A Little Lesson in Aviation History

Throughout modern history there have been many famous Russian aviators. Two such pilots have hailed from Nizhny Novgorod. On our tour of Nizhny a few weeks back our translator taught us a little bit about these two famous men.

The first is Pyotr Nesterov. Nesterov was a pioneer in the area of in flight acrobatics. In 1913 he was the first person to ever perform a 360-degree loop in an airplane. To this day, when pilots perform a loop it is known as a Nesterov loop. But that is not the end of Mr. Nesterov's fame. He was also the first pilot to destroy another aircraft in flight. During World War I Nesterov was a pilot for the Russian military. While in flight he came across an enemy spy plane. At the time planes were not armed, so Nesterov had no way to stop this enemy plane. Instead of allowing the plane into Russian territory, Nesterov rammed the plane with his own plane, causing the spy plane to crash. It is believed that he intended to ram the plane with his landing gear, but instead Nesterov hit it with his propeller, causing his plane to crash also. Both pilots died in the crash. While Nesterov did not survive this first attempted at ramming an enemy aircraft, his idea was perfected over the years and was used frequently and successfully by Russian pilots during World War II. There are several monuments and plaques honoring Nesterov throughout Nizhny. These are a few that we found and took pictures of.

A replica of the plane Nesterov flew when he rammed the spy plane

The largest monument to Nesterov

A close up of the same monument (you can actually see the snow falling in this one!)

I have no idea what this says or stands for, but I can read that it says Nesterov

The second famous aviator from Nizhny is Valery Chkalov. Chkalov was the first pilot to fly non-stop from Russia to the United States flying over the North Pole. The nearly 5,500 mile flight from Moscow to Vancouver, Washington took place in 1937 and lasted 63 hours. Chkalov too has a huge monument in Nizhny (as well as several in Washington state). Here are a few pictures we took of the monument.

Jeff and I in front of the monument

The monument is in front of the Kremlin (notice what a difference a week makes in terms of the weather!)

Close up of the base of the monument, which has a map of the historic flight