Under what bridge Valery Chkalov flew. Valery Chkalov did not fly under the bridge? Incident on set

Who in our country does not know that Chkalov flew under Troitsky

bridge over the Neva? If not from books, then from the famous movie by Mikhail Konstantinovich Kalatozov. But few people know that in the Chkalovsky times, the Trinity Bridge in Leningrad was the Equality Bridge. And Valery Pavlovich Chkalov never flew under this very bridge of Equality. It is not at all difficult to be convinced of this. It is enough to carefully and impartially look at the biography of V.P. Chkalov and the history of domestic aviation. Based on documents, of course, and not on falsified materials from Soviet publications.

Let's take the initial data: it is claimed that Chkalov flew under the bridge in 1928, and in a number of sources that in 1927. All of them say that Chkalov did this on a Fokker D.XI fighter, in front of his future wife, Olga Erazmovna. For "recklessness" he was seriously punished by the regiment commander I. Antoshin - he was put in a guardhouse!

About the flight date

In Podolsk, the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO) stores the personal file of the famous pilot V.P. Chkalov No. 268818. It has long been declassified and is now available for comprehensive study. In a personal file, as expected, there is a track record of a pilot. From it and many other documents it follows that in 1928 the red military pilot V.P. Chkalov served in the "15th Air Squadron" of the Bryansk Air Brigade and never flew to Leningrad. Unofficially, he could not make such a flight either. It was IMPOSSIBLE to fly to Leningrad without landing and refueling on any of the fighter jets that were in service with the brigade and to return back. 1928 is categorically eliminated!

On January 19, 1929, the doors of the prison cell kindly opened for Chkalov for the second time. To this day, his prison diary is kept in the memorial museum of the legendary pilot in the city of Chkalovsk, Nizhny Novgorod Region, where it can be easily found. Chkalov was demobilized from the army. He could not fly under the bridge in 1929.

Not a single source says that Chkalov flew under the bridge in 1924. Everyone understands that only a pilot who came to the combat unit was not able to pull off such a trick.

1925... In St. Petersburg, where I live, there are three unique libraries: the Russian National Library, the Library of the Academy of Sciences and the Central Naval Library. Together, these three huge book depositories have in their funds everything that has ever been published about Valery Pavlovich in our country. Anyone can look into them and see for themselves: in all her numerous interviews and books, when and how her husband flew under the bridge in Leningrad, Chkalov's second wife, Olga Erazmovna. for which, according to the film, Valery Pavlovich flew under the bridge of Equality, she always answered: “He didn’t fly with me ...”.

By the way. Valery Pavlovich and Olga Erazmovna met on the last day of 1924! In her last book, "The Life of Valery Chkalov" iM 1979), Olga Erazmovna wrote: "... it happened in 1925," which contradicts her own words, all official statements and the personal file of V.P. Chkalov.

“In 1925 he was demobilized by court” - from personal file No. 268818. Here is another extract from this document: “SENTENCE IN THE NAME OF THE RSFSR .. Field session on November 16 (1925) ... having considered in an open meeting at the location of the 1st squadron ... case No. 150 on the charge of citizen Chkalov Valery Pavlovich ... recognized as proven: on September 7, 1925 in Leningrad, gr. Chkalov, being in the position of a military pilot of the 1st squadron ... and being obliged to report to the airfield for a training group flight by 3 o'clock in the afternoon. arrived at the indicated time in a completely drunk state, as a result of which he not only could not fly, but generally behaved unacceptably, shouted, made noise, etc., which attracted the attention of those present at the airfield.

Being arrested and then sent home by car with the pilots Blagin and Bogdanov, Chkalov was very dissatisfied on the way that he was sent from the airfield and not allowed to fly on the apparatus, loudly expressed his displeasure with shouts and gestures ...

By these actions, Chkalov discredited the authority and title of the commander-fighter of the Red Army, i.e. committed a crime, and therefore the visiting commission of the VT LVO SENTENCED c. Chkalov Valery Pavlovich to imprisonment with strict isolation for ONE year, without affecting his rights.

Taking into account Chkalov's first conviction, voluntary service in the Red Army, youth and proletarian origin, remove strict isolation and reduce Chkalov's prison term to SIX months. Chkalov appealed against the verdict, but the response "Determination" read: "The verdict is upheld."

Drunkenness is common in our country. And in the aviation of the RKKAF of those years, it was generally endemic and ubiquitous - a legacy of the civil war, when, for lack of gasoline, it was necessary to fill the engines of battered coffin airplanes with a mixture of alcohol and ether. In the 1st Red Banner Squadron, the young military pilot Valery Chkalov was quickly turned into a drunkard. How this happened is described in sufficient detail in the book of his daughter V. V. Chkalova “Valery Chkalov. Aviation Legend "(M 2005).

For drunken debauchery they were put in a guardhouse or given fifteen days. And then 6 months in prison! .. One can only guess how outstanding Chkalov's drinking bouts were. Boiled, you see, at the command ...

1926th ... In 1926, V.P. Chkalov practically did not serve. At first he sat in the "Ispravdom", as the prison was then called, and then knocked on the thresholds of the offices of military leaders and military registration and enlistment offices, trying to recover in military service. Persistence paid off. As follows from his personal file: “... in 1926 he was accepted back to Kr. Ar. in the 1st squadron ... ". After the restoration, Chkalov behaved "quieter than water and lower than grass", during this period he had only positive characteristics. In that year, Chkalov had no time for hooligan flights under bridges. Yes, and when he again began to fly, the Neva was already ice-bound A. As stated, Chkalov flew over the water. 1926 disappears.

1927… From January to spring there is ice on the Neva. The first quarter is gone. On March 24, Chkalov, during a training battle, got into an accident on a Fokker D-XI fighter: "A collision in the air, after which he planned it." An official hearing follows. Chkalov, of course, is temporarily suspended from flying. In May, another service characteristic was requested for him, and already in June the pilot was sent for training in Lipetsk. From where, of course, he could not fly to the Leningrad bridge of Equality in any way. To all of the above, it is worth adding that in 1927 Chkalov was already married to O.E. Chkalova, and she, as noted above, always claimed that her husband under the bridge over the Neva "did not fly with her."

It turns out that V.P. Chkalov could fly under the Equality Bridge only in 1925.

The famous "dad" - I.P. Antoshin, the commander of the 1st Red Banner Squadron, did NOT PUNISH for any flight under the Chkalov bridge! In his memoirs (see: I. Antoshin "First Flights in the Squadron", M. 1969), he does not mention a single word about Chkalov's flight under the bridge over the Neva. Moreover, he claimed all his life that he had heard about this flight only from third parties. After Chkalov's arrest in November 1925, Antoshin was sent for further service in Turkestan. So, under Antoshin, Chkalov did not fly under the Equality Bridge. Especially in 1928.

It is erroneously stated that V.P. Chkalov flew under the bridge on a Fokker D.XI fighter

V.P. Chkalov (second from left) among colleagues. First left - mechanic Ivanov

In the personal file of V.P. Chkalov, NO punishments for flying under the bridge were recorded. There are many punishments:

- “Penalties in court and disciplinary, announced in the order in part and above: 2 times tried by the court of the Military Tribunal. He was repeatedly subjected to disciplinary sanctions "...

- As a member of the RKSM, he was "expelled for 6 months for indiscipline." There is no data on the restoration in the RKSM in the personal file ...

There are many punishments... But punishment for unauthorized flight over Leningrad and flying under the bridge is not among them. At all! Not in any year of his service!

You can fly under the bridge only during the day. In broad daylight near the Summer Garden, Petropavlovka, the embankments are always full of people. There must have been many eyewitnesses. But they are not. No one! It is officially registered that there were 106 people dragging with V.I. Lenin had a log on a subbotnik. There, the date was known, when Lenin was dragging a log, it was easy for false assistants to lie. But there were no witnesses of Chkalov's flight under the bridge! No real eyewitnesses, no “sons of Lieutenant Schmidt. For the exact date of passage under the bridge DOES NOT EXIST None!

The flight of an airplane under the bridge what then what now is a stunning phenomenon, a sensation! All newspapers should have written about such an event. Here, the Petrograd newspapers in 1916 excitedly reported on the passage of a naval pilot, Lt. G.A. Fride under the Trinity Bridge on the M-5 plane. And in the autumn of 1916, they enthusiastically described the flight of the naval pilot, Lt. A.E. Georgians under all bridges at once!!! In 1940, the Leningrad newspapers wrote with the same admiration about the flights under the Kirov Bridge by the pilot of the Northern Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet Yevgeny Borisenko during the filming of the film "Valery Chkalov". Borisenko flew under the Kirov Bridge on an LU-2 plane four times. Two on the first day of shooting, two on the second. But about the flight under the Chkalov Bridge NEVER wrote ANY Leningrad newspaper, not a single city magazine.

All the descriptions of Chkalov's flight under the bridge over the Neva (and there are only 3-4 of them) that exist in the literature are dated much later than 1940. That is, they are given by the authors who saw the film "Valery Chkalov". And all these descriptions retell frames from the film… None of the authors witnessed that flight.

To fly under the Equality Bridge, Chkalov had to build an approach from the side of Smolny. It is alleged that he tried on the bridge span several times. That is, he circled over Smolny, over Liteiny, where the leadership of the OGPU was located, over Shpalernaya, where the prison was the OGPU, and the house of the Politkatorzhan, in which the entire top of the Bolshevik authorities of the city lived. Such a flight should have been followed by a trial in the OGPU, at least. But wasn't the morally unstable pilot Chkalov, expelled from the RKSM, the son of a steamship owner - a socially alien element, planning to bomb Smolny? Shoot at party members-Leninists? Didn't you want to take revenge for your arrest, to vent your anger? Nothing of the sort happened. There was no such trial.

Following the Trinity is the Palace Bridge. After flying under the bridge of Equality, Chkalov immediately had to transfer the car to a climb. Just opposite the Palace Square, where the headquarters of the LenVO Air Force has been located since the first years of Soviet power. Respectively. Chkalov had to do this during test runs as well. Is it possible that no one from the command of the LenVO Air Force took an interest. what kind of fighter is roaring under their windows, grossly violating the ban on military aircraft flying over Leningrad? But there is no information about Chkalov's punishment for this flight in his personal file. I have not seen anything like this in the reporting documentation of the LenVO Air Force.

A thorough and comprehensive study of library collections today allows us to state with absolute accuracy that before 1939 there were NO publications about the passage of V.P. Chkalov did not exist under any bridge.

The first story about the flight of V.P. Chkalov under, mind you, the "Troitsky" bridge appears ... in "Roman-Gazeta" No. 13/1939. The magazine published a story by the beginning writer G. Baidukov called "About Chkalov", which was a literary version of the screenplay "Valery Chkalov".

In this description, Chkalov is flying under the bridge out of high flying motives. A colorful, detailed description of the flight ends with a phrase that a tired, but pleased with himself, pilot returns home to his loving wife. How can one not recall again the statement of O.E. Chkalova that under her Chkalov did not fly under the bridge.

From Roman-Gazeta, the description of the flight migrated to all other books, including the one published by O.E. Chkalova on behalf of V.P. Chkalov book “High above the ground. Pilot's stories "(1939)

But back to the script. The director was not happy with the original script. There was no main thing without which a good movie cannot exist - a love line. The reasons for Chkalov's expulsion from the Air Force were also indistinct. The script for the propaganda film was revised several times, but Mikhail Kalatozov (real name Kalatozishvili) did not like it.

How did the flight scene acquire a knightly-heroic appearance in the film - for the sake of the heart of the beloved woman! - installed from the source. An outstanding historian, Navy Air Force fighter pilot, WWII participant Nikolai Andreevich Goncharenko managed to find the members of that film crew at one time. And they told him who was the author of this plot twist: Once in a smoking room, during a break in filming, the pilots who advised the film told the details of how pilots flew under the Trinity Bridge back in tsarist times. There were legends about this among aviators.

Kalatozov sat with us and listened attentively to this story. The very next day, according to his vision, the script was redone once again. Now Chkalov was being expelled from the Air Force for a hooligan flight under a bridge, committed to win the heart of his beloved.

Since then, this invention of the director went "to the people." Like how footage of the “storming of the Winter Palace” from Eisenstein’s film “October” began to pass off as a documentary chronicle.

The famous pilot and friend of Chkalov, Georgy Baidukov, the main author of the film script, in fact, the creator of the myth about the “flying under the bridge,” later admitted: “Chkalov himself told me about this! ..”. Which is not surprising, because G. Baidukov did not serve in Leningrad and could not see this himself ...

In 1939, after the death of V.P. Chkalov, in the publishing house "Children's Literature" of the Central Committee of the Komsomol published a very interesting book: Valery Chkalov, Hero of the Soviet Union "High above the ground. Pilot's stories. Foreword by Olga Erazmovna Chkalova. In it, Olga Erazmovna, with her own hand, described how, when and under what circumstances V.P. Chkalov flew under the bridge. And under what bridge:

“One morning - it was several years ago in Leningrad - Valery Pavlovich returned after a flight. He greeted me and my son and looked around the room with some strange alien look. This is how a person looks who has just experienced a great danger and still does not believe that he is again in his native, familiar environment.

- Has something happened to you?

He quickly passed his hand over his forehead and smiled.

- Nothing, nothing. Go to work, you'll be late, I'll tell you in the evening.

In fact, these "trifles" looked like this.

The plane was in imminent danger of death. Winter fog pressed him to the ground, his wings were iced over, there was a forest all around. Not far away is the railway bridge, on which the train was going, blocking the path to the only and pathetic likeness of the landing site. And Valery Chkalov landed the plane on this small saving island, flying ... under the arch of the railway bridge.

In her latest book, Olga Erazmovna was more frank: “Somehow he and a mechanic were assigned to overtake a plane from Novgorod. And suddenly another accident! He returned home bruised.

“I can’t believe I’m at home, alive,” he told me when I came home from school.

For the first time I saw that Chkalov lost his nerve, as they say.

Having taken off from Novgorod, he got into difficult meteorological conditions. The plane was icy, and it was impossible to gain the desired height. I had to fly low, just above the forest. A railroad track stretched under the wing. The moment came when Valery realized that he needed to make an emergency landing. And there is nowhere to sit. You can try to sit on the tops of trees - there is a chance to save your own life, but Valery rejected this option right away. Even then, he developed a principle for himself - to fight for the life of the machine, as for his own, to the last.

While Valery was thinking, a train appeared in the distance. Suddenly, a bridge flashed ahead. It was already within reach of him. There is only one way out - to dive under the bridge and sit down. Chkalov dived, but a semaphore prevented him from landing behind the bridge. In a moment, he and the mechanic were lying on the ground among the aircraft debris.

A special commission found that if the pilot had tried to choose a different option for an emergency landing, the car would have crashed into a railway platform and the death of the crew would have been inevitable ”(O.E. Chkalova“ The Life of Valery Chkalov ”, M. 1979).

This bridge stands near the Vyalka station, which was located on the 225-km track of the Oktyabrskaya Leningrad-Moscow railway. In the documents, this event does not look as beautiful as in the stories of Olga Erazmovna.

In 1929 V.L. Korvin (by mother, first surname, by father - Kerber) designed and built an amphibious aircraft in his own apartment. During the civil war, since 1919, he was in the ranks of the Donskoy hydroaviation division of the Whites, worked at the Taganrogr aircraft factory, where the planes of the Dobroarmiya were repaired. After the war, Korvin ended up in Leningrad, where he proposed his seaplane project, but he was not accepted - the Soviet authorities did not have confidence in the designer. And then he started building a car in his apartment. He was assisted by a graduate of the Institute of Communications V.B. Shavrov. When the work came to an end, Korvin had fears that he, a former White Guard officer, would be credited by the authorities with the construction of an aircraft as an attempt to prepare a terrorist attack against the leaders of the city and country. Then the creator of the aircraft suggested to his assistant Shavrov that the aircraft be passed off as his own, and then apply to the Osoaviakhim of the North-Western Region with a request for financing the final work. Shavrov agreed with pleasure. The amphibian received the Sh-1 index (photo on the splash screen) and the 85 hp Walter engine, bought with the money of Osoaviakhim. The plane turned out to be successful. Shavrov instantly became a famous aircraft designer, however, until the end of his life he was not able to create any of his serial aircraft. Corwin did not see all this. He was arrested.

State tests were carried out in Moscow. The plane was piloted by test pilot B.V. Glagolev. In February 1930, he flew the plane home to Leningrad, but got stuck in Borovichi due to bad weather. A few days later, Glagolev was recalled to Moscow, and Osoaviakhim of the North-Western Region was offered to pick up his car himself.

Ivanov, like Valery Pavlovich, was a big drinker (in a few years he would be fired from Osoaviakhim for regular drinking). Either they had it with them, or they had a good time in the dining car, but when the train reached Borovichi, the sea was already knee-deep. Despite the snowfall, the almost complete lack of visibility and very low cloud cover, they boarded the plane and, contrary to the advice not to fly, took off.

At first everything went well, but the further they flew away from Borovichi, the worse the weather became. Chkalov did not even try to rise above the clouds - he did not master the art of instrument flight. He could only navigate on the ground. And so he had to press the car lower and lower to the ground, so as not to lose sight of the railroad track. In addition, icing has begun. After a while they were already flying at low level. Valery Chkalov later liked to tell his listeners about this “And once on a misty day I was forced to rear up an icy amphibian dozens of steps in front of a speeding steam locomotive, jumped over it and, without touching the snow-covered roofs of the cars with skis, disappeared behind the tail of the train into frosty mist."

The locomotive rushed forward, illuminating the space with a powerful headlight. We managed to notice its light in time. But, having jumped the train, the Sh-1 crew finally realized that every minute they were catching up with the train going ahead of them to Leningrad. And they will not be able to notice the dim light of the red lights of his last car in time. With all your will! I had to sit down. They started looking for a place to land. At the next railway bridge, a suitable bank flashed by. The clearing allowed landing, but it was necessary to enter it from the side of the railway bridge. Having made a turn, Chkalov led the amphibian to land, trying to fly over the canvas as low as possible in order to have more space for a run. The engine had already been turned off when another train suddenly jumped out of the forest onto the bridge. The collision could have been avoided only by diving under the bridge. There was no other way out. We successfully fit into the span. But it was no longer possible to sit on the bank of the frozen river. It was necessary to go on a re-entry. Turning on the engine, Chkalov put the car into a turn, at the same time trying to gain altitude. But the icy plane stubbornly did not go up. Ahead on the course was a railway platform and a semaphore sticking out. Chkalov chose a semaphore. (Later, the commission investigating the causes of the disaster would establish that a blow to the platform would have been fatal for the crew). The impact of the wing on the semaphore broke the car into pieces. The crew was thrown into the snow. They miraculously survived. Coming to their senses from what they had endured, Ivanov and Chkalov bandaged each other and went on foot to the Vyalka station ..

A criminal case was opened on the fact of the plane crash. During the investigation, the crew was acquitted. In the flight book of V.P. Chkalov No. 279, issued by the Main Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (GUGVF) on July 10, 1933, this disaster was recorded with the wording: "Weather conditions are to blame."

Not a single pilot will talk about his failures, but, apparently, he really wanted to tell about the flight under the bridge. Most likely, Chkalov spoke about his flight with a fair amount of fantasy, replacing the true scene of action with a fictional, more spectacular one. What is called, "poisoned airfield stories." It was not difficult to change the bridge across Vyalka to Troitsky. Every aviator in those years knew about the phenomenal flights under the Neva bridges by naval aviation pilots Frida and Gruzinov.

Anatoly Ivanin/

farm Krasnochervonny, Stavropol Territory

In Leningrad they told such a story. As if on one of the winter days of 1929, Chkalov stopped on the bridge. Immediately a policeman ran up to him and said that it was impossible to stop here and hang down. Then Chkalov asked: "Is it possible to fly under the bridge?" “I don't know, but the ships are passing…” answered a young policeman. "So you're allowed?" asked Chkalov and quickly left.

It is clear that no one gave Valery Chkalov permission to fly under the Trinity Bridge 16+

Solitary cell No. 21 and apartment No. 28 The Leningrad period of Valery Chkalov's life. February 2 marks exactly one hundred years since the birth of the number one pilot of the Soviet Union, who flew under one of the Leningrad bridges.
In Leningrad they told such a story. As if on one of the winter days of 1929, Chkalov stopped on the bridge. Immediately a policeman ran up to him and said that it was impossible to stop here and hang down. Then Chkalov asked: "Is it possible to fly under the bridge?" “I don't know, but the ships are passing…” answered a young policeman. "So you're allowed?" asked Chkalov and quickly left.

It is clear that no one gave Valery Chkalov permission to fly under the Trinity Bridge. And it was not in the nature of the pilot to warn his superiors about his tricks. For this he was nicknamed the air hooligan.

In 1929, Valery Chkalov was 25, but he was already considered the most experienced military pilot, served in the first fighter squadron, and flew German Fokkers. Modern top-class pilots say: flying a fighter plane under the Trinity Bridge is like passing a camel through the eye of a needle.

During his career, Chkalov was repeatedly in the guardhouse. They put the pilot on the lip and for the offense of 1929.

The famous pilot was serving his sentence in a building on Sadovaya Street. The garrison guardhouse was built almost 200 years ago by Carl Rossi. Since then, little has changed here. Bars on the windows, gloomy cells measuring two by three meters. Bunks, on which it is allowed to lie only after lights out.

The pilot was released from custody only after Stalin's personal order. But Chkalov was nevertheless fired from the army. Then he worked as a tester of military equipment. In Leningrad, he lived on Teryaev Street, now Vishnevsky Street. A memorial plaque was installed on house number 11. As we managed to find out, Chkalov was registered in apartment No. 28. Where did the family of his wife, Olga Erazmovna Orekhova, live. Now on the sixth floor of an old St. Petersburg house there is an ordinary communal apartment. Until 1990, one of the rooms was occupied by Olga Erazmovna's sister Anna Orekhova. Now her grandson Alexander, a distant relative of Chkalov, lives here.

Chkalov's flight under the bridge is known to everyone, but few remember the names of the pilots who repeated this feat. In October 1940, during the filming of a film about Chkalov, on the instructions of the director, two pilots Yevgeny Borisenko and Trofim Chigarev flew under the Trinity, then already the Kirov Bridge, and had to make several takes. True, the pilots used the Sh-2 amphibious biplane. Its wingspan is larger than that of a fighter, but the speed is less, and it is more convenient to shoot from the side. Unfortunately, the picture was spoiled by the combined shooting: in the foreground the model of the aircraft. But even this does not reduce the effect of the unique strafing flight. During the Great Patriotic War, Chkalov's experience was repeatedly used in combat. The fighter pilots steered the plane under an obstacle, which the pursuer plane then crashed into.

Why Valery Chkalov was credited with a deadly trick

In October 1940, Leningrad newspapers enthusiastically wrote about the skill of the pilot Yevgeny Borisenko, who, on the set of the film "Valery Chkalov", performed the most difficult aerobatic stunt - he flew on an amphibious plane under the Kirovsky (now Troitsky) bridge, and several times. By the way, in the modern serial "remake" of the film (filmed in 2012), this episode was imitated using computer technology. With his trick, Borisenko surpassed Chkalov himself, who had never flown under the Trinity Bridge.

Incident on set

By the time of the filming of Chkalov, Yevgeny Borisenko was only 27. A pupil of an orphanage, in 1931, on a Komsomol ticket, he entered the Batai School of the Civil Air Fleet (GVF) and two years later began flying in the Northern Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet. In the autumn of 1940, Borisenko was seconded to Leningrad to shoot Valery Chkalov, which was started by director Mikhail Kalatozov.

For the flight under the bridge, Borisenko chose the Sh-2 amphibious aircraft. On the first day of filming the episode, October 22, Eugene did a couple of successful takes in a row. However, the director and cameraman, being reinsured, the next day asked the pilot to "repeat" - and he again successfully completed the task. But in the end, it still could not have done without an emergency - Nikolai Bogdanov, a friend of the pilot Borisenko, later wrote about this.

It turns out that at the end of the filming day, the cameraman asked the pilot Borisenko to deliver and drop him “closer to Lenfilm”. Borisenko fulfilled the request: he delivered and splashed down normally. However, on the way of the plane, a sunken log was encountered, in a collision with which the car received a hole: the fuselage filled with water in a matter of seconds, and the Sh-2 almost completely sank.

The pilot who emerged from the water first rescued the cameraman who had gone to the bottom, and then, wet and chilled, for several hours led the rescue and towing of the seaplane. What subsequently organizational conclusions regarding the pilot were made by his command, one can only guess. It seems that, despite the movie heroism, he got it to the fullest. This unfortunate incident did not get into the Leningrad newspapers ...

The all-Union premiere of "Valery Chkalov" took place on March 12, 1941. The name of one of the true heroes of the film - Yevgeny Borisenko - did not appear in the credits. And soon the war broke out, and from a movie hero he had to reincarnate into a real hero. In total, Yevgeny Ivanovich made 173 successful sorties, 152 of them at night. He was presented to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but for some reason the official presentation was "wrapped up".

Was there any silliness?

After the release of a film about him, Valery Chkalov became a cult national hero of the USSR for many decades, and Soviet youth rushed en masse to enroll in flight schools. The film itself became one of the leaders in the box office, and the episode with the "fly under the bridge" became one of the most shocking and recognizable scenes of Russian cinema. True, flight professionals considered it not convincing enough, but Evgeny Borisenko is not to blame for this: in the final version, a combined mix of several takes was included in the film.

Meanwhile, modern researchers are skeptical about the very existence of an example of such "recklessness" in Chkalov's biography. Yes, in some Soviet period publications dedicated to the pilot, a similar episode is mentioned. But! Under less romantic circumstances.

Namely: an emergency landing in the winter of 1930 under a railway bridge near Vyalka station (Novgorod region), as a result of which the Sh-1 aircraft being ferried to Leningrad fell to pieces, and the crew (pilot Chkalov and mechanic Ivanov) miraculously survived. But there is no reliable documentary evidence of Valery Pavlovich's flight over the Neva and under the bridge, and even in honor of his beloved woman. This story began to be attributed to Chkalov only after the release of a film about him.

The former director of the Leningrad State Aviation Museum Alexander Solovyov, in one of his essays, which can now be easily found on the Web, quotes the story of one of the members of the film crew: “... Our director Kalatozov did not like the original script of the film. Once in a smoking room, during a break in filming, the pilots who advised the film told that back in tsarist times, some pilot flew under the Trinity Bridge. Kalatozov sat with us and listened attentively to this story. The very next day, at his request, the script was redone. Now Chkalov was being expelled from the Air Force for a hooligan flight under a bridge, committed to win the heart of his beloved.

Aces of Tsarist Russia

Foreign experts believe that the first pilot to fly under the bridge is the English pilot Frank K. McClean. On August 10, 1912, on a short S33 float biplane, he flew between the upper and lower spans of the Tower Bridge, and then under all the bridges on the Thames to Westminster, where he safely landed on the water.

However, for reasons of patriotism, in this matter we give the palm to our aviator - a native of the Chernigov province Khariton Slavorossov, whose name is now thoroughly forgotten. Since 1910, Khariton worked as a mechanic at the aviation school of the Warsaw Aviata Society, where he passed the pilot test and a year later received a diploma from the All-Russian Aero Club. After the liquidation of Aviata, he bought his airplane and began to take part in various international aviation competitions.

In the very same 1912, in the town of Mokotovo, near Warsaw, Slavorossov, driving a small airplane "Blerio", in front of the public, suddenly flew under a bridge over the Vistula River. “The first trick of its kind in the world,” the aviator later recalled, admitting that he had paid a decent fine for his Russian prowess. By the way, during the First World War, Slavorossov fought as a volunteer in the ranks of the French army, in the 1st Aviation Regiment. When in October 1914, in one of the sorties, the French pilot Reimon was wounded and, along with his plane, ended up in the neutral zone, Khariton Slavorossov landed next to him, transferred his comrade to his device and took off under enemy fire.

As for the flight directly under the Troitsky Bridge, it was first made by naval test pilot Georgy Friede on his M-5 flying boat in 1916. In the same year, Fride's friend and colleague, Lieutenant Alexei Gruzinov, repeated this aerobatic element. Moreover, it significantly complicated the task by flying under all the bridges on the Neva in a row. Gruzinov was generally an ace of the highest level. There are references to such an air stunt of his: with the engine turned off on the M-9 plane, Gruzinov made a circle, almost tightly flying around the dome-drum of St. Isaac's Cathedral and landed on the water across the Neva.

Finally, one cannot fail to recall the legendary pilot Alexander Prokofiev-Seversky, a kind of forerunner of Maresyev. A graduate of the Sevastopol Aviation School, in early July 1915 he received the title of naval pilot and was sent to the front. Soon, during a sortie, Alexander was blown up by his own bomb and was seriously injured - his right leg was amputated. Nevertheless, the young officer decided to return to duty and began to learn to walk hard - first on crutches, and then with a prosthesis.

At the beginning of 1916, Prokofiev-Seversky began to serve at the St. Petersburg Aeronautical Plant: first as an observer for the construction and testing of seaplanes, and then retrained as an aircraft designer. However, Seversky was convinced that he could and should fly. According to one version, in order to make himself known, Prokofiev-Seversky flew without permission in an M-9 flying boat and flew under the middle of the Nikolaevsky Bridge in broad daylight. At the same time, he also managed to happily miss an oncoming river tram.

For such hooliganism, the pilot was threatened with serious disciplinary punishment. However, Rear Admiral Nepenin decided not to ruin the pilot's career and sent a report to the Highest Name, in which he especially emphasized the courage and fortitude of the officer. And he asked in the final: is it possible to give this midshipman permission for combat flights? The report allegedly returned with the emperor's resolution: “I read. Admired. Let it fly. NICHOLAS"...

As a result, by the turning point in October 1917, Lieutenant Prokofiev-Seversky became one of the most famous Russian aces pilots.

MK help

Who else flew under the bridges

The French pilot Maicon in 1919 on a two-seat training biplane "Codron G.3" successfully slipped under a bridge over the Var River in Nice.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet pilot Rozhnov was able to break away from the "Messer", who sat on his tail, only thanks to the passage under the bridge.

In 1959, US Air Force Captain John Lappo flew an RB-47 under the Mackinac Suspension Bridge on Lake Michigan. And although the trick was performed successfully, the pilot went to the tribunal, and only his former military merits in Korea saved him from prison.

In 1965, in response to Khrushchev's thoughtless demobilization of military aces, the pilot of the Kansk aviation detachment Privalov flew under the arch of the Novosibirsk bridge across the Ob in a jet MiG-17.

In 1999, Lithuanian pilot Jurgis Kairis in a sports plane flew under ten bridges in a row on the Neris River. With the title of world champion in aerobatics, Kairis received permission from the city of Vilnius, and also insured himself and the bridges for $ 2.5 million.

In 2012, Siberian pilot Yevgeny Ivasishin, trying to make an emergency landing of a sports plane, was forced to fly between the 18-meter supports of the Yugorsky railway bridge.

One of my attentive and very meticulous readers (shamefully sitting in LiveJournal through the mail.ru account, so I don’t mark him) noticed that not a word was said about how the famous test pilot flew under this very bridge (called from 1918 to 1934 Equality Bridge). I correct and tell...

I see that experts on Soviet pre-war cinematography have already tensed up and prepared to write in the comments "Deception!", "Set up!", "From friend!", "Burn him ...". Don't, don't rush. The frame above, like all the others in this post, is really taken from the movie "Valery Chkalov", this is not a newsreel. And the film itself is not a documentary, but an art one ... But first things first.

So, for starters, the legend itself. It is believed that in the twenties, the then military pilot Valery Chkalov, already then known for systematic violations of discipline, made a risky flight through one of the spans of the bridge. According to one version - wanting to impress his beloved. But legends are legends, and skeptics claim that this actually never happened. Judge for yourself - there are no witnesses, no photographs, no disciplinary sanctions for such a violation either ... Meanwhile, legends say that Chkalov was suspended from flying for this trick, this would certainly have been reflected in the documents!

Nevertheless, the creator of the biographical film "Valery Chkalov" did not stop this episode from being included in his tape. According to one version, the idea with the trick was born in a smoking room during another discussion of the plot, in which the love line did not stick in any way ... The idea, obviously, seemed very successful, and it was realized by Yevgeny Borisenko in 1940 on the set of the film. Let's see what it looked like.

Olga, Chkalov's beloved, meets with his commander, nicknamed Batya, on the Equality Bridge. Batya asks Olga to act on Valery before he gets himself into trouble with his desperate antics... Valery himself finds out about this meeting (absolutely in the wrong way!) and, becoming jealous, decides to make a daring trick to show everyone his coolness!

Troitsky Bridge, by the way, is unmistakably guessed. And by the views of Petropavlovka, and by modern lamps.

And Chkalov, meanwhile, is already preparing for his daring trick ... By the way, he comes from the east, from the Bolshaya Nevka. This is clearly seen from the building of the current Nakhimov School below (and in those years - an ordinary school). But no, it looks like the construction of a residential building for employees of the NKVMF is in full swing below.

But in the next episode, they already show how it flies from the west, along the Peter and Paul Fortress. And the heroes on the bridge react as if the flight was made from the other side...

In fact, it was the other way around!

The flag tower of the Naryshkin Bastion (on the right) clearly shows this. Well, okay, the main thing is that the flight is completed, and everything else is the conventions of the movie!

So it goes. So they flew under the bridge on an airplane, and it’s not so important that it was not Chkalov himself, but another pilot ...

UPD: And in the comments they report that flights under the Trinity Bridge generally began even before the revolution: " All Petrograd newspapers in 1916 excitedly reported on the flight of the naval pilot Lt. G.A. Fride under the Trinity Bridge on the M-5 plane. And in the autumn of 1916, they enthusiastically described the flight of the naval pilot, Lt. A.E. Georgians under all bridges at once!!!"

P.S. Another reason to watch the film (yes, I really watched it and cut the frames myself, and did not drag it from the Internet) was the promise to my friends from Okko to review their online cinema service. The review will be later (I have something to say to them !!!), and I mention them because the film "Valery Chkalov" can be watched completely free of charge (as well as about a hundred more films related to the classics of world and domestic cinema). In any case, registering on the site is faster than downloading a movie from torrents ;-)

In June 1965, a pilot from the air defense regiment, Valentin Privalov, flew a MiG-17 plane under the Communal Bridge across the Ob River in Novosibirsk ...

Before that, he himself swam examined the distance between the bridge supports. Moreover, Chkalov made a similar flight on a propeller-driven aircraft, and not a jet ...

He was arrested for air hooliganism, but Malinovsky, the then Minister of Defense, ordered the pilot to be allowed to fly.
I heard about this case in childhood, but I never saw a photo, so I found it on Facebook, searched for it, found more:

The arrest followed immediately - the very next day. The debriefing and, to put it mildly, the separation were not long in coming. However, no one wanted to take the final decision on the fate of the pilot. The then Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal R. Malinovsky, put an end to this matter. A telegram came from him to the unit: “Pilot Privalov should not be punished. Limit yourself to the activities that were carried out with him. If you haven't been on vacation, go on vacation. If there was, give ten days of rest at the unit " "Captain Valentin Privalov, nicknamed" Jack ".

Valentin was born in the Moscow region, his childhood fell on wartime. While still at school, he was involved in the flying club. After college, he served in naval aviation, in Kaliningrad and the Arctic, was awarded the Order of the Red Star. Later he was transferred to the city of Kansk, Krasnoyarsk Territory.

In June 1965, as part of a flight of 4 MiGs, Privalov was seconded to the exercises taking place in the Siberian Military District - anti-aircraft divisions conducted training firing at the training ground near Yurga. Returning from a mission in Tolmachevo, Valentine flew under the Communal Bridge. (For reference: the size of the arch is approximately 30 by 120 meters, the wingspan of the MiG-17 is 9.6 meters).

Recalls Anatoly Maksimovich Rybyakov, a retired aviation major:

“From the third turn, he descended and passed under the bridge. Speed ​​- somewhere around 400 km / h. It was a clear, sunny day. People on the beach were swimming, sunbathing, and suddenly - a roar, and the plane soared up like a candle, avoiding a collision with a railway bridge. It was clear that this could not be hidden. Air Marshal Savitsky flew in and set up an investigation. They asked Privalov what his motives were. He replied that he wrote two reports about being sent to Vietnam, but they remained unanswered. That's why I decided to fly under the bridge to draw attention. This act was evaluated in different ways. Young pilots - like heroism, the older generation - like air hooliganism.

Meanwhile, there is a history of flights under the bridges: “According to a widely circulated legend, Chkalov flew under the Trinity Bridge in Leningrad. For the film “Valery Chkalov”, this flight was repeated by the pilot Yevgeny Borisenko!

Rumors about flying under the bridge quickly spread throughout the country, and following Valery Pavlovich during the armed conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) in 1929, pilot E. Lukht, who was awarded the Order of the Red Banner three times, personal combat weapons, gold watches and other insignia of those years, flew under the bridge over the Amur in Khabarovsk, followed by this seemingly useless and most dangerous trick, repeated by the pilot of the same squadron A. Svyatogorov, as well as I.P. Mazuruk and M.V. Vodopyanov.

During the war, a similar trick was performed by the pilot Rozhnov. Avoiding pursuit in the sky, he flew under the railway bridge, saving the lives of himself and the crew.