What: Free public observance of 1937 Chkalov flight.
When: 10:30 a.m. Saturday.
Where: Pearson Air Museum, 1115 E. Fifth St., Vancouver.
Re-enactors, vintage aircraft and a new generation of Russian visitors will help set the scene on Saturday for the 78th anniversary of the Chkalov flight.
The National Park Service will host the observance at 10:30 a.m. at Pearson Air Museum, 1115 E. Fifth St. in Vancouver.
The free event — “Valery Chkalov: From Moscow to Pearson” — will celebrate the morning of June 20, 1937. That’s when Valery Chkalov, co-pilot Georgy Baidukov and navigator Alexander Belyakov landed their massive single-engine ANT-25 on the Army Air Corps field in Vancouver, ending a record-setting flight.
Scheduled participants include representatives of the Russian consulate in Seattle, said Bob Cromwell, manager of Pearson Air Museum. They will donate some pieces of flight-related material that have been in Russian archives for decades to the National Park Service, Cromwell said.
Local historian Mary Kline Rose will discuss the significance of the landmark flight, which set a world aviation endurance record of 63 hours and 16 minutes.
Rose is a member of Friends of Fort Vancouver, a nonprofit group that supports the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
“I have had a special interest in the transpolar flight story and its association with Pearson Field for years,” Rose, who was associated with the Chkalov Cultural Exchange Committee, said in a news release. “Valery Chkalov is heralded for his aviation achievements in Russia to this day, and I have had many wonderful friends and associations with people in Russia due to the continued interest in the crew of the ANT-25 that landed here unexpectedly 78 years ago.”
Their journey across the roof of the world marked the first flight over the North Pole.
The morning will include a costumed portrayal of some of the event’s historic figures and a wreath-laying ceremony at the Chkalov flight monument just west of the air museum, next to the historic Headquarters Building.
The Vancouver Community Concert Band will provide music from the era.
“A few historic aircraft will be parked around the museum,” Cromwell said, as part of a weekend “fly-in” by the Pearson Field-based chapter of the Experimental Aviation Association.
