TUPOLEV, ANDREY NIKOLAEVICH

(b. Pustomazovo, Tver [now Kalinin] guberniya, Russia, 10 November 1888; d Moscow, U.S.S.R., 23 December 1972)

mechanics, aeronautical engineering.

The son of a notary, Tupolev studied at the Tver provincial Gymnasium from 1900 to 1908 and in 1909 entered Moscow Technical School (now the N. E. Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School). Under the influence of N. E.Zhukovsky he became interested in aviation and joined a club of aeronautics enthusiasts that fostered the activities of many scientists and aeronautical engineers who later became well known. He designed, built, and flew training gliders; planned and constructed wind tunnels; and participated in the creation of an aerodynamic laboratory at the Technical School. In 1916 Tupolev and other members of the group under Zhukovsky’s guidance took part in the creation of a bureau for experimental testing of aeronautical designs, one of the first scientific research institutions of its kind.

After graduating in 1918, Tupolev and the other members of Zhukovsky’s collective organized the Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute in Moscow. Tupolev devoted much time and energy to this institute, serving as assistant director from 1918 to 1935. The office of design, headed by Tupolev and established at the institute in 1922, established a project for the first in a series of airplanes built by Tupolev. An independent design office was organized with Tupolev as director in 1936. Tupolev was the first designer in the Soviet Union to use all-metal construction in both civil and military aviation.

In 1933 Tupolev became a corresponding and, in 1953, active member of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. His services were also recognized in Italy, England, and the United States. In 1970 an Italian national center for the development of methods of air transport in Italy awarded Tupolev the Leonardo da Vinci Prize “for planning the world’s first supersonic passenger airplane, the Tu-144.” Also that year the Royal Aircraft Establishment of England elected him honorary member and awarded him a special diploma, and in 1971 he became an honorary member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Under Tupolve’s leadership more than 100 types of aircraft were designed, from light fighter planes to huge long-range passenger aircraft.

Tupolev’s airplanes played a major role in the study of the Arctic. A series of record flights were made in his airplanes, including the 1937 nonstop Moscow–Vancouver flight over the North Pole of V. P.Chkalov in an airplane of the ANT-25 type.

In 1955 Tupolev built the first Russian jet passenger airplane, the Tu-104. In December 1968 he completed the first test flight of a supersonic passenger airplane, the Tu-144. For his military airplanes, which played an important role in World War II, Tupolev was awarded the title of lieutenant general in the engineering-technical service.

Continuing Zhukovsky’s work, Tupolev further developed the principles of aerodynamics and the calculation of stability. Although skilled in computation, he could extract from mathematical formulas physical implications and technical ideas and could evaluate them with profound scientific and technical insight. This gift for observing physical phenomena behind a mathematical framework allowed Tupolev to solve the most complex problem of such varied disciplines as gas dynamics, automation, the static and dynamic strength of structures, and radiotechnology–fundamental aspects of modern aeronautical science.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Tupolev’s writings include “Aerodinamichesky raschet aeroplanov” (“An Aerodynamic Account of Aeroplanes”) in Trudy Aviatsionnogo raschetno-ispytatelnogo byuro, no. 1. (1917); and “Pervy sovetsky metallichesky samolet, ANT-2” (“The First Soviet All-Metal Airplane ANT-2”). in Samolet, no. 8 (1924), 12-18. For biographical details, see the article in Bolshaya sovetskaya entsiklopedia (“Great Soviet Encyclopedia”), 2nd ed., XLIII (Moscow, 1956), 415.

A. T. Grigorian