Red Record

Mikhail Gromov is a Soviet airplane pilot who holds both the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Lenin. He is fiercely proud of his position in Red aviation. He was the regular pilot of the U. S. S. R.'s giant Maxim Gorky, probably owes his life to the fact that he was ill and another pilot was at the controls on the May day in 1935 when a stunting pursuit ship crashed into the Maxim Gorky, sent it down to destruction with a loss of 49 lives. Month ago when three of Gromov's countrymen made a spectacular flight from Moscow over the top of the world to Vancouver (TIME, June 28), he wanted to do better. He and two other airmen were ushered into the Kremlin sanctum of Joseph Stalin, who was flanked by Defense Commissar "Klim" Voroshilov, Premier Molotov and other Red bigwigs.

"Well, what do you want?" asked Molotov.

"We have only one request." said Gromov. "Permit us to fly from Moscow to America over the North Pole.''

Dictator Stalin questioned Gromov at length, conferred with his aides, finally told the three airmen to go ahead. At dawn one morning last week. Pilot Gromov, Co-Pilot Andrey Yumashev and Navigator Sergei Danilin climbed aboard their big, red-winged monoplane at Moscow's Schelkovo Airport. They had six tons of fuel, enough for 8,000 miles of flying. After taxiing more than a mile, the plane took off through a thin fog. Near the North Pole they encountered thick fog, flew blind for a long stretch, but passed the Soviet polar base 13 min. ahead of schedule, making about 100 m.p.h. On the "down" side they picked up radio communication with Anchorage (Alaska), Seattle and San Francisco, reported their position occasionally but not regularly. They were advised to swing east because of thick weather but kept on toward California. They almost reached Mexico, turned back north. For four hours no one knew where they were. Finally they found a hole in the fog near San Jacinto, landed skilfully in a cow pasture, handed out cards bearing the words "Eat," "Bath," "Sleep." The Soviet consul arrived, jabbered in hearty Russian to the flyers while they splashed in a shower at March Field. They telephoned the Soviet Embassy in Washington, cabled proudly to Moscow, wolfed a breakfast of ham & eggs, went shopping. They had made the longest non-stop flight in history.

Previous record was the 5,657 mi. flown in 1933 by Frenchmen Paul Codes & Maurice Rossi from New York to

Syria. Pilot Gromov and companions had covered a geographical distance o. 6,262 miles, not counting detours and backtracks. They were in the air for 62 hr. 17 min. A representative of the National Aeronautic Association shipped their sealed, clock-controlled barograph to Washington. A California fruit inspector fearful of Russian insect pests climbed into the plane, peeked and poked, confiscated a bag of fruit.

The Gromov plane is a replica of the ANT-25 flown last month to Vancouver. It has a single, 1,000-h.p. motor, Soviet-built along the lines of the British Rolls-Royce. The crew's compartment is only four feet long, less than a yard wide. Tubal Claude Ryan, builder of Charles Lindbergh's famed Spirit of St. Louis, could not find an inch of space wasted in the record-breaking Red plane, called it a marvel of compact efficiency. Major Edison Mouton of the Aeronautic Association said: "The secondary construction including the fabric is poor. The plane is of excellent design and of light wing loading. The welding is excellent and we were astounded when we opened the motor cowl to see not one drop of oil. The motor was as clean as if it had just been wiped."

Declared purposes of the flight were 1) to set a distance record; 2) to confirm the feasibility of regular transpolar flying--i. e., to prove that the first transpolar flight was not a flash in the pan. Amid the frantic jubilation in Moscow last week, Government newspapers also took occasion to remind Germany and Japan that 6.262 miles is a far greater distance than those which separate Berlin and Tokyo from Red air bases (Vladivostok-Tokyo, 650 mi.; Leningrad-Berlin, 840 mi.).

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