New perspectives on the Chkalov flight will make their public debut at 10 a.m. Saturday, when the community marks the 79th anniversary of the aviation milestone.
The exhibit at Pearson Air Museum in Vancouver will include items that pilot Valery Chkalov, co-pilot Georgy Baidukov and navigator Alexander Belyakov had when the Soviet aviators landed at Pearson Field on June 18, 1937.
The June 18 observance has long been an annual event in Vancouver, and “the Chkalov flight has been featured in the museum for some time,” said Theresa Langford, curator at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
The new exhibit will give it more prominence. It is such an amazing story, and such a big part of Pearson Field history, Langford said, that “we felt it deserved a larger footprint, with a display of additional artifacts and photographs.”
Historian Mary Rose has written interpretive panels that shed light on some little-known aspects of the flight, including the reason Chkalov had to land his huge ANT-25 without using brakes.
“Brakes had been removed to save weight,” she said.
Saturday’s event will include the first public display of copies of flight-related documents that had been in the archives of Russia’s Office of the Foreign Ministry for decades.
Officials from the Russian Consulate in Seattle gave the collection to the National Park Service after the 2015 Chkalov event, said Bob Cromwell, chief ranger at Fort Vancouver and Pearson museum manager.
One display features a copy of the telegram President Franklin Roosevelt sent on June 20, 1937, congratulating the aviators on the world’s first nonstop transpolar flight.
Some flight artifacts already were on display at Pearson but shared exhibit space on the main floor with several other chapters of aviation history. The new display will be on the mezzanine above the main floor.
Artifacts include the flight goggles worn by Chkalov, a navigation instrument used by Belyakov and a log book.
It will be a long-term exhibit, Langford said.
“We never say an exhibit is permanent, but there is nothing else planned for this space,” she said.
