This year Russian Air Force Day will be celebrated August 21. The reason for this is that in 1992 a decree was issued by the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation: this day should be celebrated on the third Sunday of the third summer month.
The basis for this is a rather tentative link to two dates. On August 12, 1912, Nicolas II signed a decree subordinating all aviation structures in the military to the Main Directorate of the General Staff. And during Soviet times, Air Force Day was celebrated on August 18 for no apparent reason.
So Air Force Day is basically celebrated August 12, depending on the day of the week.
So why do I bring this up in the month of March?
On March 21, 1910, in Odessa the Russian pilot Mikhail Efimov completed the first public flight over the territory of Russia. Wouldn’t this be a compelling reason for celebrating the air force on this day?
So this is how it happened. At the equestrian grounds of the local racing society a large crowd of curious onlookers gathered starting early in the morning. It’s hard to say now just how many people were there, but the scale of the event can be extrapolated from the following figures: 400 policemen and 8000 soldiers from the Odessa garrison were called out that day to ensure public order at the event.
Efimov took off at around five in the evening, circled twice around the track and landed. But he wasn’t satisfied with that. Efimov on his Farman-designed aircraft made another two flights but with passengers aboard.
This was no coincidence. By that time Efimov had gained some notoriety in Europe. The son of a Odessa worker and mechanic by education, Mikhail Efimov was the first Russian aviator to receive a diploma the professional flight school in Europe.
A little while later he was invited to be the chief instructor at the flying school near Sevastopol, which later became renowned as the Kachinskoye Aviation College. The school opened in fall of 1910. A year earlier a flight training school for military officers had opened near St. Petersburg in Gatchina.
Today they say that it was on August 12, 1912, that the emperor created the air force military unit. But this doesn’t hold true, as today and during the Russian Empire all military educational institutions are considered military units.
And there is another reason for remembering Russian aviation on this day. It is no coincidence that the public nature of the flight in 1910 is emphasized. In 1882 at the air field in Kransnoye Selo, where officers of the Aviation School trained, high level officials of the military ministry and representatives of the Russian Technical Society gathered for a super-secret meeting. There on a specially laid track was the “Firebird”. An airplane that was invented, built and named as such by the Russian navy officer Alexander Mozhaisky. The 57-year-old captain was forbidden from test flying the device, as he was considered to old. At the helm of this one ton airplane was the mechanic Golubev.
For some reason mass literature records the flight as a failure. But we should ask: is it really a failure if the airplane lifted off, flew some distance and landed, albeit with damage to the left wind? Even the flight speed of 11 meters per second was recorded.
Regardless of what the actual distance was flown, it is clear that Alexander Mozhaisky was the first to show the world that it truly is possible to create a machine that is both heavier than air and capable of flying!
March 21, 2011, marks the 186th anniversary of the birth of this remarkable person, Alexander Mozhaisky.
The son of a sailor, Mozhaisky graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps and served as a midshipman in the Baltic fleet. Up until 1852 he served on sailing ships, but then he lucked out and was assigned to one of the first steam-powered vessels of the Russian navy. It was aboard this ship that he was able to study the steam engine, and 20 years later this experience helped him in creating the airplane.
But before this Mozhaisky managed to sail to Japan, where the ship he was on suffered from an earthquake. Later, having returned to Russia, he fought in campaigns in Central Asia, commanded the steam clipper Vsadnik…
It was only after a long and diverse service in the navy that in 1863 received the opportunity to try his skills as an inventor. His first substantial results in this were demonstrated in Krasnoye Selo in 1882.
But Mozhaisky was not allowed to complete his work on this project, which was clouded with secrecy and became a victim of pseudo-political considerations. He was simply given a promotion to the rank of Rear Admiral and forgotten.
The Wright Brothers managed to take off on their Flyer some 21 years later.
But Rear Admiral Mozhaisky had long since passed away, dying on March 20, 1890, according to the Old Style.
But, of course, August 21 is a fine day. Warm. Sunny. Good time for vacation. And people have gotten used to it, just as they are accustomed to the Wright brothers as achievers of the first heavier-than-air flying contraption.
Mikhail Bykov
