Stepan Mikoyan - Soviet test pilot, aircraft designer, Hero of the USSR, holder of the orders of Lenin and the Red Banner, has been connected with airplanes all his life. It was he who was responsible for managing the famous "Buran" - a reusable spacecraft, the tests of which were successfully completed in November 1988.
Childhood
Mikoyan Stepan Anastasovich, whose biography is presented in this article, was born in Tiflis (now it is the city of Tbilisi) on July 12, 1922. Father Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan was a famous Soviet party and statesman, and his mother Ashkhen Lazarevna Tumanyan. Their marriage was long and happy. According to Stepan Mikoyan himself, he did not remember a single case when his parents quarreled or raised their voices. They always treated each other with great love and respect.
The Mikoyan family had five sons. The eldest of them was Stepan. He and his three youngest children were named after the famous Baku commissars - Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Alexei Dzhaparidze, Stepan Shaumyan and Ivan Violetov, with whom Anastas Mikoyan always maintained friendly relations. The second son was named Volodya, since he was born in the year when V.I. died Lenin. Children spent all their vacations at the Zubalovo cottage. According to Stepan Mikoyan, it was a huge territory surrounded by a high brick wall. And somewhere in a kilometer from her was another cottage "Zubalovo-2", where Stalin lived with his family.
Since Anastas Ivanovich was a prominent statesman, he was friends with many people from the environment of Joseph Stalin, who were subsequently repressed. Stepan knew them all and from childhood he was friends with the son of the leader Vasily Stalin.
Passion for the sky
In the 30s of the last century, almost every teenager dreamed of connecting his life with airplanes. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet schoolchildren dreamed of heaven then. The eldest son of Anastas Ivanovich Stepan was no exception. In addition, his uncle Artyom Ivanovich, who by that time was a novice aircraft designer, also contributed to this hobby.
In August 1940, Stepan Mikoyan, along with his friend Timur Frunze, entered the Kachin Aviation School. A year later, at the beginning of September 1941, he successfully graduated from college in the city of Krasny Kut (Saratov Region). After that, he was sent to the 8th reserve aviation regiment, stationed in the small village of Bagai-Baranovka, located just north of Saratov. Here he hastily had to relearn to fly on a Yak-1 aircraft. In mid-December of the same year, according to the distribution, Stepan Mikoyan (photo of the pilot is presented in the article) falls into the 11th fighter regiment, which is part of the 6th IAK Air Defense and defends the sky over Moscow.
The Great Patriotic War
Arriving at the destination, the young pilot found out that his regiment before that flew to attack the German ground forces. However, for the whole of December and part of January 1942, he never managed to fly on a mission, since extremely adverse weather conditions did not allow him to carry out any active actions in the air. With the onset of fine days, Stepan Mikoyan began to take part in his Yak-1 aircraft in flights, the purpose of which was to cover Soviet military units in the Volokolamsk area and, in particular, the cavalry of General L. M. Dovator, who occasionally raided German-occupied territory.
It is no secret that quite often Soviet planes were bombarded with enemy anti-aircraft guns. So it was on one of the January days of 1942. Enemy anti-aircraft guns began firing on our aircraft, in addition, the weather sharply deteriorated and heavy snow fell. But, despite this, the squadron was able to land exactly on the runway thanks to Stepan Mikoyan, who knew well the location of Moscow streets adjacent to the Central airfield of Moscow, where his 11th fighter regiment was located.
First wound
In total for the winter of 1941-1942. the young pilot as part of his regiment made 10 successful sorties, but the 11th could be fatal for him. On January 16, during the cover of Istra, his plane, for some ridiculous accident, was shot down by Mikhail Rodionov, junior lieutenant of the 562nd regiment. Stepan Mikoyan, whose biography could have ended there, still managed to land his burning car, as the pilots say, right on his belly. The fall of the Soviet aircraft was noticed by village teenagers. It was they who dragged the burned, with a broken leg pilot to the road, and there, finding some sledges, delivered him to the medical hospital.
They planned to give the guilty Mikhail Rodionov to the tribunal, and to deal with Lieutenant Mikoyan after his recovery. But this case did not reach the court. In early June 1942, Senior Lieutenant Rodionov died in an air battle near Kaluga, for which he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the USSR. And Stepan had to heal his wounds for several months.
New aircraft
In August 1942, the 434th Fighter Aviation Regiment arrived in Lyubertsy for its 3rd reorganization, which later became the 32nd Guards. He is famous for the fact that at one time 26 pilots fought in it, who received the title of Heroes of the USSR. Together, they shot down more than 520 enemy aircraft. Then in 1942, the commander of the regiment was the 24-year-old Hero of the USSR Ivan Kleschev, and Vasily Stalin himself oversaw this unit.
The son of the leader from childhood knew the Mikoyan brothers - Stepan and Vladimir. First, the younger of them was taken to the regiment, and a little later, the second was also enrolled. After the war, veterans who served alongside them, said that both brothers were extremely disciplined, diligent and modest, so they almost immediately joined a friendly regimental family.
In early September 1942, the regiment manned, landing on transport aircraft, flew to Bagai-Baranovka. Here the pilots had to master the new Yak-7B fighters, which had just arrived directly from the Saratov aircraft factory. A few days later, an order came to redeploy to another field airfield, located near the Stalingrad state farm, which was only 60 km from the city itself. Kleschevsky regiment was immediately introduced into the 16th army.
Aerial battles over Stalingrad
The first combat mission of the newly formed regiment was personally commanded by Ivan Kleschev. When they first saw Stalingrad from the air, the newcomers were amazed at such a sight. Stepan Mikoyan later recalled that a flaming city appeared before his eyes. Black smoke from the conflagration rose several kilometers up, and through it the blue waters of the Don and Volga peered. Hundreds of aircraft flew in the sky, most of which were German fighters and bombers.
As you know, the regiment commander Kleschev always introduced newcomers to aerial combat gradually. And, despite the fact that Stepan Mikoyan already had some military experience in the sky above the capital, he still identified him as his wingman. Such tactics of the commander helped young pilots gain combat experience without unnecessary risk.
Suspension from Flight
However, the second half of September was the most difficult: in only three weeks of air battles, the regiment destroyed more than 80 enemy fighters. But the losses of the unit were huge: 25 aircraft and 16 pilots. Among the dead was Stepan's younger brother Vladimir Mikoyan. The regiment commander Ivan Kleschev himself was seriously wounded.
After the death of his brother, Mikoyan Stepan Anastasovich was removed from flight by order of the command. In memory of Vladimir, pilots on several planes displayed the words "For Volodya!" In early October, the remnants of the regiment were sent to the rear. Several officers were awarded the title of Hero of the USSR, and Vladimir (posthumously) and Stepan were awarded the military orders of the Red Banner.
Mikoyan ended the war with the rank of captain and was awarded two military awards. During the hostilities, he managed to conduct only a few battles against enemy aircraft, but, according to documents, on his battle account there are 6 group victories.
Studying at the Academy of Engineering
In the 1945 victorious year, Mikoyan marries his longtime acquaintance Eleanor, the daughter of test pilot Peter Lozovsky, who died tragically during a flight on an I-4 fighter. After the wedding, the young man entered the Air Force Academy. NOT. Zhukovsky at the Faculty of Engineering. Students who already had flight practice were allowed to pilot the aircraft at the Academy’s disposal. The training regiment was then in the village. Belopesotsky near Kashira. Subsequently, three of them had to master the latest jet fighters.
For his graduation project, Mikoyan Stepan Anastasovich chose a difficult and rather bold topic for those times. She touched a supersonic front-line fighter. Most likely, he received all the information about the development of the future MiG-19 aircraft from his uncle Anush Mikoyan.
The graduation project of Stepan was led by the famous V.F. Bolkhovitinov, who in the pre-war period was engaged in the construction of heavy DB-A bombers, and later the creation of the first BI fighter in the Soviet Union. Thus, it is safe to say that Mikoyan, with his fellow students, professional pilots and mechanical engineers, stood at the very beginnings of the creation of jet aircraft.
Hard work
In August 1951, Stepan Ananstasovich got into a flight test position in the Civil Code Research Institute of the Air Force. Here, for 23 long years, he was engaged in testing various combat aircraft belonging to Yakovlev, Mikoyan, and Sukhoi Design Bureau. He, like no other, successfully combined the work of a pilot with the position of leading engineer of a research institute.
Since 1975, Stepan Mikoyan - Hero of the Soviet Union. He earned this high title for testing the latest MiG-25 interceptor. For all the time of his work, he managed to master 102 types of various aircraft, having spent more than 3.5 thousand hours in the air.
Buran Program
In 1974, by the decision of the medical board, Stepan Anastasovich was removed from the test of military vehicles, but he was allowed to work on helicopters and transport-passenger aircraft. At the age of 56, he realized that he would not be able to once again successfully pass a medical examination, so he had to accept the offer to transfer to another job.
In April 1978, Mikoyan became deputy chief designer of the Molniya NGO. Here G.E. Lozino-Lozinsky created the Buran reusable orbiter. Under these conditions, Stepan Anastasovich’s experience accumulated over many years of work related to the organization of flight tests, when it was decided to create an atmospheric analogue of the ship called “Product 002”, came in handy. It was Mikoyan who was engaged in flight tests, bench and technical training of pilots. He was also responsible for managing the real "Buran" in his first and last flight into space.
Memoirs
Summing up, we can confidently say that Lieutenant General Aviation Stepan Mikoyan devoted almost his entire life to airplanes, or rather, to piloting them. And even as a 70-year-old gray-haired general, he repeatedly drove the Yak-18T machine.
Despite his busyness, he still found time to write a book. Biographical, inherently, memoirs accurately reflected life in the Soviet Union and all that lived and how its famous author Stepan Mikoyan worked. “Memoirs of a military test pilot” was released first in the UK, and then in Russia. This book aroused keen interest not only among aviators, but also ordinary people who care about the history of their state.