Semyon Lavochkin

Semyon Alekseyevich Lavochkin (; 11 September 1900 - 9 June 1960) was a Soviet aerospace engineer, Soviet aircraft designer who founded the Lavochkin aircraft design bureau. Many of his fighter designs were produced in large numbers for Soviet forces during World War II. Biography Lavochkin was born to a family of teachers in Smolensk. After graduation in 1918, he enlisted in the Red Army and served in the infantry in the Russian Civil War. In 1920, he began studies at the Moscow State Technical University, from which he graduated in 1927. He then served for two years as an intern at the design department of the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute under the direction of Andrei Tupolev, where he assisted in the design of the Tupolev TB-3 heavy bomber. While at TsAGI, his colleagues included the French seaplane designer Paul Richard, as well as Mikhail Gurevich and Nikolay Kamov. In the early 1930s, he transferred to the Central Design Office, where he was assigned work on stratospheric aircraft, balloons and pressurized cockpits. However, as he came increasingly interested in the design of fighter aircraft, he moved to the design office of Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich, whom he assisted in the development of the Grigorovich I-Z fighter.