The 'King of Fighters' who dominated Soviet fighter aviation for a decade
Returning from his 1939 delegation to Germany, Polikarpov found his design bureau gone — his engineers, I-200 project, and factory had all been transferred to the newly formed MiG OKB.
Soviet aircraft designer known as the 'King of Fighters.' His I-15 biplane and revolutionary I-16 monoplane formed the backbone of Soviet fighter aviation (1934–1941), seeing combat in Spain, China, Khalkhin Gol, and the early Great Patriotic War. Arrested in 1929 on fabricated sabotage charges and sentenced to death, he was reprieved to work at OGPU prison design bureau TsKB-39, where he produced the I-5; amnestied in 1931, fully rehabilitated posthumously in 1956. During his 1939 delegation to Germany, his bureau was transferred to Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich to form the MiG OKB; he rebuilt OKB-51 and continued designing advanced fighters. He also created the U-2 (Po-2), over 30,000 built.
Career Timeline
- 1916–1918Engineer at Russo-Baltic Carriage Factory under Igor Sikorsky; production head for S-16 fighter
- 1918–1923Technical department, Dux factory (GAZ No. 1); rose to head of technical department
- 1923–1928Chief designer at GAZ No. 1; designed R-1, I-1, U-2
- 1929–1931Arrested; developed I-5 at OGPU prison design bureau TsKB-39; amnestied 1931
- 1933–1939Head of Brigade No. 2, TsKB-39 → chief designer at Plants 84, 156, 1; I-15 and I-16 fighters
- 1940–1944Director and chief designer of OKB-51; I-185 fighter; professor at MAI from 1943
Related historical events
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationFighter aircraft designer
- 1936–1939The Spanish Civil WarDesigner of the Republic's main fightersHis I-15 biplane and I-16 monoplane became the backbone of the Republican air force
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarDesigner of fighters and light bombersHis I-16, I-15, and I-153 fighters constituted the bulk of Soviet fighter strength at the outbreak of war, while the Po-2 (U-2) served on every front as a night bomber. He received two Stalin Prizes during the war (1941, 1943) and continued developing the advanced I-185 fighter until his death in 1944.
U-2 (Po-2): The Most-Produced Biplane in History
The U-2, designed by Polikarpov in 1927, was a wood-and-fabric biplane originally conceived as a primary flight trainer. Powered by a 99 hp Shvetsov M-11 air-cooled five-cylinder radial engine, it first flew on 7 January 1928 with M.M. Gromov at the controls. Its low stall speed and forgiving handling made it an ideal trainer, and serial production began in 1929 at Leningrad's Factory No. 23.
After the German invasion, the U-2 proved unexpectedly capable in combat. First used for bombing during the defense of Odessa in September 1941, it was adapted from 1942 as the U-2VS light night bomber, carrying 50–100 kg bombs under the lower wings with a total load of up to 350 kg and a rear-cockpit ShKAS machine gun. Its extremely low speed and treetop-level flight made it nearly impossible for Luftwaffe fighters to engage: the stall speeds of the Bf 109 and Fw 190 were close to the U-2's maximum speed.
The U-2 is most famous as the mount of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, composed entirely of women pilots and ground crew. Their tactic was to approach silently at night: cutting the engine and gliding to the target, leaving German troops with only the whistle of wind through the wing bracing wires. Nicknamed the 'Night Witches' (Nachthexen), the regiment's pilots flew nearly 1,000 missions each by war's end; veterans Yekaterina Ryabova and Nadezhda Popova once flew 18 sorties in a single night.
German troops called it the 'sewing machine' (Nähmaschine) or 'coffee grinder' (Kaffeemühle) for its distinctive rattling engine sound; Finnish soldiers dubbed it Hermosaha ('nerve saw'). The fabric-and-wood construction was extremely vulnerable to tracer fire, earning the Russian nickname Kerosinka ('kerosene lantern'). The regiment received numerous Hero of the Soviet Union citations and Orders of the Red Banner.
Beyond bombing, the U-2 served in dozens of variants: liaison, medevac (U-2S with underwing stretcher containers), crop-dusting, reconnaissance, artillery spotting, and propaganda (with a loudspeaker). After Polikarpov's death in 1944, it was renamed Po-2 under the new Soviet naming system in his honor. Soviet production ended in 1953, but licensed production of the CSS-13 continued in Poland until 1959, with around 33,000 total built, making it the most-produced biplane in history. The Po-2 also served in the Korean War with the Korean People's Air Force, conducting night harassment raids on UN bases, and holds the distinction of being the only biplane credited with a jet kill, when an F-94 Starfire stalled and crashed while attempting to intercept one.