Sergei Ilyushin

(in Russian, S. V. Il’iushin). Born Mar. 18 (30), 1894, in the village of Dilialevo, Vologda Province. Soviet aircraft designer; academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1968), colonel general of the engineer service (1967), twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1941, 1957). Member of the CPSU since 1918.

Ilyushin began working as an aviation mechanic in 1916. He has been in the Red Army since 1918, first as an aviation mechanic and then as a military commissar; in 1921 he became the chief of an aircraft repair train. He graduated from the N. E. Zhukovskii Air Force Engineering Academy in 1926. In 1931 he organized and became the chief of a design office that developed attack, bombardment, and passenger aircraft. Ilyushin designed and built many types of airplanes. His first combat airplanes, the TsKB-26, TsKB-30, and TsKB-30F, set world altitude records with various loads and in 1938–39 made nonstop flights from Moscow to the Vladivostok region and to Miscou Island in North America. The multipurpose U-4 airplane was the basic long-range bomber and torpedo carrier in the Great Patriotic War (1941–45). Ilyushin’s 11–2 armored attack airplane inaugurated a new class of combat aviation and gave rise to a new tactic for its use. The 11–8 (1943), 11–10 (1943), and 11–16 attack airplanes and the 11–40, the first jet attack airplane in the history of aviation, were built subsequently. With respect to the development of bombardment aviation, the 11–4 was followed by the 11–6 (1943), the experimental 11–22 jet (1946), and the 11–28 (1948), the first Soviet jet bomber, which went into lot production. The 11–12 and 11–14 passenger airplanes were produced in 1946 and 1951. The large turboprop 11–18 (1957) became the basic passenger airplane, and the turbofan transcontinental 11–62 (1962) subsequently became the flagship of Aeroflot.

Ilyushin created not only several passenger and military airplanes but also his own school of aircraft design. He was deputy to the first through seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He received the State Prize of the USSR in 1941, 1942, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1950, and 1952 and the Lenin Prize in 1960. He has been awarded seven Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, five other orders, and medals.