Amet-chan Sultan

Cenotaph of Amet-Chan Sultan in Alupka

Amet-Chan Sultan or Sultan Amet-Chan ( Crimean Tatar Amet-han Sultan , Russian Амет-Хан Султан ; * October 25, 1920 in Alupka ; † February 1, 1971 ) was a Soviet pilot .

Life

He first came into contact with gliding in the Crimea . Amet-Chan joined the Red Army in 1939 and trained as a military aviator. He completed his flight training in 1940 at the Katschinsk Military Aviation School. During the Great Patriotic War he flew 603 missions on various aircraft as a fighter pilot and fought 150 dogfights. The total of 49 confirmed kills (19 of which were counted as group kills) were achieved on Hawker Hurricane , Jakowlew Jak-7 , Bell P-39 and the Lavochkin La-7 . Two of them, a He-111 bomber with towed cargo glider, he crashed in 1942 by ramming.

Amet-Khan belonged to the Crimean Tatar people and was the most distinguished soldier of the USSR of non-Russian / Ukrainian origin. After the liberation of Crimea in 1944, Chan's family was exempted from the expulsion of the Crimean Tatars to Kazakhstan on the personal orders of Stalin .

After the war, Amet-Chan became a test pilot and initially flew into the "civilian air fleet" aircraft. Later he primarily tested MiG aircraft. In total, he tested around 100 types.

Amet-Chan received numerous awards for his work and achievements. Among other things, he was a two-time Hero of the Soviet Union . He received this award for the first time with the rank of captain on August 24, 1943 as a squadron commander in the 9th GwIAP (Guard Fighter Regiment), after he had shot down four German fighter planes within two days . He was awarded this major a second time on June 29, 1945. He was also a triple Order of Lenin - and a five-time Red Banner Order bearer and "Honored Test Pilot". In 1953 Amet-Chan received the State Prize .

Sultan Amet-Chan was killed in 1971 when a Tu-16LL crashed during an engine test. His grave is in the Novodevichy Cemetery .

Others

According to a contemporary joke, German planes dropped leaflets with the picture of Hermann Graf , a successful German fighter pilot, over the base of Chan's squadron during World War II . The Soviet pilots joked: "The fascists have a count, but we have both a sultan and a khan in one person!"

Web links

Commons : Amet-Chan Sultan - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Wilfried Bergholz: Russian fighter planes since 1934. Motorbuch, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-613-04226-1 , p. 162

personal data
SURNAME	Amet-chan, Sultan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Soviet test pilot
DATE OF BIRTH	October 25, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH	Alupka
DATE OF DEATH	1st February 1971

[1] Wilfried Bergholz: Russian fighter planes since 1934. Motorbuch, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-613-04226-1 , p. 162