Aviaarktika

Aviaarktika was a Soviet airline which started operations on 1 September 1930 and was absorbed by Aeroflot on 3 January 1960.

History

Aviaarktika was the flying branch of the Department of Polar Aviation of Glavsevmorput. Its first head was Mark Shevelev and it was originally based in Krasnoyarsk. It moved to Moscow in 1932.

Aviarktika established routes along the rivers and lakes of Siberia and Northern Russia; the Ob River with a base at Omsk, on the Irtysh and Yenisei rivers, with a base at Krasnoyarsk, on the Angara near Lake Baikal at Irkutsk, and at Yakutsk on the Lena.

Fleet

Aviaarktika Tupolev ANT-4 at the Ulyanovsk Aircraft Museum

Initially Aviaarktika flew The Junkers F.13 floatplane and six Dornier Wal flying boats. By 1933 there were 42 aircraft including Ant-4 and Ant-6's.

AVIAARKTIKA Tupolev ANT-4, CCCP H-317, currently located at the Ulyanovsk Aircraft Museum in Ulyanovsk Baratayevka Airport (Central) (UWLL), is the only surviving example of the ANT-4. CCCP H-317 crash landed in Siberian tundra in 1944 and was recovered 39 years later and restored for the museum.

References

• "Aeroflot: An Airline and its Aircraft", from Paladwr Press, Oct 1992 by R.E.G. Davies, (Curator of Air Transport at the Smithsonian), ISBN 0962648310, ISBN 978-0962648311
• "Aeroflot: Soviet air transport since 1923" Putnam (1975) Hugh MacDonald, ISBN 0370001176, ISBN 978-0370001173

External links

• Soviet Arctic Aerial Exploration
• Rossica Journal Number 128-129 dated October 1997