Valery chkalov biography

(1904–1938), test pilot and polar aviator.

Born in the Volga town of Vasilevo (now Chkalovsk), Valery Pavlovich Chkalov went on to become the USSR's most famous aviator of the 1930s.

Hailed as the "Greatest Pilot of Our Times" and named a Hero of the Soviet Union, Chkalov, often referred to as the "Russian Lindbergh," remains one of the Stalinist era's greatest and best-loved celebrities.

A teenaged Chkalov became an aviation mechanic during the Russian Civil War.

He qualified as a pilot by the age of seventeen and joined the air force, where he gained a reputation as a skilled but overly daring flier. Chkalov's rashness caught up with him in 1929, when he caused an accident that killed another pilot.

He was reprimanded and briefly discharged. Chkalov returned to the air force in 1930 but resigned in 1933 to work as a test pilot for designer Nikolai Polikarpov.

During the mid-1930s, Chkalov turned to long-distance flying and polar aviation, wher