Tupolev ANT-25
A Soviet single-engined record aircraft designed under Andrei Tupolev for extreme range, the ANT-25 first flew in 1933 and only two were built. In June 1937 Valery Chkalov's crew flew one non-stop from Moscow over the North Pole to Vancouver, Washington, the first transpolar flight; three weeks later Mikhail Gromov's crew flew a second ANT-25 to San Jacinto, California, setting a world distance record.
Why It Mattered
The Tupolev ANT-25 was designed to set distance records, and in June 1937 it made the first non-stop flight over the North Pole, from Moscow to Vancouver, Washington. The Soviet state presented such flights as demonstrations of national achievement: after the type's 1936 flight across Siberia to the Far East, Pravda's headline read "Glory to Stalin's Falcons!", and the crew were named Heroes of the Soviet Union. The National Park Service, which now cares for the landing site, calls the 1937 flight "a major moment in U.S.-Russian relations before the Second World War."
Design Notes
The ANT-25 was a single-engined aircraft with a very long, thin wing — 112 feet in span by the National Park Service's account — shaped, in the Museum of Flight's words, like a sailplane to reduce drag. Almost everything served range: the record aircraft carried over 2,000 gallons of fuel, was meant to cruise at only about 120 miles an hour to conserve it, and had unnecessary weight stripped out, brakes included. A single Mikulin AM-34 engine provided the power. Because a magnetic compass is useless near the pole, the transpolar aircraft was fitted with a sun compass.
Operational History
The ANT-25 first flew on 22 June 1933, piloted by Mikhail Gromov; only two were built. In September 1934 Gromov's crew kept the second prototype airborne for 75 hours over a closed circuit, covering 12,411 kilometres, but the flight was not recognised as a world record because the circuit back to Moscow could not be completed. In 1935 Sigizmund Levanevsky's attempt at a transpolar flight in an ANT-25 turned back with an oil leak. In July 1936 Chkalov, Baidukov and Belyakov flew the type from Moscow to Udd Island in the Soviet Far East, 9,374 kilometres in 56 hours 20 minutes. On 18 June 1937 the same crew left Moscow bound for Oakland, California, crossed the North Pole, and landed at Pearson Field, Vancouver, Washington, on 20 June, 63 hours and 16 minutes after takeoff, short of their Oakland goal. Three weeks later, on 14 July 1937, Gromov, Yumashev and Danilin landed a second ANT-25 in a farmer's field near San Jacinto, California, after fog closed their intended destination, San Diego; the flight set a world straight-line distance record that two RAF Vickers Wellesleys surpassed in November 1938.
Afterlife
After the landing at Pearson Field, Chkalov's ANT-25 was dismantled and shipped to Paris for display, then home to Moscow. The same aircraft was shown at the Soviet pavilion of the 1939 New York World's Fair. Chkalov's aircraft is reported to survive at the museum dedicated to him in Chkalovsk, Russia, and the Tupolev bureau built an exact replica of the type in 1989 for the aviation museum at Monino. At Pearson Field, a monument unveiled in 1975 marks the landing, and the National Park Service still commemorates the flight there each year.