Valery Chkalov: biography, family, photo

A lot of streets, educational institutions and other organizations bear the name of Chkalov. Who was this man? What did he deserve such a memory of himself?

For people who are at least a little familiar with the history of their country, Valery Chkalov is first of all the commander of the crew who managed to make the first flight over the North Pole on the plane without making a landing. An event happened in the distant 1937. The course was laid from Moscow (USSR) to Vancouver (USA).

Childhood

Valery Chkalov was born on 20.01.1904 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 boilermaker in state shops. Very little is known about the mother, she died when the boy was six years old.

At the age of seven Valery began to study in elementary school, after graduating he moved to a technical school, which now bears his name. He was sent to study by his father in 1916. After two years of study, he had to return home, since the school was closed.

From this time Valery became a father's assistant. He worked as a hammer in the smithy, and later as a stoker on the excavator. At the same time, actively developing the navigation, which attracted the young man his opportunities.

Getting Started

The decision to change work Valery Chkalov accepted after in 1919 for the first time he saw the plane. And he went to serve in the Red Army as a fitter-assembler of aircraft. Its aviation park was located in Nizhny Novgorod.

The young man wanted to develop further, therefore in 1921 he achieved direction and entered the military school of the military-theoretical direction (Egorovskaya) for studies. After graduation, he went to the military school of pilots (Borisoglebskaya) in 1922. He also completed practical training at the Aerobatics School (Moscow), shooting school and air battle (Serpukhov).

By 1924 the pilot Valery Chkalov was accepted into the squadron named after Nesterov. He was so keen on flying that he often showed excessive audacity and courage. For excessive risks, he was often suspended from flights.

In addition, the young man had problems with discipline and on the ground. In 1925, he was imprisoned for one year by a military tribunal for a drunken brawl. Subsequently, the deadline was reduced to six months. Unfortunately, this experience did not give 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 aerial rioting and repeated violations of discipline. He was also fired from the Red Army.

Thanks to his talent, Alksnis and Voroshilov immediately began to intercede for him, who succeeded in a month to replace the punishment with a conditional one. The pilot became the instructor and the head of the gliding school

Test Pilot

By November 1930 Valery Chkalov was reinstated, he was sent to the NNI VVS to Moscow. Having worked for two years, he managed to make more than eight hundred test flights, master the technique of piloting thirty types of aircraft.

Since 1933 the life of Valery Chkalov is changing again - he is transferred to test pilots for an aircraft factory in Moscow. Here he tested various fighters and bombers. He did not leave air rumbling, having mastered the figure of the ascending corkscrew, and also the slowed-down barrel.

In 1935 he was awarded the Order of Lenin together with the designer Nikolai Polikarpov for the creation of the best fighters. This was the highest government award.

Flight from Moscow to the Far East

The flight was supposed to show the possibilities of developing aviation. Chkalov Valery Pavlovich at the head of his crew started on 20.07.1936. The flight lasted fifty-six hours without landing, until it was on the island of Udd (Sea of Okhotsk). During this time, more than nine thousand kilometers were overcome. In the same place, on the island, the inscription "Stalin route" was printed aboard the aircraft. It will be preserved until the next flight, which Chkalov's crew most of all dreamed of, namely, from the USSR to the USA via the North Pole.

For a successful flight the crew was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin. Chkalov Valery Pavlovich received as a gift a personal airplane, which has survived to our days and is kept in the museum of Chkalovsk.

The importance of this flight was emphasized by the fact that Stalin personally met the crew at the Schelkovo airport in August 1936. After that, Valery Pavlovich received national recognition throughout the Union.

Flight from the USSR to the USA

The crew originally wanted to fly from the USSR to the USA via the North Pole, but it was not immediately possible to get permission for this. 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 June 18, 1937 and two days later landed in Vancouver (USA). The conditions for the flight proved to be much more complicated than anticipated. This was due to poor visibility, more precisely, its lack, 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 a deputy, and Stalin offered him the post of People's Commissar of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, he did not stop flying tests, considering it his main job.

Death

In the winter of 1938 Valery Chkalov, whose biography is considered in the review, was urgently recalled from leave in connection with the testing of a new fighter. Two weeks later, the pilot died (December 15, 1938) during the first flight.

According to the existing information, the flight was prepared in a hurry, because they wanted to have time to do everything before the end of the year. In the collected aircraft, almost two hundred defects were detected. Polikarpov was against unnecessary haste. For this he was removed from the works. Tests were first conducted on the ground, after the chassis was not cleaned. As a result, it was given the right to fly, but only up to a height of seven thousand meters with a retracted landing gear. After that, the test vehicle had to switch to another pilot.

On the day of testing, the air temperature was minus twenty-five degrees Celsius, but Chkalov decided to fly out. At the approach, the engine stopped. The pilot tried to sit down, but the plane caught on the wires on the pole. The cause of death was a trauma due to a blow to the head about metal fittings. After that, the pilot did not spend more than two hours. He died on the way to the hospital. At this time, his wife wore a third child under their heart. She was told about it only late in the evening.

Buried Chkalov in Moscow, the urn with ashes was placed in the Kremlin wall. Some plant managers who were involved in the hasty test were sentenced to long prison terms.

Family and Children

With his wife Valery Chkalov, whose biography - the topic of our review, he met in his younger years. In 1927 they were married and soon got their first child. Olga Erazmovna was in the girlhood of Orekhova, she worked as a teacher.

Valeria Chkalov's wife survived him for fifty-nine years. She wrote a series of works and memories of her husband. Olga Erasmovna lived for ninety-six years, she did not marry again.

In the marriage they had three children:

• Igor (1928-2006).
• Valeria (1935-2013).
• Olga (1939).

Son of the pilot

Igor Valeryevich did not become a tester, like his father. But his life was connected with planes - 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 perished. To this the son replied that his father was eliminated because he had a significant influence on Stalin. The son of a well-known pilot at the Novodevichye Cemetery was buried.

Daughters of the death of his father

Valery Pavlovich's son was almost ten years old when a tragedy happened. He remembered his father on personal memories, even flew with him on the plane. 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 preserved the memory of him. Regarding the death of his father in his interview, daughter Olga adhered to the version that everything happened because of haste and the launch of a "raw" aircraft. Valeria, however, adhered to the version that the father was removed, deliberately arranging tests for a defective aircraft.

In 1938, there was a peak of repression, including in aviation, so they 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 subway stations, pioneer organizations, military squadrons. His name was one of the islands in the Sea of Okhotsk, where the crew landed while flying from Moscow to the Far East, as well as the heavenly body of our system (number 2692).

His name is the city in which he was born. At that time it was the village of Vasilevo. His name is many settlements in Russia, Ukraine, Tajikistan. In different cities there are busts and memorial plaques, as well as microdistricts, avenues, streets, educational institutions bearing his name. At one time, issued stamps, coins dedicated to Chkalov.

Biographical films about the life of the pilot were published in different 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 flying schools, made two difficult flights across the North Pole, twice he was sentenced to prison, several times he was expelled from the Red Army and later reinstated. He and his wife had three children who kept the memory of their father. The wife, who lived a widow for more than fifty years, never married again, preserving the memory of her husband.

For many, he was and remains the hero of his time. It speaks about the extraordinary nature of a person, about all his talents and his unwillingness to live peacefully, like everyone else. His life was short, but full, and death - tragic.