From Mi-1 to Mi-24: founder of the Mil Design Bureau that rewrote helicopter history
In 1941, with German forces closing in, Mil was ordered to destroy the Special Constructions Department archive. Unable to burn years of research, he smuggled the documents out of the lab and onto an evacuation truck. Those papers later became the foundation of Soviet helicopter design.
Founder of the Soviet helicopter industry. Born to a Jewish family in Irkutsk, he began at TsAGI as Kamov's assistant studying autogyros, then founded his own design bureau in 1947 and created the Mi-1. His KB went on to produce the Mi-4, Mi-6, Mi-8, Mi-10, Mi-12, and Mi-24, setting 60 world records; the Mi-8 became the most-produced twin-turbine helicopter in history. His single-rotor design prevailed over Kamov's coaxial approach, and Igor Sikorsky's son acknowledged Mil had surpassed the US in heavy-lift helicopters. Awarded three Orders of Lenin and Hero of Socialist Labor, he died of a stroke in 1970; his Mi-24 became the most combat-tested helicopter in the world, operating in over 100 countries.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1926–31Studied aviation in Tomsk and Novocherkassk; interned on first Soviet autogyro under Kamov
- 1931–41TsAGI Special Constructions Dept.; developed A-7, A-12, A-15 autogyros
- 1940–41Deputy Chief Designer, Rotorcraft Plant No. 290 (under Kamov)
- 1941–43Drafted; served in autogyro squadron on the Western Front; improved fighter stability
- 1943–47Head of TsAGI Laboratory No. 5; led helicopter research; earned doctorate (1945)
- 1947–64Chief Designer, State Helicopter KB — created Mi-1, Mi-4, Mi-6
- 1964–70General Designer, Mil KB — Mi-8, Mi-10, Mi-12, Mi-24; 60 world records
Related historical events
Wartime research and design work, 1941-1945
From 1941, when the German invasion of the USSR began, until 1943, Mil was evacuated to Bilimbay in the Middle Urals, which had become a de facto center of the Soviet aviation industry, drawing designers such as Lavochkin and Kamov alongside him. During the evacuation Mil was ordered to destroy the archive of the Special Designs Department so that it would not fall to the enemy, but he could not bring himself to destroy records that held the results of many years of work. He carried the documents out of the laboratory and took them with him; the surviving material was later used again in helicopter design.
Mil also took part directly in wartime tasks. In 1941-1942 a detachment formed of five autogyros was sent to the front and flew twenty combat sorties; Mil was with the detachment. The machines were intended near Moscow as artillery spotters, but proved suitable only for rear-area use. One episode records that when a rapid German breakthrough caused confusion, he threatened his subordinates with a weapon to stop the panic and to ensure the autogyros were dismantled and moved to the rear. He also built a device to solve the problem of a bomb-laden aircraft that dropped below flying speed, entered a spin, and could not be recovered because the pilot lacked the physical strength; the device was tested at a front-line airfield by pilot E. A. Lebedinsky, passed its trials, and entered serial production, and for several months Mil traveled among airfields, installing it on aircraft himself and explaining its operation to pilots. In 1942, with S. A. Paskhin, he designed an anti-tank rifle that fired RS-82 rockets at tanks and pillboxes; it never reached series production, and during testing he nearly suffered severe injuries from the scorching rocket blast.
For this wartime work Mil received the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd class, in 1945. He completed his candidate dissertation in 1943, on criteria of aircraft controllability and maneuverability, and his doctoral dissertation in 1945, on the dynamics of a hinged-blade rotor and its application to the stability and control of the autogyro and helicopter. The war years were thus for him a period in which hands-on task work and theoretical formulation overlapped, and the material and research accumulated then became the foundation for the helicopter design bureau he later established.