Background
Chkalov, Valerii was born in 1904.
Chkalov, Valerii was born in 1904.
Educated at a pilot’s school, 1923.
Joined the Red Army, 1919. Fighter pilot, 1924, and test pilot, 1930. Made several record-breaking flights in the 1930s, which received enormous publicity and made him a folk hero of the Stalin epoch (Moscow-Kamchatka, 1936, Moscow-North Pole-Vancouver, 1937).