Today, the Sukhoi Design Bureau is 80 years old - one of the best aircraft design bureaus in Russia, whose history goes back to the Soviet period. The legendary Su planes, which are in demand all over the world, are the main product of the design bureau.
The first steps of the legendary KB
The end of the 1930s was a very serious and responsible period for our country. Industrialization proceeded by leaps and bounds: more and more new enterprises were built, new types of equipment, civil and military equipment were produced. The leadership of the USSR paid special attention to the development of aviation.
Realizing perfectly well that in a probable war, aviation would be destined to play one of the key roles, the Soviet leadership directed all its forces not only to strengthen the air force, but also to improve scientific and technological developments in aircraft construction. On July 29, 1939, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was published. In accordance with it, a team of aircraft designers from the Moscow Aviation Plant No. 156 was transferred to Kharkov, where it was to begin serial production of Su-2 aircraft.
However, the history of KB began, in fact, nine years earlier. In October 1930, Pavel Osipovich Sukhoi headed the brigade No. 4 of the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI), in which the formation of the design team began. In the period from 1930 to 1939. the designers developed the I-4 and I-14 serial fighters, the I-8 and DIP experienced fighters, the RD record aircraft (the famous flights of Valery Chkalov and Mikhail Gromov were made on it), the DB-2 long-range bomber, and the Su-2 short-range bomber.
The first decade of the design bureau's existence fell on the most difficult and dramatic years. Two years after the creation of the bureau, the Great Patriotic War began. But the designers evacuated to Perm continued their work. Only in the period from 1940 to 1942. 893 Su-2s were produced, which successfully solved the combat missions assigned to them on the air front of the Great Patriotic War. After returning from evacuation, the design bureau continued to work in Tushino near Moscow.
Victory over Nazi Germany did not mean that the Soviet Union lost its opponents. On the contrary, since 1946, yesterday's allies in the anti-Hitler coalition have become a new likely collective enemy of the Soviet state. And in order to preserve the country's defense capability, more and more solutions were required in the field of aircraft construction.
During 1945-1949. Sukhoi's design bureau continued its work, then there was a short break - from 1949 to 1953, when, after the Su-15 plane crash, the management decided to liquidate the design bureau. But in May 1953, two months after the death of Joseph Stalin, the work of the designers under the leadership of Sukhoi was restored - now they worked at OKB-1, the production base of which was the 51st plant.
Father-developer "Su"
The activities of any aircraft design bureau cannot be considered in isolation from the personality of the chief designer - a person who determines not only the direction of technical developments, but also the general line of development and work of the design bureau. Therefore, design bureaus are called by the names of their leaders: Tupolev, Ilyushin, Sukhoi.
Pavel Osipovich Sukhoi's path to aviation began even before the revolution. He was born on July 22, 1895 in the family of a teacher of a rural school in the village of Glubokoe, Disna district, Vilna province of the Russian Empire. When in 1900 the father of the future aircraft designer Osip Andreevich was offered to head the school for the children of railway employees, the family moved to Gomel.
In 1905, Pavel entered the Gomel men's gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1914 with a silver medal. Already in his gymnasium years, Pavel Sukhoi became interested in aviation - many young men at that time were under the impression of the flights of the aviator Sergei Utochkin, who also conducted his tours in Gomel.
Pavel dreamed of entering the Imperial Higher Technical School in Moscow, where they taught the basics of aeronautics, but due to bureaucratic delays he could not enter (he was refused admission because copies were presented, not originals of documents). Then Pavel Sukhoi entered the Faculty of Mathematics of Moscow University, and a year later he entered the Imperial Higher Technical School. There he joined the Aeronautics Circle, organized by Nikolai Zhukovsky.
When Pavel Sukhoi reached draft age in 1915, he was mobilized for military service and sent to the School of Warrant Officers. So Pavel Osipovich ended up on the Western Front, where he served in the artillery. After the revolution, Sukhoi returned to Moscow, but found the school closed. Then Pavel returned to Gomel, for some time worked as a teacher at a school in the city of Luninets in the west of Belarus, where he married a French teacher Sofia Tenchinskaya.
But, fleeing the advancing Polish troops, the family returned to Gomel, and in 1921 Sukhoi went to Moscow to continue his studies at the Technical School. By this time, the teacher and senior friend of Pavel Sukhoi, Nikolai Zhukovsky, headed the Institute of Engineers of the Red Air Fleet, and then the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute. But in March 1921 Zhukovsky died.
Sukhoi wrote his thesis under the guidance of Andrei Tupolev, Zhukovsky's closest associate. In March 1925, Sukhoi defended his diploma on the topic: "Single-seat fighter with a 300 horsepower engine." After that, as expected, Sukhoi continued to work in the design bureau of Andrey Tupolev, became deputy chief designer, and then headed his own design bureau.
The Cold War years. Golden era "Su"
After the Sukhoi Design Bureau was restored in 1953, the designers under the leadership of Pavel Osipovich continued to work on various modifications of the Su. Su aircraft quickly became a real brand.
In September 1955, the front-line fighter S-1 took off for the first time, and in 1957 its serial production under the name "Su-7" began. Over the course of 15 years, more than 1,800 Su-7 aircraft have been produced. The fighter was delivered to 9 countries of the world. Then the T-3 fighter-interceptor was designed, which became the prototype of the Su-9 and Su-11 interceptors. Aircraft of this type throughout the 1960s remained the fastest in Soviet military aviation and were in service with the USSR Air Force until the 1980s.
Then, in May 1962, the T-58 all-weather interceptor made its maiden flight, which entered serial production as the Su-15. About 1,500 aircraft of this type were produced. In August 1966, the first flight of the C-21I was made - for the first time in the history of Russian aviation, this aircraft had a variable sweep wing. On the basis of the prototype, serial production of the Su-17 fighter-bomber began.
In 1962, the Sukhoi Design Bureau began work on the creation of a long-range shock-reconnaissance complex T-4 "Sotka". On August 22, 1972, the first flight of a prototype was made. For the first time in the world aircraft construction, a welded airframe made of titanium and high-strength steels, a high-temperature ultra-high-pressure hydraulic system, multi-cylinder hydraulic drives for steering surfaces were used, and a fly-by-wire control system was installed.
The designers set the aircraft speed up to 3200 km / h. At that time, not only no fighter in the world had such a speed, but also the vast majority of guided missiles. It would seem that the success of the brainchild of Sukhoi was assured. But in October 1974, the OKB was forced to stop testing the new aircraft. Later it became known that the aircraft was competing with the developments of the Tupolev Design Bureau, which led to the decision of the higher authorities to terminate the experimental flights.
On September 15, 1975, 80-year-old Pavel Osipovich Sukhoi, the chief designer and "symbol" of the Design Bureau, named after him, died in the Barvikha sanatorium. After the death of Sukhoi, the design bureau was headed by E. A. Ivanov. The OKB continued its work, improving technical developments. The aircraft Su-17, Su-24, Su-25 and, finally, the first modification of the Su-27 were developed and tested. But after the death of four test pilots during the tests of the Su-27, MP Simonov was appointed the new chief designer of the bureau.
In the 1980s, the bureau under the leadership of Simonov continued the development of the combat trainers Su-27UB and Su-30, the attack Su-34, the multifunctional Su-35, and the carrier-based Su-33. In addition to combat aircraft, the Design Bureau has also begun the development and production of sports aircraft Su-26, Su-29, Su-31. It was on them that the Soviet and then Russian teams received high awards at international aerobatics competitions.
When at the turn of the 1980s - 1990s. the Soviet leadership, against the background of the growing economic and political crisis, reduced funding for the military-industrial complex, at the initiative of M. P. Simonov, the implementation of export programs for the Su-27 began. In particular, the first deliveries of this aircraft to China were made. It was thanks to export contracts that the Sukhoi Design Bureau continued to exist in the dramatic for the domestic industry in the nineties of the twentieth century.
Superjets and an artificial heart
The development of civil aircraft began at the Sukhoi Design Bureau back in the 1990s, precisely against the backdrop of the crisis in the defense industry and funding cuts. In 2001, a cargo-passenger aircraft Su-80GP and an agricultural Su-38L took off. When in 1999 M. A. Poghosyan, structural transformations of the design bureau were carried out. In 2000, a subsidiary company, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, was organized.
The civil division of the OKB began designing a new civil aircraft for the needs of domestic passenger aviation. On May 19, 2008, a prototype of the Superjet SSJ-100 aircraft took to the skies for the first time, and in April 2011, regular operation of this aircraft began.
Interestingly, in addition to a purely aviation theme, the Sukhoi Design Bureau has been noted, moreover, since the 1960s, in the medical field. Back in the 1960s, the Minister of Health of the USSR Boris Petrovsky turned to Pavel Sukhoi with a request to help in the development of an artificial heart - a pneumohydraulic pump that could temporarily replace a human heart until a donor heart was installed.
At present, the design bureau continues to develop combat aircraft, including the development and modernization of the PAK FA (a promising aviation complex of front-line aviation), fighters of the Su-27 and Su-30 family, and attack aircraft of the Su-25 family.
Speaking about the technical achievements of the Sukhoi design bureau, it is worth noting that over the history of its existence, the team has created about 100 types of aircraft, more than 60 of which entered serial production. The total number of Sukhoi aircraft produced in series is more than 10 thousand copies. The aircraft have been supplied and are being delivered to 30 countries of the world.
The Sukhoi Design Bureau remains the pride of the Russian aircraft industry. Years and decades pass, twenty years are left until the centenary, and the design bureau, created in the distant thirties, continues to work for the good of our country, strengthening its defense capability, contributing to the development and improvement of the domestic economy.
