RuAviation

On 2 December 2024, the monument to Soviet test pilot Valery Chkalov was unveiled in Khodynskoye Pole park. The monument was created by Salavat Shcherbakov, an academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation, sculptor.

‘To immortalise the memory of the legendary pilot on Khodynsky was proposed back in the 30s of the twentieth century, but then the war interfered. Then it was returned to in 2000s, but for various reasons the implementation of the project was postponed for more than 20 years. The monument is cast in bronze and consists of two elements: the figure of Valery Chkalov and the pedestal-wing with the image of a fragment of the USSR map with the route of the first transpolar flight in 1937 from Moscow to the USA’, – told the Aviation of Russia web site representative of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation.

Hero of the Soviet Union Valery Chkalov died on 15 December 1938 during the first test flight on a new fighter plane I-180, developed in the design bureau of Nikolai Polikarpov. The experimental aircraft was planned to take to the skies by the end of 1938, time was running out, the rush and nervous atmosphere in preparation for the start of the test, did not allow to complete the finalisation of the new M-88 engine.

Chkalov took off from the Central Aerodrome at Khodynskoye Field, made two circles and went to land. Approximately 1.5 kilometres before the runway on approach at an altitude of 100 metres, the plane’s engine failed. The pilot tried to land the machine outside of residential buildings, he succeeded, but the plane hit electric wires, hit the right wing of the electric pole and, turning around, crashed into a pile of wood waste. From the impact Chkalov was thrown out of the cockpit. On the same day Valery Chkalov died of his injuries in Botkin hospital, the urn with his ashes was placed in the Kremlin wall.

Valery Chkalov tested more than 70 types of aeroplanes, developed and was the first to perform the ascending corkscrew and decelerated ‘barrel roll’. In 1936, under his command, the ANT-25 aircraft made a non-stop flight from Moscow across the Arctic Ocean to Udd Island in the Sea of Okhotsk. In 1937, the crew of Valery Chkalov, Georgy Baidukov and Alexander Belyakov made the first non-stop flight in world history from Moscow across the North Pole to Vancouver.

At the opening ceremony of the monument to Valery Chkalov on Khodynka, Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoit noted the huge contribution made by Chkalov to the development of national aviation and aviation technology.

‘Today’s event is a tribute to the pilot whose name is known to the whole world. This is our history, our memory, our role model,’ the head of the Ministry of Transport emphasised.

He thanked the Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region Gleb Nikitin, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov for their participation in the creation of the monument.