Chkalov's co-pilot across the North Pole who became the procurement chief that built Soviet air defence weaponry
On 20 June 1937, high over the Arctic, Chkalov began bleeding from the nose from hypoxia. Baydukov took the controls and flew the ANT-25 the last 13 hours alone, landing it at Vancouver's Pearson Field.
Soviet test pilot, military commander, and the most decorated holder of Soviet orders (21). As Valery Chkalov's co-pilot aboard the ANT-25, he participated in the nonstop flights from Moscow to Udd Island (1936) and Moscow over the North Pole to Vancouver, USA (1937), earning the title Hero of the Soviet Union. During the Great Patriotic War he commanded air divisions and an assault aviation corps, and after the war served as head of the Main Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet (1947–1949). From 1957 to 1972, as head of the 4th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defence, he directed all weapons procurement for the Soviet Air Defence Forces (PVO), becoming a central architect of Soviet air defence capability. A member of the Union of Writers, he authored a biography of Chkalov and multiple aviation memoirs, and served as scientific consultant to the PVO commander-in-chief until 1988.
Activities and affiliations
- 1926–1928 Military command · Soviet Union · Military and defence
Career Timeline
- 1926–1928Graduated Leningrad Air Force Theoretical School and Kacha Military Pilots School; fighter pilot
- 1931–1934Test pilot, NII VVS; helped develop instrument flight methods
- 1935–1937Co-pilot, ANT-25 — Moscow–Udd Island (1936) and Moscow–North Pole–Vancouver (1937) nonstop flights; Hero of the Soviet Union
- 1941–1945Commander, 4th Guards Assault Aviation Division, then 4th Assault Aviation Corps — Moscow, Rzhev, and Berlin operations
- 1947–1949Head, Main Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet (GVF)
- 1957–1972Head, 4th Main Directorate, Ministry of Defence — PVO weapons procurement
- 1972–1988Scientific consultant to the PVO commander-in-chief
Related historical events
From an orphan at the Taryshta siding to military pilot
Georgy Filippovich Baydukov was born in 1907 at the Taryshta railway siding on the Omsk line, now Tatarsky district of Novosibirsk oblast, into a railway worker's family. Sources disagree on the exact birth date: Russian Wikipedia gives 13 May (Old Style) and 26 May, English Wikipedia gives 13 May (O.S. 30 April), and the Warheroes biographical dictionary gives 26 May (Gregorian 8 June).
He left his family at the age of nine and lived as a vagrant before being raised in a boarding school; the English account describes him as orphaned at nine. Other records state he was wandering from 1915 and completed primary school in Barabinsk in 1918. From 1921 he worked as a construction labourer on the Siberian railway and as an unskilled labourer on the Omsk railway. He graduated from the Omsk railway vocational school in 1924, studied in the engine-driver course at the Omsk technical railway school in 1924-1925, and took up hunting around this time. In 1924-1926 he worked as an unskilled labourer on the Tomsk and Transbaikal railways.
In March 1926 he enlisted in the Red Army as a volunteer. In October of that year he completed the Leningrad military-theoretical air force school, and in 1928 he graduated from the Kacha military pilots school. From June 1928 he served as a junior and then senior pilot in the 20th separate air detachment of the Moscow military district, beginning his flying career.