Valery Pavlovich Chkalov

Valery Pavlovich Chkalov – a Soviet pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union. He was born in the village of Vasilevo in the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate. In his youth Chkalov worked as a turner, forge hammer operator, and stoker, and in 1919 he volunteered for the Red Army. In 1921 he worked as a fitter at an aircraft factory in Nizhny Novgorod. Chkalov graduated from the Yegoryevsk Military Theoretical School for Pilots, the Borisoglebsk Military Pilot School, the Moscow School of Advanced Flying, and the Serpukhov Higher School of Aerial Gunnery and Bombing.

 

Chkalov made his first solo flight in August 1923. In total Chkalov tested more than 70 types of aircraft and introduced new figures of advanced aerobatics. In 1936 Chkalov's crew, which included Georgy Baydukov and Alexander Belyakov, made a non‑stop flight across the Arctic Ocean from Moscow to Petropavlovsk‑Kamchatsky, covering 9,374 kilometers. In 1937 the same crew flew from Moscow to Vancouver via the North Pole. Valery Pavlovich Chkalov died on December 15, 1938, in Moscow during a test flight of the I‑180 fighter.