Aviaarktika

First Cautious Steps

As early as 1912, Igor Sikorsky himself had visualized the possibility of using aircraft to survey and explore the frozen wastes of Russia’s northlands. Even before the Revolution, this advice was soon followed, when, in 1914, Jan Nagursky a Pole, flying a Farman, helped to locate the Sedov expedition that was lost in the Arctic ice of Novaya Zembla. On 20 April 1920, barely two months after the last British troops had left Arkhangelsk, the Northern Sea Route Committee was formed, and this was reinforced in March 1921 by the forma­tion of the Floating Naval Scientific Institute.

During 1924, Boris Chukhnovsky made a dozen flights in a Junkers Ju 13 to survey the Barents and the Kara Seas; while on 4 August 1925 Otto Kalvits reached Matochkin Shar, at a latitude of 73° on Novaya Zembla. During the latter 1920s, led by Mikhail Babushkin, aircraft were used to aid seal hunters and to guide shipping. On 15 February 1929, Ivan Mikheyev made a successful ambulance mission. Soviet aviation was ready for the Arctic.

The Northern Sea Route Administration

Much in the same manner that western navigators had specu­lated about the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, so did Russian seamen dream of linking Arkhangelsk and Murmansk with Vladivostok via the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Strait. The role of the airplane was fully recognized from the start, and in 1 September 1930, Glavnoe upravle – nie Severnogo morskogo puti, or Glavsevmorput (Northern Sea Route Administration), was formed, head­ed by Dr Otto Schmidt, known familiarly as the Ice Commissar. He had made several voyages in the Arctic, reach­ing Franz Josef Land, the northernmost islands of Eurasia.

Glavsevmorput’s Department of Polar Aviation, established at Krasnoyarsk on 1 September 1930, and familiar­ly known as Aviaarktika, was headed by Schmidt’s deputy and right-hand man, Mark Shevelev. It moved to Moscow in 1932, and survived independently from Aeroflot until 3 January 1960, when the state airline took over all its opera­tions. Except for the wartime years and until he retired from the Air Force, Shevelev was in charge throughout.

The Administration was equipped from the start with a fleet of Junkers Ju 13 floatplanes and six Dornier Wal flying boats. By 1933, the fleet had been increased to 42, including among other types, the four-engined ANT-6 and the twin – engined ANT-4. Much pioneer work was done in establishing air routes with waterborne aircraft along the great rivers of

The Chelyuskin Rescue

Soviet aviators won their spurs in a remarkable rescue mission. In 1933, the good ship Chelyuskin left Leningrad to attempt another circumnavigation of the Soviet Union, at least as far as Vladivostok. It was almost within sight of the Bering Strait when in November it stuck in the ice. On 12 February it was crushed by an iceberg and the entire ship’s company were marooned. Dr Schmidt organized a floating — and constantly moving — camp on the ice flows, and built a landing field — also con­stantly moving — in preparation for the rescue aircraft. A whole team of aviators won their spurs, including Mikhail Vodopyanov, and especially Vasily Molokov. In a series of flights from a coastal airstrip near the ship, they saved all 104 marooned personnel, a great testimonial to the new aviation technology.

Siberia: the Ob, with a base at Omsk, on its tributary, the Irtysh; on the Yenesei, at Krasnoyarsk; at Irkutsk, on the Angara, near Lake Baikal; and on the Lena, at Yakutsk.

Expanding the Horizons

During the mid-1930s, Glavsevmorput sent out its long tenta­cles throughout the sparsely populated Siberian lands that occupy more than half of the area of Russia. Its achievement could not be measured by conventional statistics — in 1933, only 180 passengers and about 15 tons of mail were carried; but Polar Aviation pilots were learning their trade. They car­ried vital supplies, including medicines, doctors, and teachers out-bound, and valuable furs inbound — furs that would oth­erwise have taken two years to reach the stores in Moscow or Leningrad. Gathering confidence, the aircraft flew further and more often, with some pilots making some notable flights, such as those of Chelyuskin hero Molokov, reviewed on the opposite page.