Arkhip Mikhailovich Lyul'ka (''

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

'': Архи́п Миха́йлович Лю́лька, ''

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

'': Архип Михайлович Люлька) (1908–1984) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...

and

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...

of jet engines, head of the OKB Lyulka, member of the

USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

Biography

Arkhip Lyul'ka was born on 23 March 1908, in Savarka village in the

Kiev Governorate Kiev Governorate, r=Kievskaya guberniya; uk, Київська губернія, Kyivska huberniia (, ) was an administrative division of the Russian Empire from 1796 to 1919 and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1919 to 1925. It wa ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

(today Savarka,

Kyiv Oblast Kyiv Oblast ( uk, Ки́ївська о́бласть, translit=Kyïvska oblast), also called Kyivshchyna ( uk, Ки́ївщина), is an oblast (province) in central and northern Ukraine. It surrounds, but does not include, the city of Kyiv, w ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

). He was educated in the Savarka village school and graduated from the

Kiev Polytechnic Institute ) , image = NTUU KPI logo.png , image_size = 220px , caption = Seal of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute , established = 1898 , students = 36,000 (approximately) , admini ...

in 1931 (

Mikhail Kravchuk Mykhailo Pylypovych Kravchuk, also Krawtchouk ( uk, Миха́йло Пили́пович Кравчу́к) (September 27, 1892 – March 9, 1942), was a Soviet Ukrainian mathematician and the author of around 180 articles on mathematics. He pr ...

was his teacher and mentor in both institutions). He then worked for two years in the Kharkov turbogen factory. Lyul'ka was a USSR aero-engine design bureau and manufacturer from 1938 to the 1990s when manufacturing and design elements were integrated as

NPO Saturn UEC NPO Saturn, PJSC (russian: ОДК-Сатурн НПО) is a Russian aircraft engine manufacturer, formed from the mergers of Rybinsk Motors and Lyul'ka-Saturn (after Arkhip Mikhailovich Lyulka) in 2001. Saturn's engines power many former ...

based at

Rybinsk Rybinsk ( rus, Рыбинск, p=ˈrɨbʲɪnsk), the second largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Yaroslavl Oblast in Russia, lies at the confluence of the Volga River, Volga and Sheksna Rivers, 267 kilometers north-north-eas ...

. The Lyul'ka design bureau had its roots in the

Kharkiv Aviation Institute Kharkiv ( uk, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine.

(

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...

) where Arkhip M. Lyul'ka was working with a team designing the ''ATsN'' (Agregat Tsentralnovo Nadduva - Centralised supercharger) installation on the

Petlyakov Pe-8 The Petlyakov Pe-8 (russian: Петляков Пе-8) was a Soviet heavy bomber designed before World War II, and the only four-engine bomber the USSR built during the war. Produced in limited numbers, it was used to bomb Berlin in August 1941. ...

bomber. Lyul'ka was responsible for designing the first Soviet gas turbine engines, preferring to steer away from copying captured German equipment, he succeeded in producing home grown engines. In 1939-1941 Arkhip Lyul'ka elaborated the design for the World's first

turbofan The turbofan or fanjet is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used in aircraft engine, aircraft propulsion. The word "turbofan" is a portmanteau of "turbine" and "fan": the ''turbo'' portion refers to a gas turbine engine which ac ...

engine, and acquired a patent for this new invention on 22 April 1941. Although several prototypes were built and ready for state tests, Lyulka was forced to abandon his research and evacuate to the Ural mountains as the

Great Patriotic War The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Sout ...

began with the Nazi invasion of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. In 1941-42, Lyul'ka worked in a tank factory in

Chelyabinsk Chelyabinsk ( rus, Челя́бинск, p=tɕɪˈlʲæbʲɪnsk, a=Ru-Chelyabinsk.ogg; ba, Силәбе, ''Siläbe'') is the administrative center and largest city of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the seventh-largest city in Russia, with a ...

as a Diesel-engine engineer. However, after the failure of the

rocket engine project of 1942,

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

recalled Arkhip Lyul'ka among other scientists working on jet engines to resume their work in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. From 1945 onwards, the Soviet jet engine project split into two: the OKB MiG based their development on indigenous technology combined with German trophy aircraft and Western technology. Lyul'ka, however, refused any foreign influence and continued his own research. In 1945-47 he designed the first Soviet jet engine, TR-1, which passed the whole cycle of state tests with success.

Pavel Sukhoy Pavel Osipovich Sukhoi (russian: Па́вел О́сипович Сухо́й; be, Па́вел Во́сіпавіч Сухі́, ''Paviel Vosipavič Suchi''; 2 July 1895 – 15 September 1975) was a Soviet aerospace engineer and aircraft design ...

(head of the OKB Sukhoy) immediately proposed to install the new engine on his

Su-11 The Sukhoi Su-11 ( NATO reporting name: Fishpot-C) was an interceptor aircraft used by the Soviet Union in the 1960s. Design and development The Su-11 was an upgraded version of the Sukhoi Su-9 ('Fishpot') interceptor, which had been developed ...

jets, starting a long collaborative work with Lyulka. He later designed the AL-5, AL-7, AL-21 turbojet engines which were installed on the Su-7,

Su-17 The Sukhoi Su-17 (''izdeliye'' S-32) is a variable-sweep wing fighter-bomber developed for the Soviet military. Its NATO reporting name is "Fitter". Developed from the Sukhoi Su-7, the Su-17 was the first variable-sweep wing aircraft to enter ...

, Su-20,

Su-24 The Sukhoi Su-24 (NATO reporting name: Fencer) is a supersonic, night fighter, all-weather attack aircraft developed in the Soviet Union. The aircraft has a variable-sweep wing, Twinjet, twin-engines and a side-by-side seating arrangement for it ...

MiG-23 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-23; NATO reporting name: Flogger) is a variable-geometry fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau in the Soviet Union. It is a third-generatio ...

and other Soviet military aircraft. Lyulka also designed the upper stage engines for the Soviet moon rocket N1. In the 1970s, Pavel Sukhoy asked Arkhip Lyul'ka to design a new engine with unorthodox characteristics for installation on the projected

Su-27 The Sukhoi Su-27 (russian: Сухой Су-27; NATO reporting name: Flanker) is a Soviet-origin twin-engine supermaneuverable fighter aircraft designed by Sukhoi. It was intended as a direct competitor for the large US fourth-generation jet ...

. The challenge was taken up, and although Pavel Sukhoy died in 1974, his work was carried on by his successors and colleagues, including Lyulka. The primary difficulty in designing this aircraft appeared to be in the engines, which had to be constantly redesigned and upgraded. As a result of the intensive work of Arkhip Lyul'ka and his team, the work on the new engine,

AL-31F The Saturn AL-31 is a family of axial flow turbofan engines, developed by the NPO Saturn, Lyulka design bureau in the Soviet Union, now UEC Saturn, NPO Saturn in Russia, originally as a 12.5-tonne (122.6 kN, 27,560 lbf) powerplant for t ...

, was finally accomplished in the early 1980s. Arkhip Mikhailovich Lyul'ka died on 2 June 1984.

Achievements

Overall, the achievements of Arkhip Lyulka have become decisive for

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and its allies. To this day, the patent for double jet turbofan engines widely used in all sectors of the world's aviation belongs to him. The

AL-31 The Saturn AL-31 is a family of axial flow turbofan engines, developed by the Lyulka design bureau in the Soviet Union, now NPO Saturn in Russia, originally as a 12.5-tonne (122.6 kN, 27,560 lbf) powerplant for the Sukhoi Su-27 long r ...

alone has become the cornerstone for various international developments in both civilian and military sectors, now undertaken by

, the heir to Lyulka's OKB.

Engines

Awards

* Member of the

(since 1960) *

Hero of Socialist Labor The Hero of Socialist Labour (russian: links=no, Герой Социалистического Труда, Geroy Sotsialisticheskogo Truda) was an honorific title in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries from 1938 to 1991. It repre ...

(1957) * Lenin Award (1976) *

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration b ...

(on 3 occasions) *

Order of the October Revolution The Order of the October Revolution (russian: Орден Октябрьской Революции, ''Orden Oktyabr'skoy Revolyutsii'') was instituted on October 31, 1967, in time for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. It was conferr ...

Order of the Red Banner of Labour The Order of the Red Banner of Labour (russian: Орден Трудового Красного Знамени, translit=Orden Trudovogo Krasnogo Znameni) was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to th ...

(on 2 occasions)

References

History of Lyulka jet engines

Lyulka AL engines

Rubrikon encyclopedia

* Gunston, Bill. “The Osprey Encyclopaedia of Russian Aircraft 1875–1995”. London, Osprey. 1995.

External links