Pavel Sukhoi

Pavel Osipovich Sukhoi (1895 to 1975) was a Soviet aerospace engineer and aircraft designer who founded the Sukhoi Design Bureau. Born in Hlybokaye to Belarusian peasant parents, he graduated in 1925 from the Moscow technical school under Andrei Tupolev with a thesis on a single-engined pursuit aircraft, then worked at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute and at Tupolev's factory, contributing to heavy bombers such as the TB-1 and TB-3 and to the record-setting ANT-25. He designed the Su-2 light aircraft, founded his own bureau in 1939, and after being forced back under Tupolev from 1949 was allowed to re-establish it in 1953. The bureau produced the supersonic Su-7 and the Su-9 and Su-15 interceptors and pioneered variable-sweep wing aircraft such as the Su-17 and Su-24. He was a Hero of Socialist Labor, a three-time winner of the Order of Lenin and a deputy of the Supreme Soviet, and he died in Moscow in 1975.