Mikhail Vodopyanov
Soviet air force general (1899-1980)
Mikhail Vasilyevich Vodopyanov (Russian: Михаил Васильевич Водопьянов; 18 November [O.S. 6 November] 1899 – 11 August 1980) was a Soviet aircraft pilot, one of the first Heroes of the Soviet Union, and a Major General of the Soviet Air Force. Together with Mikhail Babushkin, he was the first to land an airplane on the North Pole.
Biography
He was born on 18 November (6 November Old Style) 1899 in Bolshiye Studyonki village (now part of Lipetsk) in Tambov Governorate. He volunteered for the Red Army in 1919 and took part in the Russian Civil War. Initially, he was a driver in an air unit. From 1925 he trained as an aircraft mechanic, and in 1928 he became a pilot himself. He then worked in state commercial aviation on long distances, first flying to Sakhalin. From 1931 he also worked for the Pravda newspaper, distributing its matrix from Moscow to other cities by the air.
In 1934, he participated in the Arctic rescue operation of the crew of the sunken steamship Cheliuskin on the frozen Chukchi Sea, making a historical 5,800 kilometres (3,600 mi) flight from Khabarovsk to Vankarem, being the first to fly across the Chukotka Mountains. Vodopyanov was awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union for this deed on April 20, 1934, as one of the 7 first recipients of the title.
“Mikhail Vodopyanov” enters the record as soviet air force general (1899-1980). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mikhail, Vodopyanov and Soviet can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q923787. VIAF identifies the subject as 88126546. The Library of Congress control number is no99013098. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1899, 1980, 1919 and 1925.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mikhail Vodopyanov” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.