Valery (Pavlovich) Chkalov (1904–1938) — legendary pilot and Hero of the Soviet Union.
Biography
Valery Pavlovich Chkalov was born on February 2, 1904, on the Volga River, in the village of Vassilyevo (now the town of Chkalovsk in the Nizhny Novgorod Region), into the family of a boilermaker at the Vassilyevo state workshops. His mother died early, when Valery was just six years old.
At the age of seven, Valery began attending the Vassilyevo primary school and grew up much like all his peers. In 1916, when Valery turned twelve, he completed the village school and his father sent him to study at the Cherepovets Vocational Technical College. Times were lean, and in 1918, without finishing his studies, Valery returned home. His father took him on as a laborer. By the age of fifteen, Valery was already a strong, broad-shouldered young man and worked alongside the adults as an equal.
During the 1919 navigation season he worked as a stoker on the steamship Bayan, sailing along the Volga River.
One day, standing on the riverbank, he watched an airplane circling in the sky and was captivated by it. — Why couldn't I become a pilot too? — the thought flashed through Valery's mind. At first this dream seemed unattainable, but then an irresistible desire arose in him to feel the sky, to experience what it was like to fly. Valery decided to approach the pilots and ask them to teach him to fly. Having made up his mind, he resigned from the steamship and traveled to Nizhny Novgorod. There he presented himself at the aviation depot and enlisted as a volunteer in the Soviet Army. He was assigned as an aircraft fitter and assembler. He braided cables, lacquered aircraft wings and fuselages, and watched the experienced mechanics as they repaired planes. Valery enjoyed the work and not only completed his own assignments but always found time to help others — and while helping, he asked questions about everything, studying technical manuals on engines and aircraft. The pilots and mechanics grew fond of Valery for his diligence and curiosity. Before long he managed to get the pilots to take him along on flights. Once he had been in the air, Valery felt that no other life but flying could ever be his. His wish was soon granted. He received a posting to the Yegorievsk Aviation School. A difficult period began for Valery. He had to master not only specialized aviation subjects but also general education courses — physics, mathematics, Russian language, and political literacy. Valery Chkalov studied with determination and persistence, striving not to fall behind better-prepared classmates, and in mathematics he even showed exceptional ability. He was a diligent student, but rather than memorizing theory by rote, he absorbed material through genuine understanding. Having successfully completed the Yegorievsk theoretical school, Chkalov arrived in Borisoglebsk on April 16, 1923. The 2nd Military Pilots' School was just being formed there. Among its instructors and teachers were many veterans of the Civil War's front lines. From them, Chkalov and the other cadets learned much that was instructive about the glorious combat exploits of the first Red Air Force pilots, who had fought bravely and selflessly against the enemies of the young Soviet state near Tsaritsyn, Petrograd, on the Southern Front, in Turkestan, and at Kakhovka. Chkalov listened with great interest to the combat aviators' accounts of victorious aerial battles against interventionists and White Guards equipped with the latest aviation technology. These conversations were enormously significant for Chkalov. They helped shape the character of the future pilot, his patriotic feelings, and his love for his Soviet homeland. At the Borisoglebsk Flying School, Chkalov threw himself into the work from the very first day. He could be seen helping to convert the cavalry manège, in the hangar and on the airfield, in the workshops assembling aircraft, and in the library. In his free time he was passionate about football and took part in amateur performances. This energetic, lively, and sociable young man from the Volga seemed to be everywhere at once. Flight training at Borisoglebsk began with taxiing exercises on the Morane-Parasol aircraft. Taxiing was then part of the cadets' training program and was carried out on aircraft from whose wings the fabric covering had been removed so that the plane could not take off. The cadets learned to control the aircraft on the ground during the takeoff run, simulating liftoff, and during the rollout — simulating landing. The ability to maintain a straight taxiing direction was crucial in these exercises. Chkalov performed them superbly and completed the taxiing course among the first in his group.
While Chkalov was a good student in his theoretical studies, it was during practical training that he immediately demonstrated exceptional ability, drive, and an insatiable hunger to master the art of flying. Chkalov had many friends. He was respected for his directness, his strength of character, his sensitivity, his responsiveness, and his readiness to help his comrades whenever they needed it.
In 1923 Valery graduated from the Borisoglebsk Military Aviation School for Pilots, after which he was sent to the Moscow School of Advanced Aerobatics and then to the Serpukhov School of Aerial Combat. In June 1924, military fighter pilot Chkalov was posted to the Leningrad Red Banner Aviation Squadron named after P. N. Nesterov. During his service with the squadron he proved himself a bold and daring pilot. He performed risky flights — including, notably, flying under one of Leningrad's bridges — for which he received reprimands and was grounded on several occasions.
In 1927 Chkalov married Olga Orekhova, a Leningrad schoolteacher. In March 1928 he was transferred to serve with the Bryansk Aviation Brigade; his wife and son Igor remained in Leningrad.
In Bryansk, Chkalov was involved in an accident and was discharged from the Red Army. From early 1929 to November 1930, Chkalov worked at the Leningrad Osoaviakhim, where he ran a glider school. In November 1930 he was reinstated in his military rank and assigned to work at the Moscow Scientific Test Institute of the Air Force. Over two years at the institute he completed more than 800 test flights, mastering the piloting of 30 types of aircraft. Chkalov took part in tests of an aviation mother ship — a heavy bomber that carried up to five fighter aircraft on its wings and fuselage. From January 1933, Valery Chkalov worked as a test pilot at the Menzhinsky Moscow Aviation Plant. He tested the best fighter aircraft of the 1930s: the I-15 (biplane) and I-16 (monoplane), both designed by Polikarpov. He also participated in tests of the VIT-1 and VIT-2 tank-destroyer aircraft, as well as the TB-1 and TB-3 heavy bombers.
Chkalov had many friends. He was respected for his directness, his strength of character, his sensitivity, his responsiveness, and his readiness to help his comrades whenever they needed it. On one occasion, money was being deducted from a pilot's pay to cover repairs to an aircraft he had damaged. The pilot found himself in a difficult situation. Without a second thought, Chkalov paid the money for him. In 1937, two technicians were arrested following an aircraft accident. Chkalov secured their release by proving that the accident had not been their fault but was due to a manufacturing defect.
On May 5, 1935, aircraft designer Nikolai Polikarpov and test pilot Valery Chkalov were awarded the highest government decoration — the Order of Lenin — for the creation of the best fighter aircraft.
One autumn day in 1935, Chkalov's friend Georgy Baidukov, a test pilot at the Air Force Scientific Test Institute, came to see him at the plant. He proposed that Chkalov organize a record-breaking flight from the USSR to the USA over the North Pole and lead the aircraft's crew. Chkalov had dreamed of long-distance flights even before this meeting, but now there was a concrete proposal with a specific aircraft named: the ANT-25.
Chkalov continued to press for permission to make the flight to the USA, and in May 1937 permission was granted. Early in the morning of June 18 the aircraft took off, and on June 20 at 16:20 the flight was completed. The flight took place in considerably more difficult conditions than the previous one (no visibility, icing, and so forth), but on June 20 the aircraft made a safe landing in the American city of Vancouver, having covered a distance of 9,130 km in 63 hours and 16 minutes.
After Chkalov's legendary transpolar flight to the United States, he was awarded a passenger car. In those years a personal automobile was a rarity, and Chkalov never drove alone. He would either pick up friends at the airfield or stop along the way to give lifts to hitchhikers. Chkalov was an outstanding pilot, but he never placed himself above others. Even in America, speaking with reporters about his crew, he said that his co-pilot Baidukov was a pilot of a higher class and that it was Baidukov who had flown the aircraft "blind" through the clouds. Not every pilot is capable of such an admission.
On December 12, 1937, Valery Chkalov was elected as a deputy to the Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR representing Nizhny Novgorod Region and the Chuvash ASSR. At the request of the residents of Vassilyevo, their settlement was renamed Chkalovsk. Chkalov was offered a government post, but he continued his test-flying work.
In recognition of Chkalov's outstanding service, he was awarded accelerated military promotions: to colonel in July 1937, and to kombrig in February 1938. Having become a famous pilot, Chkalov remained true to himself and returned to the plant to keep testing aircraft. By early 1938 the Soviet Union's main fighter, the I-16, no longer met operational requirements. Polikarpov's design bureau began work on a new fighter, the I-180. Its layout differed little from the I-16, but it had a higher top speed and service ceiling. On December 1, 1938, Chkalov was urgently recalled from leave to conduct tests of the new I-180 fighter.
Chkalov's Death
Chkalov began testing the I-180 on December 15, 1938. It was the new Polikarpov fighter's maiden flight. The flight had been prepared in a terrible rush — they needed to finish before the year's end. It was a frosty winter's day. Chkalov took off successfully from the Central Airfield. The flight plan called for a first flight without retracting the landing gear, with speed restrictions, on a route over the Central Airfield at an altitude of 600 meters. Nevertheless, he left the boundaries of Khodynka Field and flew over Stalin's nearby dacha — a kind of personal birthday gift to the leader. That day the air temperature was −24 °C. On the approach to land, the M-88 engine, which was not fitted with frontal cooling louvers, became over-chilled and stalled when Chkalov attempted to change its power setting. He tried to glide back to the airfield, but on the final approach, seeing that the aircraft would not clear the residential barracks where people might be present, Chkalov turned away and struck a high-voltage power line pylon with the aircraft's center section.
Two hours later, Valery Pavlovich died at Botkin Hospital from his injuries. Chkalov was buried in Moscow; an urn containing his ashes rests in the Kremlin Wall. A memorial stone has been erected at the site of his death on Khoroshevskoe Highway.
Legacy
His name has been immortalized in the names of streets in many cities and settlements. Steamships, cultural centers, and collective farms have been named after him. One of the largest aircraft manufacturing plants bears his name.
By a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated December 28, 1938, Chkalov's name was given to the Borisoglebsk Pilots' School. The image of Valery Pavlovich Chkalov, his remarkable life journey, his audacious will, fearlessness, and devotion to his homeland have served and continue to serve as an inspiring example for every pilot and cadet. A street in the city of Voronezh and in the city of Borisoglebsk bears Chkalov's name. Streets in the Kanavino of Nizhny Novgorod, in the Fokinsky District of Bryansk, in the city of Zhukovsky, and metro stations named "Chkalovskaya" in Moscow, Kharkiv, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, and Tashkent are all named after the pilot. A monument to him stands on the Volga Embankment Slope near the Kremlin, and a bust of him is installed at the entrance to the Boeing Aviation Museum in Seattle. A bust of the Hero stands on the grounds of the Borisoglebsk Flying School. The town of Chkalovsk in the Nizhny Novgorod Region and the city of Chkalovsk in the Sogd Region of Tajikistan are named after Chkalov. From 1938 to 1957, Orenburg bore his name.