caption death_date death_place birth_place nationality article_title significant_design discipline birth_date employer name
vladimir mikhailovich petlyakov 12 january 1942 near arzamas , ussr sambek -lrb- don host oblast , russian empire -rrb- soviet union , russia vladimir petlyakov
 pe-2 , pe-8 aeronautical engineering 15 june 1891 petlyakov design bureau vladimir mikhailovich petlyakov
vladimir petlyakov

vladimir mikhailovich petlyakov -lrb- -rrb- -lrb- 15 june 1891 -- 12 january 1942 -rrb- was a soviet aeronautical engineer .
petlyakov was born in sambek -lrb- don host oblast , russian empire -rrb- in 1891 -lrb- currently part of neklinovsky district , rostov oblast -rrb- , where his father was a local official .
after he and graduated from the technical college in taganrog -lrb- today the `` taganrog petlyakov aviation college '' , : ru : Таганрогский авиационный колледж им .
В .
М .
Петлякова -rrb- in 1910 .
he travelled to moscow , where he was accepted into the moscow state technical university ; however , due to financial difficulties he was unable to complete his studies .
after the russian revolution , he continued his education and was hired to work as a technician in the aerodynamics laboratory at moscow state technical university under the guidance of nikolai zhukovsky , while resuming his studies .
he gained experience as a laboratory assistant on wind tunnels and calculations for aircraft design .
in 1922 , he graduated from the same university .
in 1921 -- 1936 , petlyakov worked at the central aerohydrodynamic institute under the guidance of andrei tupolev , where he was involved in wing design and the development of gliders .
in 1936 , he became a chief aircraft designer at an aviation plant .
petlyakov was directly involved in organization and development of soviet metal aircraft construction .
in particular , petlyakov -lrb- together with an engineer nikolai belyaev -rrb- elaborated methods of calculating durability of materials and theory on designing metal wings with multiple spars .
petlyakov assisted in designing the first soviet heavy bombers tb-1 , tb-3 -lrb- 1930 -- 1935 -rrb- , and a long-range high-altitude four-engine bomber , the pe-8 -lrb- 1935 -- 1937 -rrb- .
however , on october 21 , 1937 , petlyakov was arrested together with tupolev and the entire directorate of the tsagi on trumped up charges of sabotage , espionage and of aiding the russian fascist party .
many of his colleagues were executed .
in 1939 , he was moved from a prison to an nkvd `` sharashka '' for aircraft designers near moscow , where many ex-tsagi people had already been sent to work .
petlyakov was tasked with designing a high-altitude fighter , which he successfully accomplished .
however , operational experience in the soviet-finnish war showed that this was not what the soviet air force needed , and lavrentiy beria , head of the nkvd and of the `` sharashka '' told that the fighter was to be redesigned as a dive bomber , with the promise that he and his colleagues would be released on its successful completion .
the resulting aircraft , the pe-2 , which went into serial production at the kazan aviation plant , proved to be one of the most successful designs of world war ii .
petlyakov was released in 1940 , and was awarded the stalin prize in 1941 .
however , at kazan , petlyakov faced increasing difficulties , with so many of his trained technicians and machinists conscripted into the soviet military and sent to the front lines , which adversely affected the quality of production aircraft .
he protested to soviet senior leadership , and was on his way to moscow in january 1942 -lrb- flying in a pe-2 -rrb- , when he died in an air crash near arzamas .
his grave is at the arskoe cemetery in kazan .
vladimir petlyakov received the state award of the ussr -lrb- 1941 -rrb- and was awarded two orders of lenin and an order of the red star .
