70 YEARS IN DOMESTIC ENGINE-BUILDING AVANT-GARDE
OLGA OSIPOVA
The history of Aviadvigatel Design Bureau (incorporated now into United Engine Corporation which is a subsidiary of Oboronprom Corporation) dates back to the distant December 1939. The prewar country was in acute need for its own new and modern airplanes. Thus a design department headed by the USSR famous engine designer Arkady Shvetsov was established at the Perm plant No.19 that was producing the M-25 licensed engines for the I-15 and I-16 fighters. In five years it developed into an independent Design Bureau No.19.
 Arkady Dmitrievich Shvetsov |  |
The Bureau personnel started with studying and modifying American engines but to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War they had created their own series of star-shaped aircooled radial piston engines. Those ones were installed at the best airplanes by Polikarpov, Tupolev, Lavochkin, Sukhoy, Ilyushin, Antonov, which figured prominently in the victory over the Fascism. The most famous engines are:
- the M-62 and its modification for the I-153 fighter and the Li-2 and An-2 cargo planes;
- the M-63 for the I-16 fighter;
- the ASh-82 and its modification for the La-5 and La-7 fighters, the legendary Tu-2 bomb carrier and others.
Reliable and faultless Shvetsov's «stars» provided military operations success for the pilots. The Perm Design Bureau achievements in piston engine development were rewarded by the Lenin order in 1943. After the Great Patriotic War the Design Bureau retained its leading position. Nearly all new projects on piston engines development for military and civil aviation were concentrated in Perm. The total number of the Bureau piston engines came to 105 thousand.
 Pavel Alexandrovich Soloviev Soviet aero engine designer, Perm gas-turbine building founder. One of the Initiators of gas-turbine building in the USSR. |  MiG-31 extra high-speed interceptors shield up the Russian sky |
Soloviev and his colleagues' success verified the bypass system as primary for the domestic engine-building, and the Perm Design Bureau proved itself to be the leader in this field. Every engine designed in Perm became the first or the best in the Soviet engine-building. These are the first in the world D-25V gas turbine helicopter engine with free power turbine for the heavy Mi-6 and Mi-10; the most reliable in the history of the USSR D-30 engine for the short-haul Tu-134; the D-30KU for the Il-62 transcontinental air liner that made it possible to fly non-stop on Atlantic routs; the D-30KU-154 for the most popular Soviet civil airplane Tu-154M. Modified D-30KP was fitted to military and cargo aircraft of the Il-76 models. The D-30F6 augmented engine is unique for its design, characteristics and adjusted nozzle. It was installed at the MiG-31 multi-purpose supersonic fighter-interceptor used for the air-defense. This fighter was developed more than 25 years ago, but no other aircraft can surpass its both speed, autonomous flight distance and other flight features that were secured by the D-30F6 engine characteristics to a considerable degree. Modified D-30F6 engines were installed at the unique M-55 high-altitude «Geofizika» plane and experimental Su-47 Berkut fighter with the forward-swept wing.
In the middle of the 80-s the Perm Design Bureau started designing the D-90A engine (later it was named «PS-90A» after its designer Pavel Soloviev). Russian aircraft industry stepped into the XXI century with this most advanced type of engine. It raises in the air the best russian Il-96-300, Tu-204, Tu-214 planes and the military Il-76MF cargo plane of the latest design. The planes with Perm engines are run both by Russian and foreign companies, such as «Rossia», «Aeroflot», «Volga-Dnepr», «Vladivostok Avia», «Red Wings», «Cubana de Aviasion», «Silk Way Airlines», «Air Koryo» and others.
The reliability and quality of the PS-90A engine family is undoubtedly proved by the fact that these engines have been fitted to the Russia President Dmitry Medvedev's plane.
The basic engines of the Soviet and Russian aircraft industry have been under design in the Design Bureau for 70 years. They serve as the foundation for the best gas turbine industrial equipment as well. Today Aviadvigatel OJSC as always heads the list of Russian aircraft engine-designing enterprises. The company has been chosen to be the main developer of a new generation engine family for the XXI century plane MS-21.
Ideas and traditions of the Perm engine-designing school, founded by Arkady Shvetsov and Pavel Soloviev, continue to live and develop in new gas turbine engines designed by Aviadvigatel OJSC specialists.
