Russian Aviation

At the North Pole last week it rained, and the three big Soviet planes beside the base camp sank slightly into the mushy surface of the ice floe. The fourth plane, which came down 40 miles away fortnight ago, waited till the weather lifted, then joined the main party, bringing to 35 the number of Russians encamped serenely at the top of the world to investigate scientific phenomena and build a base for a transarctic airline (TIME, May 31). Weather reports were reaching Moscow four times daily and at week's end hirsute Dr. Otto Tulyevitch Schmidt's staff had noted three facts of scientific interest: their radios worked most peculiarly, playing magnetic leapfrog over numerous electrical blind spots; the water was 2 1/2 miles deep below them; their floe was drifting away from the Pole five miles each day, had already moved some 60 miles. Exciting event: someone spotted a guillemot, black-&-white seabird heretofore unknown so far north. Finally, with the base in perfect running order, the four planes took off together for the return to Rudolf Island 560 miles away. At the Pole for a year, they left four scientists and a dog. Since the gasoline supply was short, one of the planes sacrificed half its tankage for the others, came down halfway to wait until more fuel could be flown north. The rest reached Rudolf Island on schedule.

In Moscow, Dictator Joseph Stalin was pleased to designate Flyer Sigismund Levanevsky as the first man, when the time comes, to try the flight from Moscow to San Francisco via the North Pole base. Lithe, taciturn pilot Levanevsky is a boot-black's son who fought with the Red Guard in the War, first made news when he flew to the rescue of U. S. Flyer Jimmie Mattern in Siberia in 1933. Levanevsky later helped rescue the members of the wrecked Chelyuskin expedition. Two years ago he was forced back while attempting a non-stop flight from Moscow to San Francisco. Same year he and a companion flew in easy stages from San Francisco to Moscow via Bering Straits.

To the Air Ministers of Europe, the imminent likelihood of Soviet planes winging over the top of the world to the U. S. (TIME, May 31 et seq.), a development in air transport even more prodigious than Pan American's bridging of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans (TIME, Dec. 2, 1935), revives the old bugaboo of Red Wings over Europe.

Last September Louis Breguet, prominent French aircraft maker, returned from Moscow to announce: "With ten times as many workers as has France, the Soviet factories are producing 20 times as many airplanes, motors and accessories as in France. I should estimate that there are 200,000 men employed in the two laboratories, the five aero-motor factories and the four principal aircraft factories. . . . Annual production of fully equipped airplanes is of the order of 5,000. . . . The technique is not very modern but it is to the point. The works directors are engineers of incontestable merit."

Lately the U. S. magazine Aero Digest, which is usually accurate, has run two articles on Soviet aviation which estimate that its military strength is at least 3,500 planes and possibly much higher.* Some 50,000 miles of airlines, mostly unaided by radio, cover all of Russia proper and much of Siberia. Last year these lines transported 200,000 passengers and 7,500 tons of mail against U. S. figures of 1,146,138 and 7,689. Osoaviakhim (civil aviation society) has 7,000,000 members, most of whom make parachute jumps for amusement. Some 600,000 Soviet children belong to model plane clubs, hold 13 model plane records.

Russia's planes are a curious blend of adaptation from abroad and original development at home. The planes that flew to the Pole were of the ANT6 four-motored bomber type. Lumbering, ungraceful things with highly tapered wings and bicycle landing gear which does not retract, they have little merit beyond big payloads. Instead of developing practical improvements, Russia's designers tend to go head-over-crupper for such fantastic devices as the P-5 biplanes whose fat lower wings open up to provide coffin-like niches in which 14 soldiers can snuggle. Most successful of Russia's planes are those she has bought abroad and adapted. In Spain, modern German and Italian ships have been outmaneuvered by Russians flying modified Boeings of a type long obsolete in the U. S. Russia has also bought one of the new Douglas flying boats and a Sikorsky amphibian. Russia has on order at the Glenn L. Martin plant in Baltimore a $1,000,000 flying boat of the China Clipper type but considerably bigger, has also given contracts to Consolidated and to Vultee Aircraft, both in California. Fortnight ago Russia gave a contract for $370,000 to Seversky Aircraft Corp., Farmingdale, L. I., for two Seversky amphibians plus manufacturing rights. The Seversky amphibian holds the world amphibian speed record of 230.4 m.p.h.

Aviators like to argue that various nationalities have distinct flying traits. Favorite assertions: that Japanese are poor pilots, Chinese good; that the methodical Germans are best at bombing, refusing to be drawn out of formation under attack like the hot-headed Italians. Russians are said to be careless about such perfunctory details as keeping gas tanks full, but have a wild Cossack flair for aerial dogfighting. Most curious fact about Russian aviation is that the men who best demonstrate the Russian genius for conquering the air have made their greatest successes in the U. S.

Most famed of all is Igor Sikorsky, who began flying in Russia in 1908, flew in the War, left Russia after the Revolution and is now the leading U. S. builder of flying boats. Sikorsky's chief engineer is Russian Michael Gluhareff, Brother Serge Gluhareff, authority on structural design, is also in the Sikorsky plant at Bridgeport.

Second most important U. S. Russian is Major Alexander Prokofieff de Seversky, who lost a leg for Russia while flying in the War, has lately zoomed into military importance by producing what is generally regarded as the world's fastest pursuit plane. Last week he flew his chunky ship from Belleville, Ill. to Dayton, Ohio at an average speed of 321 m.p.h. Other prominent Russian designers in the U. S.:

Michael Gregor, who built the first private Russian airplane, a modified Bleriot, in 1910 and sold it to Major Seversky's father. A War flyer, Gregor arrived in the U. S. in 1921, designed several planes including the Bird in which Charles Augustus Lindbergh taught his wife to fly. Gregor had a hand in the design of the Seversky amphibian, is currently freelancing.

Korvan Kruhovsky, chief engineer of Edo Aircraft Corp., which builds 90% of airplane floats and pontoons used in the U. S.

Michael Watters, expert on amphibian design for Glenn Martin.

Dr. George de Bothezat, consultant on mathematical problems in plane design who lives near the Army air base at Dayton, Ohio.

Illya L Islamoff, factory manager for Bellanca Aircraft Corp.

Alexander Kartvelli, vice president of Seversky Aircraft Corp., formerly with Anthony Fokker.

Alexander A. Toochokoff, who was chief of the Russian Naval General Staff in the War and Major Seversky's superior officer. He is now a designer in the Seversky plant.

Alexander Pishvanov, Russian War ace who formerly worked in the Sikorsky plant, now heads Seversky's Experimental Engineering shop.

Serge S. Tchemesoff and Paul Alexander Samoilo, both trained in Russia during the War and now working for Seversky.

Most of these men are exiles, supposedly out of sympathy with the Soviet. Asked about this last week, Major Seversky said: "Americans always have liked assisting those who tried to make a comeback, and the Russian people are certainly trying to do that very thing. As to their form of government, just as any other American, I am somewhat curious, but try to be discreet since I feel it is their own affair."

*Comparable figures according to estimates in the Aircraft Yearbook for 1937: Japan, 2,000; U. S., 2,200; Germany, 3,000; Italy, 3,200; France, 3,600; England, 4,000.

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