In the early morning of June 18, 1937, the navigator of the ANT-25 aircraft Belyakov made the first entry in the logbook: ‘Takeoff — 4 hours 04 minutes.’ Our eleven-ton machine took off from the concrete track of the Shchyolkovo airfield, Valery Pavlovich skillfully made this very difficult take-off! — and, slightly shaking its bright red wings, took a course to the North.

There were many challenges along the way. As soon as we reached the area of the Kola Peninsula, we faced the first cyclone. No, we were not afraid of flying in the dark, as the pilot’s instrument panel features lots of excellent instruments; but flying in the clouds is associated with icing. Back then it was a serious danger: at the time, the wings and tail surfaces on the aircraft were not equipped with anti-icing systems. The fight against the cyclone encountered in the Barents Sea was particularly costly for us. When we finally got out of it, and the plane was free of ice, but we had almost no anti-icing fluid left for the propeller.

We also had other difficulties. Assuming that the height of the upper cloud layer in the Arctic on average does not exceed 3,500 meters, we took a limited amount of oxygen with us — just enough for 8 hours, intending to use it mostly during the second half of the journey. In fact, it turned out not to be so: the cloud coverage often forced us to rise above 3,500 meters… You can imagine how hard it was for the crew at such an altitude without oxygen. By the end of the flight, there was barely enough oxygen only for Baydukov, who operated the control wheel… At last, what we saw beneath was the territory of the United States. The plane started landing. There was Vancouver Barracks Airfield near Portland. The last entry appeared in the logbook: ‘Landing at 16 hours 20 minutes, June 20, 1937.’