Sergey Nikolaevich Anokhin (
Russian: Серге́й Никола́евич Ано́хин; – 15 April 1986) was a
Soviet test pilot.
Early life and education
Sergei Anokhin was born in
Moscow on 19 March 1910.
He worked on the railroads until the 1930s when he enrolled at a Higher Air Force School. From there, he became a
glider pilot
Glider may refer to:
Aircraft and transport Aircraft
* Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight
** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of glidin ...
, instructor and established numerous world records for gliding flights.
During its one and only flight on 2 September 1942, Anokhin piloted the
Antonov A-40, an experimental Soviet glider
T-60 tank. After being released by the tow aircraft, he landed the tank glider to a field near the airport, and after dropping the glider wings and tail, the T-60 was driven back to its base. However, due to the lack of a sufficiently-powerful aircraft to tow the tank at the required speed of , the project was abandoned.
In
World War II, Anokhin assumed command of an Air Force regiment in
Belarus.
Test pilot and space program
In 1943, Anokhin joined the
Flight Research Institute and become the lead
test pilot for the first type of Soviet developed
jet propelled airplane. Through this, he became one of the most popular test pilots in the
Soviet Air Force. Despite having lost his left eye in after a serious accident while flying a Yak-3 on 17 May 1945, he continued to work as a test pilot. From 1951 to 1953, he along with
Amet-khan Sultan,
Fyodor Burtsev
Fyodor Ivanovich Burtsev (russian: Фёдор Иванович Бурцев; 27 June 1923 4 May 2003) was a decorated test pilot of the Gromov Flight Research Institute. A recipient of the titles Hero of the Soviet Union and Honoured Test Pilot of ...
, and Vasily Pavlov flew manned tests of the
KS-1 Komet, for which he was awarded the Stalin prize.
He was awarded the title
Hero of the Soviet Union on 3 February 1953, the highest commendation in the Soviet Union. In 1959, he became the Soviet Union's first Merited Test Pilot of the Soviet Union.
In July and August 1964, Anokhin was commissioned to test specific
airlock designs for what would become future Soviet spacecraft, specifically for the spacecraft sent on the
Voskhod 2 mission. Also in 1964, Anokhin was selected by
Sergey Korolev to be the head of a team to train civilian cosmonauts, rather than military that they had been prior. Under him, seven people were selected for training. These people included
Konstantin Feoktistov
Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov (russian: Константин Петрович Феоктистов; 7 February 1926 – 21 November 2009) was a Soviet cosmonaut and an eminent space engineer. As a cosmonaut Feoktistov flew on Voskhod 1, the f ...
,
Georgy Grechko
Georgy Mikhaylovich Grechko (russian: Георгий Михайлович Гречко; 25 May 1931 – 8 April 2017) was a Soviet cosmonaut. He flew to space on three missions, each bound for rendezvous with a different Salyut space station. ,
Valery Kubasov,
Oleg Makarov,
Nikolai Rukavishnikov,
Vladislav Volkov, and
Valery Yazdovsky. These men were collectively known in the Soviet Space program as “Korolev’s Kindergarten”. After training these men, they were brought into various Soviet missions as engineers and scientists at the discretion of Anokhin.
Eventually, Anokhin himself was denied becoming an active cosmonaut for later missions due to health problems. He worked in the administration of the Soviet space program until his retirement in 1978.
Later life
Anokhin died on 15 April 1986 and is buried in
Novodevichy cemetery
Novodevichy Cemetery ( rus, Новоде́вичье кла́дбище, Novodevichye kladbishche) is a cemetery in Moscow. It lies next to the southern wall of the 16th-century Novodevichy Convent, which is the city's third most popular tourist ...
in Moscow.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anokhin, Sergei
1910 births
1986 deaths
Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery
Heroes of the Soviet Union
Soviet test pilots
Soviet Air Force officers
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Military personnel from Moscow
Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner
Soviet space program personnel
Glider flight record holders
Glider pilots
Gromov Flight Research Institute employees