Boris Pavlovich Lisunov (; 19 August 1898 – 3 November 1946) was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

aerospace engineer Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is s ...

Biography

Lisunov was born in Durnovskaya (now Rassvet)

stanitsa A stanitsa or stanitza ( ; ), also spelled stanycia ( ) or stanica ( ), was a historical administrative unit of a Cossack host, a type of Cossack polity that existed in the Russian Empire. Etymology The Russian word is the diminutive of the word ...

, Yenotaevsky uyezd of the Governorate of Astrakhan,

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. His father was a

Cossack The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borders of Ukraine and Rus ...

officer. In 1918 he graduated from the

Saratov Saratov ( , ; , ) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River. Saratov had a population of 901,361, making it the List of cities and tow ...

secondary school #2 and went to

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

to study at the

Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy () – is a higher military educational institution for training and retraining of engineers for the Russian Aerospace Forces. The academy trains specialists – engineers, research engineers in the fol ...

, where he made friends with another prominent Russian aircraft designer,

Sergey Ilyushin Sergey Vladimirovich Ilyushin (; – 9 February 1977) was a Soviet aircraft designer who founded the Ilyushin aircraft design bureau. He designed the Ilyushin Il-2, Il-2 Shturmovik, which made its maiden flight in 1939. It is the most produced ...

. From 1926, he served as an engineer-mechanic to an aviation squadron in the

Soviet Air Force The Soviet Air Forces (, VVS SSSR; literally "Military Air Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"; initialism VVS, sometimes referred to as the "Red Air Force") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Sovie ...

, rising to the position of chief engineer at Aircraft Factory No. 39 in

Kharkov Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

. In November 1936, Lisunov travelled to the

Douglas Aircraft The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace and defense company based in Southern California. Founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr., it merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas, where it operated as a di ...

works in

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California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, to start the process of licensed production of the

Douglas DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper ...

in the Soviet Union. From November 1936 to April 1939, Lisunov documented every part of the DC-3 and its production tooling. He also documented post-delivery in-service support. Together with his boss, Vladimir Myasishchev, Lisunov started the process of re-engineering the DC-3 with the objective of putting the model into production. Most of the work involved conversion of the drawings and documents into the

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that standardization, standardizes a set of base units and a nomenclature for describing relatively large and small quantities via decimal-based multiplicative unit prefixes. Though the rules gover ...

. On 27 January 1938, Lisunov was appointed technical director of the Aviation Plant No. 84 near Moscow, in

Khimki Khimki (, ) is a city in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It is located approximately northwest from central Moscow, and is part of the Moscow metropolitan area. History Origins and formation Khimki was initially a railway station that had existed sin ...

. After Myasishchev was arrested, Lisunov was appointed to head the further development of the DC-3 derivative named

Lisunov Li-2 The Lisunov Li-2 (NATO reporting name: Cab), originally designated PS-84, was a license-built Soviet-version of the Douglas DC-3. It was produced by Factory #84 in Khimki, Moscow-Khimki and, after the factory's evacuation in 1941, at the Tash ...

. Military and civil versions of Li-2 were produced by a few Soviet aircraft plants from 1939 to 1952, making it the most common Soviet airliner in the 1940s. In September 1941 as the Nazis were approaching Moscow, Lisunov managed to swiftly evacuate the aircraft plant to the safe location that was chosen to be

Tashkent Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...

, capital of the

Uzbek SSR The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (, ), also known as Soviet Uzbekistan, the Uzbek SSR, UzSSR, or simply Uzbekistan and rarely Uzbekia, was a union republic of the Soviet Union. It was governed by the Uzbek branch of the Soviet Communist P ...

. Soon the newly-established aircraft plant, later known as

Tashkent Aviation Production Association Tashkent Mechanical Plant (TMZ) (), formerly Tashkent Aviation Production Association named after Valery Chkalov, V. P. Chkalov (TAPO or TAPOiCh) () is a leading high-technology company of Uzbekistan, which was originally moved from Russia to ...

, started to contribute to the Soviet war effort with the domestically-made Li-2s. Lisunov died in 1946 after having suffered a heart attack. Shortly before his death, he was appointed a managerial position with the Ministry of Aviation Industry and awarded the

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

and the

Order of the Red Star The Order of the Red Star () was a military decoration of the Soviet Union. It was established by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 6 April 1930 but its statute was only defined in decree of the Presidium of the ...

for successful completion of the Li-2 project. The Astrakhan State Archive and the Rassvet secondary school preserve Lisunov's memory.Архив семьи Лисуновых
. ''Государственных архив Астраханской области''

References

External links

The Douglas C-47 Dakota
at www.faqs.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Lisunov Soviet aerospace engineers 20th-century Russian engineers 1898 births 1946 deaths Recipients of the Order of Lenin

Biography

See also

References

External links