Vladimir Yakovlevich Klimov

Vladimir Klimov, 1941

Vladimir Yakovlevich Klimov ( Russian Владимир Яковлевич Климов ., Scientific transliteration Vladimir Klimov Jakovlevic ; born July 11 ^{. Jul} / 23. July  1892 ^greg. In Moscow ; † 9. September 1962 ) was a Soviet designer of aircraft engines. Most recently he held the rank of major general in the engineering service.

Life

From 1903, when he was eleven, Klimov attended a special Moscow school, where he was trained as a mechanic and graduated in 1910. He then switched to the Technical University , where he began to deal with internal combustion engines. He completed his internship in a Petrograd mechanical company. In 1916, Klimow completed his studies with a thesis on aircraft engine construction. He was then offered a scholarship to continue his studies, but this was no longer effective due to the political events . After the coup, Klimow worked for a while in the development department of an engine factory for motor vehicles.

In 1918 he began his work as a lecturer at the Moscow Technical University, the Zhukovsky Military Academy and the State Aviation Institute and also worked as an aeronautical engineer in several aircraft factories and research institutes in various projects.

In his capacity as a member of the Scientific and Technical Council of the Air Force , to which he had also been appointed, Klimow undertook several trips abroad in order to acquire license rights for various engines for the military aviation forces currently under construction. In the early 1920s, he traveled to France and negotiated the production of a Hispano-Suiza engine. He also bought 100 BMW engines in Germany in 1924 and in 1928 acquired the rights to replicate a French Gnome Rhône engine, of which he also bought another 200 units. When he returned to the Soviet Union, he organized its production as technical director. From 1925 to 1930, he also worked on the development of radial engines with M-12 and M-23 as well as the V12 engine M. 13 In 1931 he became head of the gasoline engine division at the Central Institute for Aero Engines , where he was also involved in testing the AM-34 .

From the experience of 1933 carried out trip to France he founded in 1935 in Saint Petersburg , the OKB -117, a development office for engines, whose chief designer, he was appointed. There, under his direction, the M-100 was developed from the French hispano -Suiza 12 Ybr aircraft engine, which was manufactured under license from 1934, and was used in the SB-2 bomber , as well as its successor, the M-103. The greatest success at this time won his collective with the development of the M-105 V12 powerplant, which in various types of World War II was used, so the bombers Jer-2 and Pe-2 , in the fighter LaGG-3 as well as Jakowlew's successful series Jak-1 , -3 , -7 and -9 . Renamed WK-105 in honor of its designer, the unit, including its various variants, became one of the most frequently built Soviet aircraft engines. Klimow received the state award for the second time in 1943 . In 1944 he was promoted to major general in the engineering service .

After the war, Klimow's design office concentrated on the development of jet engines , based on the British Rolls-Royce turbines Derwent and Nene , which were copied as the RD-500 and RD-45. From the RD-45 emerged the first Soviet jet engine Klimow WK-1 and its derivatives, with which the MiG-15 and MiG-17 combat aircraft , the tactical bomber Il-28 and other types were equipped. In addition to license production in Poland and China, around 20,000 of the WK-1 were produced.

When Vladimir Klimov died in 1962, he was five times the Order of Lenin , twice the hero of socialist work (1940, 1957), four times state prize (1941, 1943, 1946, 1949) and a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1953). He is the author of the Atlas of Aircraft Engine Design , published in two parts in 1935 and 1938.

The engine manufacturer Klimow , which emerged from his OKB, still bears his name today.

literature

• Wilfried Copenhagen : Lexicon Soviet Aviation . Elbe-Dnjepr, Klitzschen 2007, ISBN 978-3-933395-90-0 .
• Wilfried Copenhagen: Wladimir Jakowlewitsch Klimow and his aircraft engines . In: Flieger-Jahrbuch 85/86 . Transpress, 1984, ISSN  0428-5697 .

Web links

Commons : Vladimir Klimov  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files