Yakovlev, Alexander Sergeevich

Family

Born March 19 ( April 1 ), 1906 in Moscow , in the family of an employee. Russian ^[1] Father - Sergey Vasilievich, graduated from the Moscow Alexander School of Commerce. After graduation, he served in the transport department of the Nobel Brotherhood Partnership oil company. Mother - Nina Vladimirovna, a housewife. The Yakovlev family comes from the serfs of Count Dmitriev-Mamonov . Alexander Sergeyevich’s grandfather - Vasily Afanasevich kept a candle shop in Moscow at the Ilyinsky Gate and had a contract for lighting chandeliers of the Bolshoi Theater ^[2] .

" CERTIFICATE of the Yaroslavl Province , Rybinsk Uyezd , the parish of the Village of Spasskago, on the Volga, the former estate of Count Dmitriyev-Mamonov, the village of Poltinin, by the peasant Kharlampey Nikolaev (by the name of Yakovlev), eighteen-eighteen eighteen eighteen eighteen eighteen eighteen eighteen eighteen eighteen eighteen eighteen are born on April 25. The peasant Ivan Egorov was the same receiver at the baptism of the same patrimony and village. The very Afanasy Kharlampiev (Yakovlev), one thousand eight hundred and thirty-seventh of 1837, June 9, was married at the Spasovolga Church for the first marriage to the Moscow bourgeois girl Alexandra Filipova (nee Baskakova). This last birth was one thousand eight hundred and seventeen of the year 1817, March 7 days from the peasant b. Khlebnikov Village Spasskago Philip Kirilov (Baskakova). At the time of her baptism, the wife of Khristina Danilova, the farmer of the village, Pavel Kirilov, was also the receiver. All this information is taken from the Metric books kept by the Church; in fidelity of which, with the application of the Church Press, I testify to the Church of the Spasskago Village, on the Volga, Priest Peter Vasiliev Razumov. August 6, 1843 ” ^[2] .

Wife - Mednikova Ekaterina Matveevna. The youngest son is Yakovlev Alexander Alexandrovich (daughter - Yakovleva Ekaterina Aleksandrovna). The eldest son is Sergey Alexandrovich Yakovlev (he has two sons from different wives).

Career

In 1919-1922 he worked as a courier , continuing to study at school. Since 1922 he built flying aircraft models in a school mug. In the 1920s, Yakovlev was one of the founders of Soviet aircraft modeling , gliding and sports aviation .

In 1924, Alexander Yakovlev built his first aircraft - the AVF-10 glider , which was awarded as one of the best Soviet gliders in all-Union competitions. Yakovlev released his first aircraft AIR-1. Since then, May 12, 1927, the day of the first flight of AIR-1, is considered the date of birth of the Design Bureau A.S. Yakovleva.

In 1924 - 1927, Yakovlev worked first as a worker, then as an mechanic in the flight detachment of the VVIA named after N. E. Zhukovsky . Despite numerous requests and appeals, he was not taken to the academy, due to “non-proletarian origin” ^[2] . In 1927, Yakovlev built a light aircraft AIR-1 .

In 1927 he was enrolled in the N.E. Zhukovsky Academy, which he graduated in 1931 . In 1931 he entered the engineer at the aircraft factory number 39 named. Menzhinsky , where in August 1932 he organized a group of light aircraft.

On January 15, 1934, Yakovlev became the head of the production and design bureau of the Special Aviation Industry Aviation Industry, in 1935 - 1956 he was the chief designer. Member of the CPSU (b) since 1938 .

From January 11, 1940 to 1946, he was simultaneously Deputy Commissar of the aviation industry for new technology, and from March 1946, Deputy Minister of Aviation Industry (for general issues). In July 1946, resigned as deputy minister of his own free will:

In the summer of 1946, due to my great employment in the design bureau, I decided to ask for my release from the duties of deputy minister (by this time the people's commissariats had already been transformed into ministries) of the aviation industry. This required the consent of Stalin. I was worried, not knowing how he would react to my request.
On July 8, 1946, Stalin summoned me and Minister Mikhail Vasilyevich Khrunichev . (...)
- Why? - Stalin was surprised, addressing me.
I said that I had been working in the People’s Commissariat for a long time, and that while the war was on and immediately after its end, I did not consider it possible to raise the question of leaving. But now that the foundations of the post-war restructuring of our aviation on the basis of jet aircraft have been determined, I ask you to satisfy my request. It is very difficult to combine design and ministerial work, and if I continue to remain in the ministry, I will inevitably leave behind as a designer. I beg you not to understand my request as desertion and to relieve me from work in the ministry. It will only be useful for business. After all, I am a constructor.
“I have no doubt about the fact that you are a constructor,” said Stalin, and after thinking a little, he said:
“Perhaps you are right.” First of all, you are a constructor and it would be unreasonable to lose you as a constructor. How many years have you been working in the ministry?
- Yes, for more than six years.
- Well, enough of it? - he turned to Khrunichev. - And with whom to replace?
I called Sergey Nikolayevich Shishkin , who was in the Ministry my deputy and the head of TsAGI. (...)

The next day I received two documents signed by Stalin. One is about awarding me the rank of colonel general, the other is a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR as follows:

"The Council of Ministers of the Union of SSR DECIDES:
Satisfy the request of Comrade A. Yakovlev for his dismissal from the post of Deputy Minister of Aviation Industry for general issues, in connection with his great design work to create new aircraft.
For six years of leadership at the Ministry of Aviation Industry, along with personal design work, thank Comrade A. Yakovlev.
Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR

I. Stalin
Head of the Council of Ministers of the USSR

Y. Chadayev . ”

Now I could devote all my time and energy to design work, although I was not completely relieved of work in the ministry: I was retained the post of chairman of the scientific council.

- A.S. Yakovlev. The purpose of life. Ch. "All is well that ends well"

From 1956 to 1984 - General Designer of the Yakovlev Design Bureau .

In total, the Design Bureau has created over 200 types and modifications of aircraft, including more than 100 serial:

• light aircraft for various purposes: sports, multi-purpose, including jet
• World War II fighters
• first Soviet jet fighters and interceptors
• landing gliders and helicopters, including the largest Yak-24 helicopter in the world in the 1950s
• family of supersonic aircraft , including the first Soviet supersonic bombers, reconnaissance and interceptors
• the first short and vertical take-off and landing aircraft in the USSR, including supersonic , which has no analogues
• jet passenger aircraft
• unmanned aerial vehicles

Colonel General of Aviation (from 1984; from 1946 to 1951 - Colonel General of the Engineering Service, from 1951 to 1984 - Colonel General of the Aviation Engineering Service). Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR ( 1976 ; corresponding member since 1943 ).

Since 1934, OKB aircraft have been continuously in large-scale production and operation. In total, more than 70 thousand Yak aircraft were built, including more than 40 thousand aircraft during the Great Patriotic War , in particular 2/3 of all fighters were Yakovlev aircraft. Aircraft Design Bureau awarded Lenin, State and six Stalin Prizes. They are widely used in our country and abroad. A. S. Yakovlev handed over the Stalin Prize of the first degree (150,000 rubles) in March 1943 to the Defense Fund for the construction of a fighter for the best pilot of the Soviet Air Force.

He died on August 22, 1989 . He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery (plot number 11).

Under the leadership of Yakovlev, OKB 115 produced over 200 types and modifications of aircraft, including more than 100 serial ones. Since 1932, OKB aircraft have been continuously in large-scale production and operation. Over 70 years, 70,000 Yak aircraft were built ^[3] . During World War II, 40,000 Yak aircraft were built for the front. On planes of Yakovlev Design Bureau 74 world records were set.

On Yakovlev’s planes during the Great Patriotic War flew:

• Soviet pilot ace A. I. Pokryshkin - for a very short time, preferring the all-metal P-39 Airacobra
• Normandie-Niemen regiment pilots
• twice Hero of the Soviet Union Arseniy Vasilyevich Vorozheykin - 46 out of 52 shot down planes (6 on I-16 on Khalkhin-Gol )
• Koldunov Alexander Ivanovich 46 victories and Savitsky Yevgeny Yakovlevich (22), the latter being the only flying commander of the air corps (even some regiment commanders did not fly in the Red Army after 41 years).

A. S. Yakovlev was in a special trusting relationship with I.V. Stalin . In his memoirs, Yakovlev leads the following dialogue with him:

From the beginning of the summer of 1939, Stalin began to call me for advice on aviation matters. At first, I was confused by the frequent calls to the Kremlin for a confidential discussion of important issues, especially when Stalin directly asked:
- What do you say on this issue, what do you think?
He sometimes perplexed me, finding out the opinion about this or that employee.
Seeing my predicament, embarrassment and wanting to encourage, he said:
- Say what you think, and do not be embarrassed - we believe you, although you are young ^[4] . You are an expert in your field, you are not connected with the mistakes of the past and therefore you can be more objective than the old specialists, whom we very much believed, and they led us into the swamp with aviation.
It was then that he told me:

“We don't know who to believe.”

- A.S. Yakovlev. The purpose of life. Chapter "The First Fighter"

These relations after the death of I.V. Stalin caused attacks on Yakovlev by some of his colleagues who suffered from repressions . So, for example, the designer L. Kerber wrote:

“All of us were tormented by the question, who contributed to the arrest of Tupolev? This question still worries many aircraft workers ... There is no doubt that without Stalin’s sanction there could not be an arrest, but in order to get it, the authorities needed to accumulate materials ... The most active informant about the “dubious” aspects of Tupolev’s activity was A. S. Yakovlev. He had his own original method: denunciations are generously scattered throughout the pages of his books. Further facts are borrowed from them. Scattered - they do not convince Tupolev of the malicious intentions. When combined, they look different ” ^[5] .

It should be noted that Kerber in this case is clearly mistaken, since Tupolev was arrested on October 21, 1937 , and Yakovlev was only summoned to the Kremlin in 1939; Yakovlev began to write books only in the postwar years. Therefore, denunciations could not be "scattered" on their pages.

Yakovlev understood that in the post of deputy People's Commissar for experimental aircraft construction, he could become an object for accusations of bias and “overwriting” other aircraft designers ^[6] .

This subsequently happened. It was claimed (in more detail below) that Yakovlev, fearing competition, “curtailed” some possibly promising works of other aircraft designers, among which SK-1 and SK-2 M.R. Bisnovata , RK-800 (Expandable wing 800 km / h) are mentioned G.I. Bakshaev ( 1940 ) and so on. Constructor A. S. Moskalyov in his memoirs ^[7] blames Yakovlev for stopping work on his projects for the super-light fighter SAM-13 (spring 1941 ) and supersonic RM-1 (1946).

Especially often in modern sources ^{[8] [9] [10] the} "fatal" role of Yakovlev in the fate of the I-180 , I-185 fighters designed by N. N. Polikarpov is approved. This version seems dubious simply because of a date mismatch. Yakovlev could not be responsible for the problems of the I-180 program in 1939 , since during this period he had no relation to the leadership of the aviation industry of the USSR and served as chief designer of a small design bureau of plant No. 115 ^[11] . The version about Yakovlev’s opposition to I-185 works also does not find documentary evidence; Moreover, Yakovlev’s letter to A. I. Shakhurin dated March 4, 1943 with a recommendation urgently to begin mass production of this aircraft is known:

“The situation with our fighter aircraft is of great concern. Our serial fighters, which have advantages in flight performance over enemy fighters known to us up to a height of 3000 mtr, at all altitudes above 3000 mtr, and the higher the more they are inferior to enemy fighters.
It should be expected that by the beginning of summer the enemy will be able to create small groups of lightweight Messerschmitt-109-G2 and Fokke-Wulf-190 fighters, with which it will be difficult for our serial fighters to fight even at altitudes from the ground up to 3000 mt. The experience of the air war over Stalingrad shows that the appearance of even two dozen Messerschmitt with higher qualities in comparison with our serial fighters had an extremely serious impact on the combat effectiveness of our fighter units; therefore, I believe that it is necessary immediately, without wasting a minute, to report this issue to the State Committee of Defense and obtain permission to build by the beginning of summer two or three dozen fighters with flight and combat qualities that obviously exceed those of possible improved enemy fighters, for parry the actions of enemy strike fighter units.
For this purpose, it is necessary to immediately begin mass production of I-185 fighters, as well as Yak aircraft with M-107-A engines, so that by May they give the front at least 20-30 aircraft of each type. I-185 and Yak aircraft with the M-107A engine, having approximately the same speed of 570-590 km / h at the ground and 680 km / h at an altitude of 6000 mtr, should provide absolute superiority over possible modifications of the improved enemy fighters.
Apparently, this question has not yet acquired the necessary urgency for the reason that the Air Force did not, apparently, realize the seriousness of the situation with fighter aircraft and does not require its specific resolution. In particular, it is possible that at any moment over any of our cities within 200 kilometers of the front, enemy bombers will appear accompanied by Messerschmitt-109-G fighters, which will carry out bombing with impunity in broad daylight from a height of 6,000 mt. and we will not be able to provide any kind of resistance, thanks to the significant superiority of enemy fighters at this altitude over ours, which are in service with serial fighters, we will not be able to.

I emphasize the urgent need to immediately report this issue to the State Defense Committee ” ^[12]

It should also be noted that as Deputy People's Commissar Yakovlev dealt with issues of pilot aircraft construction, while two other deputies, P.V. Dementiev and P.A. Voronin, were in charge of serial production.

A. Yakovlev is the author of the following books:

• Stories of an aircraft designer. - M., 1957 .
• 50 years of Soviet aircraft construction. - M., 1968 .
• The purpose of life (notes of an aircraft designer). Ed. 2nd, supplemented. - M .: Publishing house of political literature, 1969 . - 623 p. with silt.
• Soviet aircraft. Ed. 3rd - M., 1979.

• twice Hero of Socialist Labor (10.28.1940 medal No. 7; 12.7.1957)
• ten orders of Lenin (04.4.1939; 10.28.1940; 6.9.1942; 25.5.1944; 2.7.1945; 11.15.1950; 31.3.1956; 31.3.1966; 23.6.1981; 17.8.1984)
• Order of the October Revolution (04/26/1971)
• two orders of the Red Banner (3.11.1944; 10.26.1955)
• Order of Suvorov I degree (09.16.1945)
• Order of Suvorov, II degree (08.19.1944)
• Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree (10.6.1945)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labor (09.17.1975)
• Order of the Red Star (08.17.1933)
• Stalin Prize of the first degree ( 1941 ) - for the development of a new aircraft structure ("Yak-1")
• Stalin Prize of the first degree ( 1942 ) - for the development of a new aircraft design.
• Stalin Prize of the first degree ( 1943 ) - for the modification and improvement of combat aircraft
• The Stalin Prize of the first degree ( 1946 ) - for the development of the design of the new Yakovlev-3 fighter aircraft and the radical improvement of the Yakovlev-9 fighter
• Stalin Prize of the first degree ( 1947 ) - for the development of the design of a new model of a combat aircraft
• Stalin Prize of the first degree ( 1948 ) - for the creation of a new type of combat aircraft
• Lenin Prize ( 1972 )
• USSR State Prize ( 1977 )
• Order of the Legion of Honor “Officer” ( fr. Officier de l'Ordre national de la Légion d'Honneur ) ^[13] ;
• FAI Gold Aviation Medal (1967).

• In Moscow, in the Aviators Park, a bronze bust of Yakovlev was installed.
• The name of Yakovlev is:
  • Experimental Design Bureau 115 (OKB 115)
  • Moscow Engineering Plant "Speed" ;
  • Aircraft Designer Yakovlev Street (formerly 2nd Usievich Street) in the Airport area (since 2006) in the CAO of Moscow;
  • street in Novorossiysk .
  • street in Ulan-Ude .

•  

  The grave of Yakovlev at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow

•  

  Bust of Yakovlev in Moscow

•  

  Coupon to the sheet of Postage stamps of Russia, 2006

• OKB named after Yakovlev

• Smirnov G. Stories about weapons. - M .: Detlit, 1976.
• Yakubovich N.V. Unknown Yakovlev: “Iron” aircraft designer. - M .: Yauza, Eksmo , 2012 .-- 672 p. - (War and we. Aircraft designers). - 3000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-699-54759-3

• Yakovlev, Alexander Sergeevich (Russian) . Site " Heroes of the country ".
• “The purpose of life” - memoirs of A. S. Yakovlev
• Anthology Yak
• Yakovlev Alexander Sergeevich
• Yakovlev Alexander Sergeevich
• Great Russian inventors
• Documentary Interview “The Purpose of Life” about Alexander Yakovlev