Talk:Tupolev ANT-25

Distance from San Jacinto to Panama
The article states that once the Ant 25 landed in San Jacinto, still had enough fuel to reach Panama and set this distance in about 1500 km, when the real distance between San Jacinto and Panama City is about 4,713 km.

This supports my contention - see "Authenticity" below - that the article needs some editing to report the claims more circumspectly - using words such as "claimed record" "alleged non-stop flight" etc. It seems to me that the US authorities at the time were willing to buy in to the claims - because of the need to keep in with Stalin perhaps, and then later, parks authorities went and put up plaques etc. - so there may have been some red faces at suggestions that the records were rigged. Well, the planes and crews turned up in the USA somehow or other, but the details of their journeys there may well have been massaged. This is purely speculation on my part of course, and because Wiki likes things cited, we need somebody to do a bit of digging to find published commentary that is a bit more skeptical than the present Article, but not crazy "flat earth" stuff either. Any volunteers? I'm working mainly on other stuff at present. Dendrotek 20:57, 25 April 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dendrotek (talk • contribs)

In 1983, Bob Morrison and Mary Ellen Eterno, Vancouver citizens, raised questions about the authenticity of the June 18 - 20, 1937 flight from Russia. They suggested that the flight might actually have started (or perhaps staged) from a remote part of Alaska. They do not appear to have made such an over-reactive issue of the matter as “Heretical Press” does, and despite their skepticism, they retained a friendly attitude towards the current Russia of 1983. Their objections may be cited – e.g. Ellensburg Daily Record, a Canadian newspaper: url = http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=860&dat=19831024&id=dYRUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=C48DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4010,2099635

I propose that this should form the basis for a new section in this Article. I am more interested in the human aspects of this story than in the aviation enthusiasts’ aircraft details, which seem to drive most of this article at present, and I guess some other Wikipedia readers may be interested in that, too. Something is required to satisfy NPOV.

There is also the issue of the book “Red Arctic: Polar Exploration and the Myth of the North in the Soviet Union, 1932-1939” by John McCannon, 1998. I have not read it and will not buy it. I may see if I can borrow it from a library. But meanwhile, from what I can tell from the reviews, McCannon’s thesis is to explain WHY the polar flights were important to Soviet Russia and especially to Stalin and what he terms the “Gulag culture.” But he does NOT, as far as I’m aware, question the actual authenticity of the non-stop aspects of them. Why not? Dendrotek 21:18, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Stalin's Sokols?
Would Stalin's Falcons be a more normal translation of this?Nigel Ish (talk) 19:02, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * There's a fine disambig page for Sokol, which states it's a Slavic word for 'falcon', so the translation is not really needed. --Yuriy Lapitskiy ~ 20:49, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Vickers Wellesley
How could the mentioned Vickers Wellesley aircraft possibly fly non stop 7000 miles if its maximum range, mentioned in the article about it, is 1300? Wasn't that just journalist hoax of the time?84.52.101.196 (talk) 15:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It was not a hoax - the record was homologated by the FAI as recorded in reliable sources - the record breaking aircraft carried a lot more fuel than the standard bomber - the take-of weight on the record flight was 18400 lb (3864 kg) compared with a normal gross weight of 11,100 lb (5045 kg).Nigel Ish (talk) 17:17, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Authenticity of Russian long-distance flights
Should it be noted somewhere in this Article that some commentators have questioned the authenticity of certain Soviet long-distance flight claims? See "Robert J. Morrison's book, apparently self-published in 1987, then published in Britain by Robert Hale Ltd., London." http://www.heretical.com/miscella/rstofame.html

Personally, "Heretical" looks a bit - well putting it politely, obsessive! - But on the other hand, the reported fates of the crews, under Stalin's dictatorship, also is not exactly reassuring.

I'm not going to alter the article yet, but await any further opinions posted here. Dendrotek 12:37, 17 March 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dendrotek (talk • contribs)

Flight log book
FYI, facsimile of Chkalov's flight log book with charts is available at. Retired electrician (talk) 23:17, 25 February 2023 (UTC)