Valery Pavlovich Chkalov

Chkalov is a redirect to this article. For the Russian city, which was also called that from 1938–1957, see Orenburg .

Valeri Pawlowitsch Tschkalow ( Russian Валерий Павлович Чкалов , scientific transliteration Valerij Pavlovič Čkalov ; * January 20, ^July / February 2,  1904, ^reg. In Wassiljowo , today Tschkalowsk, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast ; † December 15, 1938 in Moscow was a Soviet.) Pilot .

Life

Tschkalow was born the son of the tinker Pavel Grigoryevich Tschkalow. Since his father wanted him to take up his profession, he was sent to a vocational school in Cherepovets at the age of 13 . However, he only spent a short time there, because after the October Revolution of 1917 the school was closed and Chkalov returned to Vasilyovo to work in the repair yard there as his father's assistant. A little later he was hired as a stoker on a Volga river dredger, which was used in the ports of Kazan and Kostroma as well as at the Kama estuary . A short time later he switched to the steamer "Bajan", which was a troop transporter on the route Nizhny Novgorod - Astrakhan . In the Civil War he joined in 1919 as a volunteer in the air forces of the Red Army and was used in Nizhny Novgorod as an aircraft waiting. In 1921/22 he attended the military-theoretical flying school in Yegoryevsk . He was then one of the first flight students to be trained as a pilot at the new Borisoglebsk military aviation school, then moved to Moscow, where he underwent aerobatic training , and completed his training in Serpukhov in 1924 , where he was supervised by Mikhail Gromov , among others . From June 1924, Chkalov served in a fighter pilot unit stationed in Leningrad . In addition, he acquired the aerobatic license. In 1927 he was appointed chain commander. From 1928 to 1930, Chkalov worked as a flight instructor at the Brjansk School, albeit with a one-year break, because on August 15, 1928, Chkalov fell below the commanded altitude during a transfer flight from Gomel to Bryansk, collided with a telegraph line and crashed. Although he was unharmed, the plane was destroyed. The subsequently appointed commission of inquiry found him to be solely responsible. As a result, he was sentenced by a military court to one year in prison on January 2, 1929 and released from the Red Army for that time.

In 1930 Tschkalow became a test pilot at the Scientific Institute of the Air Force, a little later at OKB Polikarpow . From 1931 he was one of the pilots there who carried out test take-offs and landings with a flying aircraft carrier . He was also responsible for testing the Polikarpow fighters I-15 , I-16 and I-17 . Chkalov demonstrated his good command of the aircraft. Through these attempts he came into contact with the manufacturer Tupolew , to which he switched in 1933. In total, Chkalov tested over 70 types of aircraft.

In 1936, Chkalov moved into the light of the Soviet public with a record flight from June 20 to 22 with a Tupolev ANT-25 when he, together with Baidukov and Belyakov , succeeded in increasing the record flight duration to 56 hours and 20 minutes. This achievement was achieved on the occasion of a non-stop flight from Moscow to the island of Udd at the north-western end of the Tatar Sound (9,374 km). From June 18 to 20, 1937, there was a record flight of 9130 km (as the crow flies 8504 km) in 63 hours 25 minutes as a transpolar flight from Moscow to Portland in the US state of Oregon . After this flight he was awarded the Order of Hero of the Soviet Union on July 24, 1937 . In 1938 he was promoted to brigade commander . Chkalov was also holder of the Order of Lenin (twice) and the Order of the Red Banner .

Chkalov was killed on December 15, 1938 during the first flight of the Polikarpow I-180 . In 1955, a commission set up by Khrushchev investigated the circumstances that led to the crash, but found no evidence of a conspiracy that has been suspected to this day. What is certain is that neither the chief designer Polikarpow nor the project manager for the I-180 , Tomaschewitsch , had given their consent for the first flight. In addition, there was no approval for the first flight for the I-180 from the manufacturer, among other things because of the missing radiator flaps for the air-cooled double radial engine Tumanski M-88. At about −25 ° C, Chkalov took off on the first flight from the Chodynka field ("Central M. W. Frunze Airport") and initially flew the intended traffic pattern without any problems. After that, in the second lap, at an altitude of approx. 2000 m, he clearly exceeded the altitude limit of 600 m specified in the flight order. In the following landing approach, which was set too short, the engine failed, probably due to hypothermia or carburetor icing or due to accelerating too abruptly during interception, possibly also due to a combination of both causes. Tschkalow avoided a few houses with the engine stopped, but then came into contact with an overhead line and crashed. He was thrown against the instrument panel and then out of the aircraft. He suffered serious injuries, including a. on the head, of which he died two hours later. His urn was buried on the Kremlin wall in Moscow.

Tschkalow had been married to Olga Yerasmowna Tschkalowa (born Orechowa, 1901–1997), whom he had met in 1925 as a literary student at the Alexander Heart Institute in Leningrad , since February 1927 , and had a son with her, Igor (1928–2006) and two daughters, Valerija (1935–2013) and Olga (* 1939).

Appreciation

Chkalov and ANT-25 on a Russian postage stamp from 2004

Chkalov's birthplace Vasilyovo on the right bank of the Volga , about 100 kilometers northwest of Nizhny Novgorod , was renamed Chkalovsk in 1937 on the occasion of the non-stop flight to the USA . From 1938 to 1957 the city of Orenburg was named in honor of the pilot Chkalov . The island of Udd in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk was named after him in 1936.

The Kaliningrad district of Chkalovsk (before 1945 Tannenwalde ) also bears his name . Likewise, one of the largest aircraft factories in Russia, the Novosibirsk aircraft factory NAPO , was named after him as early as 1939. A Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber bears his name.

In Russia, four subway stations bear the name of Chkalovs: In December 1995, the Chkalovskaya station was opened in Moscow with the commissioning of metro line 10 . Likewise, in September 1997, the station called Chkalovskaya was opened in Saint Petersburg on metro line 4 (today this section belongs to line 5) . A station on the Nizhny Novgorod Metro , built in 1985, is also called Chkalovskaya . Since the extension of the only metro line in Yekaterinburg by two stations to the south, one station there now also bears the name of the pilot.

The Russian Air Force Training Center in Lipetsk and the State Flight Test Center in Akhtubinsk now bear his name. The Chkalovsky military airfield is also named after him.

A light cruiser of the Soviet Navy also bore his name . Today a river ship on the Yenisei is named after him. He is also the namesake for the Chkalov Bluff in Antarctica.

2004 the 100th anniversary was a 2 in Russia on the occasion rubles - Silver - commemorative coin minted in an edition of 7,000 pieces. It shows Tschkalov's portrait in aviator gear next to the flight route from Moscow over the North Pole to Vancouver in 1937. A stamp was issued for the same occasion.

The main central belt asteroid (2692) Chkalov is named after him.

Works

• Valerij Tschkalow: Our transpolar flight (Moscow – North Pole – North America) . SWA-Verlag, Berlin 1946.

literature

• Wilfried Copenhagen : Lexicon Soviet Aviation . Elbe-Dnjepr, Klitzschen 2007, ISBN 978-3-933395-90-0 .
• Heinz Machatscheck: Personalities of the Soviet aviation - Valeri Pawlowitsch Tschkalow (1904-1938) . In: Flieger-Jahrbuch 87 . Transpress, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-344-00167-1 , p. 120-125 .
• Mikhail Vodopyanov : The Chkalov aviator . Military Publishing House , Berlin 1963 (Russian: Лётчик Валерий Чкалов . Translated by Traute & Günther Stein).

Web links

Commons : Valery Chkalov  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Article Valeri Tschkalow in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE) , 3rd edition 1969–1978 (Russian)http: //vorlage_gse.test/1%3D122598~2a%3DWaleri%20Tschkalow~2b%3DWaleri%20Tschkalow
• Newspaper article about Valery Pavlovich Tschkalow in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Remarks

1. ↑ In his biography "Der Flieger Tschkalow", Vodopyanov hides this prison sentence, which certainly does not seem advantageous for the prominent pilot, and converts it into a civilian position as a leader of a Junker , which Tschkalow found "boring" after his voluntary "retirement" from the army - Passenger plane at the OSSOAWIACHIM (pp. 80–85).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gerhard Wissmann: History of aviation from Icarus to the present . Verlag Technik, Berlin 1966, p. 458 .
2. ↑ History of the aircraft factory NAPO ( Memento from November 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) at www.napo.ru (Russian)
3. ↑ Tschkalowskaja at www.metro.ru (Russian)
4. ↑ Tschalowskaja at metro.vpeterburge.ru (Russian)
5. ^ Lutz D. Schmadel : Dictionary of Minor Planet Names . Fifth Revised and Enlarged Edition. Ed .: Lutz D. Schmadel. 5th edition. Springer Verlag , Berlin , Heidelberg 2003, ISBN 978-3-540-29925-7 , pp.  186 (English, 992 pages, link.springer.com [ONLINE; accessed on September 4, 2019] Original title: Dictionary of Minor Planet Names . First edition: Springer Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg 1992): “1976 YT ₃ . Discovered 1976 Dec. 16 by LI Chernykh at Nauchnyj. "