San Jacinto Tutors Come To You

It was mid July 1937 when Mikhail Gromov, co-pilot Andrei B. Yumashev and navigator Sergei A. Danlin established a new non-stop flight distance record of 10148 kilometers from Moscow to San Jacinto. This occurred less than two weeks after Amelia Earhart’s round the world flight ended in her dramatic disappearance in the Pacific. Their landing in San Jacinto was unplanned and mildly anti-climatic. After successfully blazing a new polar route they had to take the unexpected forced landing straight into a cow pasture.

San Jacinto history tutors suggest that there were originally three pioneering flights scheduled to ascertain a suitable flight path for commercial travel between Russia and the United States. The single-engine ANT-25 plane that landed in San Jacinto was the second of the three Soviet flights.

Their intended destination was San Diego, but inclement weather that limited visibility made finding an alternative landing spot a necessity. After flying 6305 miles in a total flight time of over sixty hours their brakeless red aircraft with a wingspan of 125 feet touched down. Engineers had deliberately removed the breaks to make the overall weight of the aircraft lighter. They calculated that the removal of that extra weight could potentially add another 146 miles to the plane’s flight range. The flight team emerged from the cramped 3-by-4 foot fuselage exhausted and hungry. Tutors of San Jacinto often reference their use of written cards to communicate with Americans on landing. The story in common circulation says they approached a local farmer named Walter Harvey who had witnessed their landing and handed him a pre-printed letter that requested he call the Soviet Embassy. They also presented the farmer with 3 cards taken from a small stack. The cards said “Bath”, “Eat” and “Sleep”. It is said, the dairyman, Earl Smith, in whose field they landed, gave each man a full glass of milk in exchange for their autographs.

In a time where commercial air travel was unheard of, the news of Gromov’s flight really took the imagination of the public both in America and worldwide. West Coast residents literally looked to the skies hoping to catch a glimpse of the aircraft. Newly found entrepreneur Earl Smith, roped off the part of his pasture where the aircraft landed and charged an entrance fee of 25 cents for the public to come and view the plane. People flocked from near and far to see the aircraft. In the space of one week he pocketed over one thousand dollars. The much-anticipated landing was greeted by media frenzy. The triumphant trio were paraded through the towns of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Washington D.C and New York cheered on by big bustling crowds. (They received much more attention than their competing Russian flight team who had taken off sooner but had only managed to make it as far as Washington State.)