Stalin's falcon who flew nonstop over the North Pole to America, and fell on his final test flight
On 20 June 1937, when the ANT-25 rolled to a stop at Vancouver's Pearson Field and a U.S. Army officer asked where they'd come from, Chkalov said: 'From Moscow. Over the North Pole.'
Soviet test pilot and the public face of Soviet aviation in the 1930s. Testing Polikarpov I-15 and I-16 fighters, he devised the ascending spin and the slow barrel roll, new figures in aerobatic flight. His 1936 Moscow-to-Udd Island nonstop flight (9,374 km) earned him the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and the following year he commanded the same ANT-25 on the first nonstop transpolar flight from Moscow to Vancouver, USA, crossing 8,811 km in 63 hours and pioneering the polar air route. A mass celebrity whom Stalin personally greeted at the airfield, he died at 34 when the hastily readied Polikarpov I-180 prototype lost power on its maiden flight and crashed.
Activities and affiliations
- 1935–1938 Military command · Soviet Union · Military and defence
Career Timeline
- 1919–1921Aircraft mechanic, 4th Kanavino Aviation Park
- 1921–1924Trained at Yegoryevsk, Borisoglebsk, Moscow, and Serpukhov flight schools
- 1924–1930Fighter pilot, 1st Red Banner Fighter Squadron
- 1930–1933Test pilot, Red Army Air Forces Research Institute (NII VVS)
- 1933–1938Test pilot, Aircraft Plant No. 39 (Polikarpov Design Bureau)
- 1935–1938Head, Stunt/Aerobatic Section, Soviet Air Force
- 1937–1938Deputy, Supreme Soviet of the USSR (1st convocation)
The transpolar flight and landing in the United States
In 1936, Chkalov, navigator Alexander Belyakov, and copilot Georgi Baidukov proposed a flight from Moscow to the United States across the Pole, but did not receive permission. Instead, on July 20 they departed Moscow for the Far East and landed on Udd Island in the Sea of Okhotsk 56 hours later. The route covered about 9,375 km and set a record for nonstop flight; the crew received the title Hero of the Soviet Union. After gaining preparation and experience for a polar route on that flight, the three men left Moscow aboard the ANT-25 on June 18, 1937, to fly across the North Pole to the United States.
The flight brought severe weather, icing, oxygen demands, and fuel problems. Over Oregon on June 20, judging that they did not have enough fuel to reach their planned destination of Oakland, California, Chkalov directed Baidukov to turn toward Portland. The crew continued past Portland, crossed the Columbia River, and landed at Pearson Field in Vancouver, Washington. The flight lasted 63 hours and 16 minutes. The U.S. National Park Service describes it as the world's first transpolar flight and also recounts the crew's navigational and communication difficulties. Chkalov and his crewmates gained international renown, and the flight became an emblematic episode in the Soviet development of polar aviation routes.