Many streets, educational institutions and other organizations are named after Chkalov. Who was this man? How did he deserve such a memory of himself?
For people who are even a little familiar with the history of their country, Valery Chkalov is, first of all, the crew commander who managed to make the first flight through the North Pole by plane without landing. An event happened back in 1937. The course was laid from Moscow (USSR) to Vancouver (USA).
Childhood
Valery Chkalov was born on January 20, 1904 in one of the villages of the Nizhny Novgorod province. Today, the village where the pilot was born is the city of Chkalovsky. His father worked as a potter in state-owned workshops. Very little is known about mother, she died when the boy was six years old.
At the age of seven, Valery began to study in elementary school, after graduation he moved to the technical school, which now bears his name. Father sent him to study in 1916. After two years of study, he had to return home, since the school was closed.
Since that time, Valery became his father's assistant. He worked as a hammer thief in a forge, and later as a fireman on an excavator. At the same time, navigation was actively developing, which attracted the young man with his capabilities.
Service start
Valery Chkalov made the decision to change his job after he saw the plane for the first time in 1919. And he went to serve in the Red Army as an assembly fitter. His fleet was located in Nizhny Novgorod.
The young man wanted to develop further, so in 1921 he achieved the direction and entered the Air Force School of the military-theoretical direction (Egorovskaya). After its graduation, he went in 1922 to the military school of pilots (Borisoglebskaya). He also completed practical training at the aerobatics school in Moscow, the school of shooting and air combat in Serpukhov.
In 1924, the pilot Valery Chkalov was accepted into the squadron named after P.N. Nesterov. He was so keen on flying that he very often showed excessive audacity and courage. For excessive risks, he was often suspended from flying.
In addition, the young man had problems with discipline on earth. In 1925, he was imprisoned for one year by a military tribunal for a drunken brawl. Subsequently, the term was reduced to six months. Unfortunately, this experience did not yield positive results, and three years later, in 1928, the military tribunal again condemned the pilot. This time, he was sentenced to one year in prison for air recklessness and repeated misconduct. He was also fired from the Red Army.
Thanks to his talent, Alksnis and Voroshilov immediately began to intercede for him, who managed to replace the punishment with a conditional one month later. The pilot became an instructor and leader of the glider school
Test pilot
By November 1930, Valery Chkalov was reinstated in the rank, he was sent to the Air Force Research Institute in Moscow. After working for two years, he managed to complete more than eight hundred test flights, master the technique of piloting thirty types of aircraft.
Since 1933, the life of Valery Chkalov has changed again - he is transferred to test pilots at an aircraft factory in Moscow. Here he tested various fighters and bombers. He did not leave airy recklessness, having mastered the figure of an ascending corkscrew, as well as a slowed-down barrel.
In 1935, he was awarded the Order of Lenin along with designer Nikolai Polikarpov for creating the best fighters. It was the highest government award.
Flight from Moscow to the Far East
The flight was to show the capabilities of developing aviation. Chkalov Valery Pavlovich at the head of his crew started 07/20/1936. The flight lasted fifty-six hours without landing, until it ended up on the island of Udd (Sea of Okhotsk). During this time, more than nine thousand kilometers were overcome. There, on the island, the inscription "Stalin's Route" was put on board the aircraft. It will remain until the next flight, which Chkalov’s crew dreamed of most, namely from the USSR to the USA via the North Pole.
For a successful flight, the crew was awarded the title of Heroes of the Soviet Union and the Orders of Lenin. Chkalov Valery Pavlovich received as a gift a private plane, which has survived to this day and is stored in the Museum of Chkalovsk.
The importance of this flight was emphasized by the fact that Stalin personally met the crew at the Shchelkovo airport in August 1936. After this, Valery Pavlovich received national fame throughout the Union.
Flight from the USSR to the USA
The crew initially wanted to make a flight from the USSR to the USA through the North Pole, but they did not manage to get permission for this right away. Stalin did not want a repetition of the failure that befell Levanevsky in the summer of 1935. But after a successful flight to the Far East, permission was obtained.
The plane started on 06/18/1937 and two days later landed in Vancouver (USA). The conditions for the flight were much more complicated than anticipated. This was due to poor visibility, or rather, its absence, and icing. The crew overcame eight and a half thousand kilometers and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
Valery Chkalov, whose photo is presented in the article, was able to implement his plans. Despite the fact that he was elected as a deputy, and Stalin offered him the post of People's Commissar of the NKVD, he did not stop doing flight tests, considering this his main job.
Death
In the winter of 1938, Valery Chkalov, whose biography is considered in the review, was urgently recalled from vacation in connection with the testing of a new fighter. Two weeks later, the pilot died (12/15/1938) during the first flight.
According to existing information, the flight was prepared in a hurry, because they wanted to have time to do everything before the end of the year. Almost two hundred defects were identified in the assembled aircraft. Polikarpov was against unnecessary haste. For this he was suspended from work. The tests were first conducted on the ground, after without cleaning the chassis. As a result, it was given the go-ahead to fly, but only to a height of seven thousand meters with the landing gear retracted. After that, the test machine had to go to another pilot.
On the day of the tests, the air temperature was minus twenty-five degrees Celsius, but Chkalov decided to fly out. When approaching, the engine stopped. The pilot tried to land, but the plane caught on the wires on the pole. The cause of death was an injury due to a blow to the head of a metal armature. After that, the pilot lived no more than two hours. He died on the way to the hospital. At this time, his wife carried their third child under the heart. She was informed of the incident only late in the evening.
Chkalov was buried in Moscow, an urn with ashes was placed in the Kremlin wall. Some plant managers who were involved in the hasty test were sentenced to lengthy sentences.
Family and Children
He met his wife Valery Chkalov, whose biography is the topic of our review, in his early years. In 1927, they got married and soon got their first child. Olga Erasmovna was a girl Orekhova, worked as a teacher.
The wife of Valery Chkalov survived him for fifty-nine years. She wrote a number of works and memoirs about her husband. Olga Erasmovna lived for ninety-six years, she never married again.
In marriage, they had three children:
- Igor (1928-2006).
- Valeria (1935-2013).
- Olga (1939).
Son of a pilot
Igor Valerievich did not become a test, like a father. But his life was connected with airplanes - he was an engineer of the Air Force. He also replenished the fund of the museum dedicated to his father in Chkalovsk. Many in the interview were interested in how Valery Chkalov died. To this, the son replied that his father had been eliminated due to the fact that he had a significant influence on Stalin. The son of a famous pilot at the Novodevichy cemetery was buried.
Daughters about the death of his father
The son of Valery Pavlovich was almost ten years old when the tragedy happened. He remembered his father from personal memories, even flew with him on a plane. The daughters did not have such memories. Valeria was only three years old, and Olga was born only after the death of her father.
At the same time, all the children of Valery Chkalov retained a memory of him. Regarding the death of her father, in their interviews, daughter Olga adhered to the version that everything happened because of the rush and launch of the "raw" plane. Valeria, however, adhered to the version that her father was removed, intentionally arranging tests of a defective aircraft.
In 1938, there was a peak of repression, including in aviation, so the sisters do not see anything surprising in the fact that their father could be pushed to a deliberately dangerous flight.
Memory of the hero
Valery Chkalov (years of life - 1904-1938) was one of the most famous people of the Soviet Union. In his honor were called metro stations, pioneer organizations, military squadrons. One of the islands in the Sea of Okhotsk was named after him, where the crew landed during the flight from Moscow to the Far East, as well as the celestial body of our system (number 2692).
The city in which he was born is named after him. At that time it was the village of Vasilevo. His name are many settlements in Russia, Ukraine, Tajikistan. In different cities there are busts and memorial plaques, as well as neighborhoods, avenues, streets, educational institutions bearing his name. At one time stamps and coins dedicated to Chkalov were issued.
Biographical films about the life of a pilot were released over the years. The most modern are the series Chkalov (2012) and People who made the Earth round (2014).
Valery Pavlovich lived only thirty-four years. During this time, he graduated from several flight schools, made two difficult flights across the North Pole, was sentenced to imprisonment twice, and was expelled from the ranks of the Red Army several times with subsequent restoration. He and his wife had three children who retained the memory of their father. The wife, who had lived a widow for more than fifty years, never married again, preserving the memory of her husband.
For many, he was and remains a hero of his time. This indicates the eccentricity of a person, about all his talents and unwillingness to live calmly, like everyone else. His life was short but intense, and his death was tragic.