1847–1921
○ Illness
The 'Father of Russian Aviation' who gave aerodynamics its mathematical foundations, built Russia's first wind tunnel, and founded TsAGI
While contemporary scientists scoffed at human flight, Zhukovsky proved mathematically in his 1891 lecture 'On the Soaring of Birds' that a glider could perform a 'dead loop'; twenty-two years later, Nesterov completed that proof in the sky.
Founder of Russian aviation science and father of modern fluid dynamics. He mathematically analyzed bird flight to formulate the circulation theory of lift, then built Russia's first wind tunnel at Moscow University in 1902. In 1904 he established Europe's first aerodynamic institute at Kuchino, and in 1918 he founded TsAGI, the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute, which became the institutional bedrock of Soviet aviation and space science. His disciples Tupolev, Stechkin, and Yuryev led the Soviet aircraft industry, and it was Zhukovsky's school that transformed Tsiolkovsky's solitary theoretical work into a national scientific capability.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1868Graduated Moscow University, Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, in applied mechanics
- 1872Professor at Imperial Moscow Technical School in analytical mechanics, serving until 1920
- 1885Professor at Moscow University, lecturing in hydrodynamics and applied mechanics
- 1902Supervised construction of Russia's first suction-type wind tunnel at Moscow University
- 1904Founded and directed Europe's first aerodynamic institute at Kuchino, near Moscow
- 1908Founded the Aeronautical Circle at Moscow Technical School, later producing Tupolev, Stechkin, and Yuryev
- 1918Founded TsAGI (Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute), serving as its first director
Lift theory and the institutionalization of aerodynamics
From the late 1880s, Zhukovsky investigated the physical origin of lift in order to explain the flight of heavier-than-air craft. In 1890 he considered whether vortical motion associated with viscosity could produce lift, and experiments with disks rotating in an airstream in 1890–1891 helped him develop the concept of bound vortices around a wing. Beginning in 1891, he studied flight dynamics and theoretically substantiated the possibility of complex aircraft motions, including loops. Experiments with rotating oblong disks at the Kuchino Aerodynamics Institute in 1905–1906 confirmed his theorem that lift is proportional to air density, circulation, and the body's velocity. In 1910, working with Sergei Chaplygin, he formulated the Zhukovsky–Chaplygin postulate for determining circulation around a wing. This made it possible to calculate lift and its moment and to develop methods for designing airplane wing profiles.
He also built research and teaching capacity to connect theory with experiment. In 1902 he established Russia's first wind tunnel at Moscow University. In 1904, with financial support from Dmitry Ryabushinsky, he founded the Aerodynamics Institute at Kuchino and directed its scientific work through 1906. In 1911–1912 he taught a course on the theoretical foundations of aeronautics at the Moscow Technical School, drawing largely on his own theoretical research and laboratory experiments. During the First World War, he and his students taught special courses for pilots. He continued this institutional work as the first head of the Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute, founded in 1918. The institute and his teaching helped provide a basis for later Soviet aviation research and the training of its technical specialists.