Winged “Chervonets” with passengers: how the era of civil aviation began in the country

The situation is so familiar to almost any inhabitant of our country: he wanted to and flew. It is enough to buy a plane ticket to use the services of the fastest mode of transport. But such benefits do not exist for so long – “bird opportunities” turned out to be really available only to five or six generations of Russians. The first regular passenger flights were organized exactly 100 years ago. These air travels were very different from the current ones. Here are just a few colorful touches.

In the air “Junkers”

In the Country of Soviets, which had barely begun to recover after many years of military devastation, it was even tight with combat aviation, and there were no passenger planes at all. Therefore, after the February 9, 1923 Council of Labor and Defense of the USSR adopted a resolution that marked the beginning of civil aviation in the country (its name is very “tricky”: “On the assignment of technical supervision of air lines to the Main Directorate of the Air Fleet and on the organization of the Council for civil aviation”), it was decided to establish a special joint-stock company “Dobrolyot” – “Russian Society of Voluntary Air Fleet”. The sale of shares issued by him made it possible to raise the amount necessary for the purchase of imported winged equipment.

In total, a batch of 14 Junkers F-13 aircraft was ordered from the well-known German company Junkers. By mid-July, the first four such vehicles arrived in Moscow. Each of them received a personal name: “Prombank”, “Chervonets”, “VSHV” (All-Union Council of the National Economy) and “ODVF” (Society of Friends of the Air Fleet).

According to the technical specifications, each such “Junkers” was designed for 8 people – two crew members (pilot and mechanic) and six passengers. However, in real conditions, it was decided to carry no more than four passengers, and reserve the remaining unused payload for baggage.

The bosses rolled “with the breeze”

The very first air route, on which regular flights with passengers on board were organized in the summer of 1923, was the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod line. This choice is not accidental: the next annual fair was just taking place in this largest Volga city.

The first “dobroletovsky” flight to Nizhny took place on July 15. The plane “Prombank” took off from the capital, from the airfield on Khodynka field at 11.00. And in less than three hours he landed in Nizhny Novgorod. The passengers of flight No. 1 were not ordinary people, but entirely “responsible comrades”. Among them – the chairman of the board of “Dobrolyot” Alexander Krasnoshchekov, a member of the board of this joint-stock company Ignatius Dzevaltovsky, the head of the airline Anikin.

Why does an airplane need a railroad?

Passenger “Junkers” flew along a route of 420 kilometers with a cruising speed of about 140 km / h, at an altitude of 250-300 meters. Due to the aircraft’s lack of appropriate navigation equipment, the crew had to orient themselves along the way by characteristic objects on the ground. The most convenient sign in this sense was the railway line connecting Moscow with Nizhny. It was along it that the Junkers of the Dobrolet began to fly. Additional landmarks were also large rivers and settlements encountered on the route.

It is clear that under such conditions, flights could be operated during daylight hours and in good weather. Before each flight, information about it was collected “manually”: from Moscow they called, for example, telephone operators on duty on the long-distance communication line in Vladimir, Kovrov, Nizhny Novgorod, and asked them what was happening in the sky over these cities.

The price of pleasure is 120 million

The novelty of public passenger transport, which appeared in the country, was widely advertised. Here is an example of such an advertisement from a century ago.

“Air communication Moscow – Nizhny Novgorod in a comfortable cabin of a 6-seater Junkers metal aircraft … Flight 2 ½ hours instead of 16 hours by rail. Payment 120 mil. rubles for one end.

Departure:

From Moscow: at 9 am. From Nizhny: at 7 pm. Monday Wednesday Friday.

Baggage: 20 pounds – free of charge; over 20 – 15 million per pood, but not more than one pood per passenger; 4 poods are paid as a ticket for 1 person (120 million).

Advantage and discount for those who buy subscription tickets. The number of places is limited.

Landing in Moscow: Khodynka, opposite the Petrovsky Palace, pavilion of the former. Dux…”

Closed for autumn

The first regular passenger airline operated until September 22, 1923 – just over two months. Transportation on it was stopped after the closing of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. The point is not only the disappearance of the flow of wealthy “noble” passengers – guests and participants of the fair, but also the inevitable worsening of the weather with the advent of autumn, and this factor, as already mentioned, was of paramount importance for the work of pilots in the air. However, even after September 22, the Junkers nevertheless made several more “raids” between the capital and the largest city of the Volga region, but each such flight was carried out only on a special assignment – these flights can be called “literal”.

In total, Chervonets, VSNKh, Prombank and ODVF performed 94 flights in two months of regular flights. The winged vehicles transported by air between the two Russian cities almost 240 passengers who bought tickets, and about 2 tons of cargo and mail.

The indicators, of course, are modest, but the worst of it is the beginning! Already in the autumn of the same year, the Council of Labor and Defense approved a plan for the development of air passenger traffic in the Soviet Union for 1924-1926. According to him, during this period, airlines with a total length of more than 6,000 kilometers should be opened. And not only in the European part of the country, but also in Siberia, Central Asia, Transcaucasia … The winged vehicles were to fly, for example, along the routes Moscow – Petrograd, Kazan – Saratov, Baku – Tiflis, Tashkent – Alma-Ata …

And a few years later, in the spring of 1929, foreign equipment, which until then served passenger lines on the territory of the USSR, had a competitor of domestic production. The first serial Soviet passenger aircraft ANT-9, designed by our famous aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev, successfully debuted in the air.