Mikhail Mil
Mikhail Mil | |
---|---|
Михаил Миль | |
Born | Mikhail Leontyevich Mil November 22, 1909 |
Died | January 31, 1970 | (aged 60)
Occupation | Engineer |
Engineering career | |
Discipline | Aerospace engineering |
Employer(s) | Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant |
Signature | |
Mikhail Leontyevich Mil (Russian: Михаил Леонтьевич Миль; 22 November 1909 – 31 January 1970) was a Soviet and Russian aerospace engineer and scientist. He was the founder and general designer of the Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant.[1]
Biography
[edit]Mil was born to a Russian Jewish family in Irkutsk. His father was an employee of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and his mother was a dentist. His grandfather was a cantonist who had been drafted from Libava (today Liepāja), Latvia, and who settled in Siberia after 25 years in the Imperial Russian Navy.
At age 12 Mil won the first prize in a model glider competition. In 1926 he entered the Siberian Technological Institute in Tomsk; however, since there was no curriculum for aerospace engineering, he decided to transfer in 1928 to the Don Polytechnical Institute in Novocherkassk, where he was able to specialise in aviation. He married a fellow student, P.G. Rudenko, in 1932 and 4 daughters and a son followed.
After graduating from the institute in 1931, Mil began his career at TsAGI, too late to work under its original founder, Nikolay Zhukovsky. He specialised in the design of autogyros, and was an assistant to his future rival, Nikolai Kamov. With the start of World War II, Mil was drafted into the Red Army and fought on the Eastern Front in 1941 near Yelnya. In 1943 he was called back to continue research and development in improving the stability and control of combat aircraft. He completed his dissertations ("Candidate", 1943, PhD, 1945) and in 1947 headed the Helicopter Lab at TsAGI, which was later turned into the Moscow Helicopter Plant.
Mil's creations won many domestic and international awards and set 69 world records. Most notably, the Mil Mi-4 won a gold medal in the Brussels International Exposition in 1958. In 1971, after his death, his Mil Mi-12 (production name of V-12 prototype) won the Sikorsky Prize as the most powerful helicopter in the world. Unlike his Soviet counterpart, Nikolai Kamov, Mil enjoyed great prestige due to his single-rotor helicopters, as Kamov used the co-axial rotor layout, which was more controversial.
He died in 1970 in Moscow and was buried in Yudinskoe Cemetery in the outskirts of Moscow.
Awards and honors
[edit]- Hero of Socialist Labour (1966)[2]
- Three Orders of Lenin (1957, 1966, 1969)[2]
- Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd class (1945)[2]
- Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1959)[2]
- Order of the Red Star (1944)[2]
- Lenin Prize (1958)[2]
- USSR State Prize (1968)[2]
- Order of Polonia Restituta[2]
Memory
[edit]- On July 5, 2023, a monument to aircraft designers M. L. Mil and N. I. Kamov was unveiled in Irkutsk (architect Sergey Demkov).[3]
- The National Helicopter Building Center is named in memory of Mikhail Mile and Nikolai Kamov ("NCV Miles and Kamov"). It was established in 2019 on the basis of JSC "Moscow Helicopter Plant named after M.L. Mil" and JSC "Kamov".[3] The company is part of the Russian Helicopters holding company.
- State budgetary educational institution of the city of Moscow "School No. 1359 named after aircraft designer M.L. Mil" Date of establishment of the educational organization on September 1, 1993.
References
[edit]- Pederson, Jay. International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 24, St James Press (1998) ISBN 1-55862-365-5
- Bull, Stephan. Encyclopedia of Military Technology and Innovation, Greenwood (2004) ISBN 1-57356-557-1
- Gordon, Yefim. Soviet Air Power in World War II. Midland Publishing (2008) ISBN 1-85780-304-3
- ^ Central Museum of the Military Air Forces of the Russian Federation
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h "М.Л. Миль - создатель грозной силы". www.coldwar.ru. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
- ^ Jump up to: a b "Ростех открыл памятник авиаконструкторам Милю и Камову в Иркутске". rostec.ru. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
- 1909 births
- 1970 deaths
- People from Irkutsk
- People from Irkutsk Governorate
- Tomsk Polytechnic University alumni
- Members of the Central Committee of the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
- Heroes of Socialist Labour
- Recipients of the Lenin Prize
- Recipients of the Order of Lenin
- Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
- Recipients of the Order of the Red Star
- Recipients of the USSR State Prize
- Russian people of Latvian descent
- Russian aerospace engineers
- Russian mechanical engineers
- Soviet aerospace engineers
- Soviet mechanical engineers
- Russian scientists