Aleksandr Fedotov (pilot)
Alexander Vasilyevich Fedotov (June 23, 1932, Stalingrad, USSR – April 4, 1984, USSR) was a Soviet test pilot who was a Hero of the Soviet Union, Honored Test Pilot of the USSR, Lenin Prize holder and Major-General of Aviation. Biography. He was born on 23 June 1932 in the town of Stalingrad in the USSR in a family of Russian ethnicity. During the Second World War he and his mother fled from the besieged Stalingrad. The Fedotov family returned to Stalingrad only after its liberation, but without Alexandrov's father, who fought on the front and died  in battle Warsaw Uprising in 1944. In 1947 at the age of fifteen he completed the seven-year primary school and joined the 7th Specialized School of Air Armed Forces USSR. Career. Fedotov attended the Armavir Military Aviation School of Pilots at Armavir, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, graduating in 1952, and then became a flight instructor. In 1958 he attended the Ministry of Industrial Aviation Test Pilot School at Zhukovsky. He was a test pilot for the Mikoyan Experimental Design Bureau from 1958 to 1984 . He graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1965. Since August 1958, a test pilot of  the OKB named after AI Mikoyan. Participated in the tests of MiG-19, MiG-21, MiG-23, MiG-25, MiG-27, MiG-29, MiG-31 and their modifications. For the first time in the country, it reached a speed corresponding to the Mach number M = 3. On E-166 and MiG-25 aircraft, 18 world aviation records were set (of which three are absolute), speed, dynamic ceiling, load capacity and climbing speed. In particular, he still owns the unaccounted flight altitude record (37650 meters) for manned jet aircraft, established on August 31, 1977, on an experimental MiG-25M fighter. Major-General of Aviation (1983), Honored Coach of the  USSR (1976), master of sports of international class (1975), Honored Test Pilot of the USSR (1969), Hero of the Soviet Union (1966). Fedotov lived in the city of Zhukovsky in the Moscow region. He died April 4, 1984, in a test flight on the MiG-31, together with the test navigator V.S. Zaitsev. In that flight there was a false alarm indication of the emergency fuel reserve system, and Fedotov decided to land. Believing that there was little fuel on the plane, he made a sharp maneuver, but the heavy, fuel-filled airplane rolled over and dove into the ground. Neither  Fedotov nor Zaitsev survived. He was buried at the Bykov cemetery of the city of Zhukovsky. He was awarded the FAI Gold Air Medal in 1975, and the Lenin Prize in 1981. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner, the Red Banner of Labor, and medals.