’s Neva River), but one who knew the nuts and bolts of flying. 

The aviation industry in the USSR in the 1930s was booming. The Central Aerodynamic Institute (now named after Zhukovsky) employed dozens of talented aircraft designers, namely Oleg Antonov and Andrei Tupolev. In pursuit of distance records, Tupolev had designed the ANT-25, whose wide wingspan was specially designed for long-distance flights. In 1936, the ANT-25 stunned audiences at the Paris Show. 

Chkalov’s first pathbreaking flight in the ANT-25 was a 56 hour, 9,374 km flight from Moscow to the Far East, begun on 20 July 1936 and finished with a landing on Udd Island (now Chkalov Island). But it was Chkalov’s transpolar flight one year later, begun on June 18-20, 1937, which earned him worldwide fame. It was not only the world’s first transpolar flight, but, more importantly, it set a world record for non-stop distance flying. Covering 8,504 km in 63 hrs, 25 minutes, Chkalov and crew (co-pilot Georgy Baidukov and navigator Alexander Belyakov) flew from Moscow to Pearson Military Airfield in Vancouver, Washington. “The flight captured the imagination of the whole world,” wrote Russian aviation expert R.E.G. Davies, “and Chkalov was hailed as the Russian Lindbergh.”

The ANT-25 had just one engine. This made it a cause of scorn for Sigismund Levanevsky, a leading Russian test pilot who championed the four-engine ANT-6 workhorse in its stead. Levanevsky reportedly said to Stalin that the ANT-25 had a 100% chance of crashing if its engine failed. The irrepressible Chkalov replied: “One engine is just a 100% risk, while four engines involve 400% risk.” Stalin gave Chkalov and crew the go-ahead. [In a tragic irony, two months after Chkalov’s success, Levanevsky and crew would dissappear into the frozen arctic while trying to make the transpolar trip in an ANT-6.]

The press swarmed over the Russian pilot and crew from the very first minutes of their stay in Vancouver. Almost all asked one question: What make of engine is in your aircraft – English? German? French? Chkalov pulled back the still-hot engine cover and said: “This is the logo of our aircraft plant. It is called AM-34P.”

The aviators spent just one day in Vancouver. When it was time to go they didn’t know what to do with the food stocks they had on board the plane. The soldiers at Pearson helped out by letting the aviators leave the canned food with them as a souvenir. Later, in New York, an American enterpreneur voiced frustration with such lack of business acumen: “They should have packaged the canned food in small packages, selling them as souvenirs for 50 cents apiece.” The Russians could only laugh.

Chkalov and crew toured the US in triumph, visiting Portland, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, where they were received by President Roosevelt. 

John McCannon, in his book, Red Arctic, wrote of a news briefing in London, where an American reporter asked Chkalov if he was rich.

“Yes, I am very rich,”: Chkalov replied.

“How many millions do you have?”

“One hundred and seventy million,” the pilot answered, mischievously.

“One hundred and seventy million what? Rubles? Dollars?”

“One hundred and seventy million people!” Chkalov laughed. “All of them work on my behalf, and I work for them as well.”

Of course, he was not a millionaire. He was simply a dedicated test pilot. In his life, he tested over 70 different types of aircraft and was skilled also in acrobatic flying. Unfortunately, shortly after his famous transpolar flight to America, Chkalov perished while testing a new fighter plane. He was 34 years old. 

Many Soviet books and movies focused on the life of Russia’s Lindbergh. In addition to the island and village noted above, a part of Moscow’s Garden Ring road near Kursky railway station was named for Chkalov. In the early years of perestroika, many essays on Chkalov speculated that the deadly test flight was in fact no accident, intimating that Stalin feared Chkalov’s immense popularity and had him “taken care of.” Similar speculations have been published about Yuri Gagarin’s fatal flight. Yet, in neither case have researchers or historians bolstered their suppositions with concrete proof.

– Valentina Kolesnikova