Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Porokhovschikov () (1892 – July 27, 1941) was a Russian and Soviet military engineer,

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engi ...

and

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engine ...

inventor from Saint Petersburg, known mostly for the development of

Vezdekhod The ''Vezdekhod'' (russian: Вездеход) was the first true tank to be developed in the Russian Empire. The word Vezdekhod means "anywhere goer" and in modern Russian means "all-terrain vehicle". The initial project was indeed an ATV. It di ...

, the world's first tank (resembling the modern

tankette A tankette is a tracked armoured fighting vehicle that resembles a small tank, roughly the size of a car. It is mainly intended for light infantry support and scouting.

) in 1914–1915. means 'he who goes anywhere' or 'all-terrain vehicle'. Vezdekhod was also the first caterpillar amphibious all-terrain vehicle. Subsequently, Porokhovschikov added wheels to his tank for steering, making it also the first tank design to combine caterpillar and wheel forms of movement. However, the steering was ineffectual and his design rejected. As a student, he designed his first aircraft in 1909. Later in 1911, he established a workshop that manufactured simple biplanes. His personal first flight took place at the Zolitude airstrip on the outskirts of Riga. In 1914, he constructed the world's first

twin-tail A twin tail is a specific type of vertical stabilizer arrangement found on the empennage of some aircraft. Two vertical stabilizers—often smaller on their own than a single conventional tail would be—are mounted at the outside of the aircra ...

aircraft. The second version of the plane, named Bi-Kok, had another invention – caterpillar-type

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...

. He was offered to license the manufacturing of his type aircraft at the Fyodor Tereschenko's factory in Kiev, but Porokhovschikov refused and returned from Petrograd to Riga. Before

WWI World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he offered to create an

air defence Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based ...

system for the government across the

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages * Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...

coasts of Russia that would encompass surveillance posts interlinked with airfields having fighter planes on duty. By the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917, he manufactured various aircraft at his workshop in Petrograd. While all the factories were nationalized from the former owners, Porokhovschikov himself offered his facilities for public ownership. In 1918 he graduated as a military pilot and joined the

Red Army Air Force The Soviet Air Forces ( rus, Военно-воздушные силы, r=Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily, VVS; literally "Military Air Forces") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces ...

to participate in the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

against the monarchists and armed

foreign intervention Interventionism refers to a political practice of intervention, particularly to the practice of governments to interfere in political affairs of other countries, staging military or trade interventions. Economic interventionism refers to a diff ...

. After the war Porokhovschikov headed various air force-related bodies and continued aircraft engineering. Between 1919 and 1923, training biplanes of his design, P-IV bis, P-IV 2bis, and P-VI bis, were produced. In 1924 he retired and opened a private

design bureau OKB is a transliteration of the Russian initials of "" – , meaning 'experiment and design bureau'. During the Soviet era, OKBs were closed institutions working on design and prototyping of advanced technology, usually for military application ...

offering engineering services and proposing new aircraft designs to the government. During his first exile in Solovki that started in 1927, he designed hydraulic equipment for the Belomorkanal, a semi-artificial waterway system connecting the White Sea to the Baltic Sea. After exile, he continued to hold the same job in Moscow, working for different state institutions. In 1940, he was falsely accused of

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

and anti-communist propaganda, and was executed in Moscow one year later. Although officially he was rehabilitated only in late 1955, by the late 1940s he was mentioned in the Soviet press in a positive context. Vezdekhod

References

The Vezdekhod - a legend of the Soviet military history

Porokhovschikov in the Great Academic Dictionary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Porokhovschikov, Aleksandr Soviet inventors 1892 births 1940s deaths Russian people executed by the Soviet Union

See also

References