He is called the father of transport aviation, although during the Great Patriotic War the aircraft designed by Oleg Konstantinovich Antonov made a significant contribution to the victory over the Nazis. Pilots and female pilots affectionately called their aircrafts "Annushki".
Biography
Oleg Antonov is a descendant of an old family in which all men were somehow connected with technology. Great-grandfather worked as a manager at a metallurgical plant, his grandfather was a bridge engineer, his father, following the example of the head of the family, also became a builder and was well known in his circles as a talented engineer. In addition to work, he was fond of sports: fencing, horse riding and mountaineering. Oleg's mother was a kind and affectionate woman and supported her husband in everything.
It was in such a family that the future aircraft designer was born in 1906. When Oleg was six years old, his parents moved from the Urals to Saratov. In this city, they had influential relatives who could provide patronage to the head of the family in his career.
In Saratov, Oleg met his cousin Vladislav, who raved about aviation. He talked about miraculous machines that fly into the air like birds, and about hero pilots who flew airplanes. Oleg remembered these stories and vivid impressions from his brother's words for the rest of his life. Then he really wanted to be like the hero pilots.
His parents did not take his hobby too seriously, even when he began to collect everything that had anything to do with airplanes. And his grandmother gave him a model airplane, which was his pride. He collected newspaper clippings, photographs and other information, and later this collection became a kind of reference for him: from childhood he knew everything about the history of aircraft construction all over the world.
After school, Oleg entered the Saratov Real School to study exact sciences.
When the First World War began, Oleg's mother died, and he came under the care of his grandmother, who supported his hobby for airplanes.
The path to aircraft construction
An active teenager created his own club - "Aviation Lovers Club", and a little later began to publish a magazine with the same name, which came out in one copy. It is not hard to guess that Oleg himself did all the work on the creation of the magazine. In it one could find photos of different planes, drawings, stories about flights, poems. The only copy was popular: it was passed from hand to hand and read to the holes.
When the school closed, Antonov had nowhere to study: he did not have enough years to enter a more serious institution. Then he secretly began going to class in high school with his sister, hiding in the back rows. Everyone got used to the smart boy, and after graduation he was given a certificate of education.
After that, the road to the flight school was opened for Oleg, but his health and puny appearance disappointed him - he looked five years younger than his age. He did not know what to do now, but he knew for sure that he would be engaged in airplanes even without a flight school.
At the club, he and his friends began to design their own glider. They found out about this in the Society of Friends of the Air Force and invited them under their roof. So the guys got materials, their own premises and the opportunity to make their first product: the OKA-1 "Dove" glider. He is considered the first brainchild of Antonov.
In 1924, the glider took part in the rally of glider pilots in the Crimea. It was very responsible, and when "Dove" did not pass the test, it was very difficult for everyone to endure it. However, the technical commission noted the unique design of the airframe, and this helped not to abandon the dream.
In 1925, Antonov entered the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, where he showed unprecedented activity in all areas of student life. Friends did not understand how he managed everything.
In 1933, Oleg Konstantinovich was appointed a designer at the Moscow Glider Plant. His task was to establish mass production of aircraft. By that time, the young specialist had already created several of his glider models, and he had something to present to the most stringent commission. At this plant, he began to work simultaneously with the famous designer Sergei Korolev.
Serious work began, and Antonov showed tremendous results: the plant produced two thousand gliders per year, which was previously unthinkable. And this at the lowest cost of the machines, which was also important.
This was until 1936, and then the plant was closed, and the talented designer was left out of work. In 1938, he went to work at the Design Bureau to the designer Yakovlev, who put in a good word for his friend. Here, from gliders, Oleg Konstantinovich switched to airplanes, which he had long dreamed of.
All the designers were registered, all “under the hood,” and it’s surprising how Antonov was not repressed then: he was quite harsh in terms. However, in 1940 he was assigned to an avisavod in Leningrad, and in 1941 he was transferred to Kaunas in Lithuania. Soon the war began, and the Antonov family went to evacuate, first to Moscow, and then to Tyumen.
Each time it was necessary to start all over again: to reconstruct factories, to recruit workers, to change the design of aircraft. Then they began to create a glider for the transport of goods and passengers. Their purpose was to deliver cargo to the most inaccessible places, so the A-7 could land and take off on the field, on ice, and even in large clearings in the forest. For this model Antonov received the Medal "Partisan of the Great Patriotic War."
In 1943, Oleg Konstantinovich moved to the Yakovlev Design Bureau, and was engaged in the modernization and "fine-tuning" of machines from Yak-3 to Yak-9.
Antonov created his famous AN-2 already in Novosibirsk. It cost him a lot of effort, but in 1947 the plane left the assembly shop. It was decided to move the mass production of this model to Kiev, which Antonov was very happy about. He was tired of wandering around the country, and he decided to settle in Kiev for good.
In 1949, the first An-2 came out. Then the designer realized that this was his greatest success. Aircraft of the AN series began their lives.
In 1981, his last plane, the Ruslan, was born, in the same year he was elected an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Personal life
The first time Oleg Konstantinovich got married when he worked in Tushino. He met Lydia Kochetkova, a friend of his sister, and they quickly got married. In 1936 their son Rolland was born.
The second wife, Elizaveta Shakhatuni, appeared in his life already at a mature age, they had a daughter. For the third time Antonov married a girl thirty years younger than himself, and they had a son and a daughter.
All the “former” constructors and children kept in touch with each other even after his death.
Antonov Oleg Konstantinovich passed away in April 1984, was buried at the Baykovsky cemetery.
