On October 21 of this year, Hovhannes Artemovich Mikoyan, advisor to the First Deputy General Director – Director of the IC "OKB named after A.I.Mikoyan", turned 75 years old. He was born back in 1949 in the family of the general designer of MiG aircraft A. I. Mikoyan.
It was a long-awaited child. Two girls were born in the family before him. And when Artyom Ivanovich received a call from the maternity hospital and was informed: "You have a son!", he did not believe it and exclaimed: "It can't be! Take a better look!" This "take a better look" has long been a catch phrase among the designer's friends.
The son about the father
Recalling his childhood and youth, Hovhannes Artemovich spoke more than once about the amazing educational and educational influence of his father on him. Their weekly trips to the country, walks and conversations on various topics laid the foundation for the boy's non-standard way of thinking, his thirst for knowledge, especially his interest in aviation and cosmonautics.
- I remember, Hovhannes Artemovich himself told me how at night in 1957, dad showed me the flying first satellite of the Earth (it was visible to the naked eye in the sky near Moscow). I remember the first Tu-104 jet passenger plane, on which we flew together with Andrei Nikolaevich Tupolev, the first cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and German Titov, the festive air parades on Aviation Day - all this is forever etched in my memory.
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| With my father in Riga. |
| Source: Valery Ageev |
The most vivid impressions were left by the fact that we had guests almost every Sunday, people of different professions. All of them were drawn to Artyom Ivanovich: to communicate in a relaxed atmosphere of intelligence and humor (which, in my opinion, is inseparable).
These were composers, sculptors, singers and many others. At these meetings, there was everything: gloomy faces from hard memories, and bursts of laughter after successful jokes (and there were no unsuccessful ones among my father's friends), and a backgammon game full of excitement and a passionate desire to win.
This whole atmosphere was the nurturing and educational environment in which I grew up, and my father played a major role in this process. He did not give me any special lectures, but he talked a lot about everything that pushed me to understand what was interesting and what was not, to independently study any issue.
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| On the Red Square.May 1961. |
| Source: Valery Ageev |
Mikoyan loved children very much. As Hovhannes Artemovich recalls, the "strict beginning", without which education is impossible, was carried out by Zoya Ivanovna's mother. When, like all mothers, she scolded the guys, but the most important thing for any of them was that "only dad didn't find out." And not because they were afraid of their father-they had never heard a single harsh word from him. They knew: He has such a difficult job, and we didn't want to worry him.
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| Artyom Mikoyan with his wife. |
| Source: Valery Ageev |
One day Hovhannes was very guilty. The mother turned to the father: "Scold him properly!". Upon learning about his son's misconduct, Artyom Ivanovich became angry: "So I'll ask him..." But when I saw the culprit, all I said was, "Why are you behaving so badly?"
The love for the elder Mikoyan's children was boundless. Artyom Ivanovich always took his daughters, son, nephews, and neighborhood children with him to Red Square on holidays and air parades. I took as much as the car could hold. On the way, he generously treated the children to ice cream and sweets.
Artyom Ivanovich was able and loved to work with his hands. He also taught children to do this. When Hovhannes' son grabbed a screwdriver at the age of two, there was great joy. As soon as the boy grew up, his father bought him tools and built a workshop at the cottage. At the age of ten, Hovhannes, according to the drawings of a popular science magazine, built a plywood two-seater punt boat with a sail and "launched it" into the Setun River. Artyom Ivanovich took it with pride, as the first step into technology, as the birth of a boy's faith in the capabilities of his hands.
Artem Ivanovich has always encouraged initiative and the desire for independence in children. Without batting an eye, he coolly watched the dangerous games of Hovhannes - the construction and launch of powder rockets. Rockets were launched into the sky with "passengers" - flies, who then descended to the ground by parachute in a special capsule, somewhat dazed from the flight, but alive. He designed mini submarines, but failed to build them.
That's what Hovhannes Artemovich himself recalled about that time:
- My father was just watching me, knowing and believing that I would not put a match to a powder charge without first studying its properties and taking precautions. This paternal faith made me approach everything with responsibility, whether it was a powder rocket with a fly on board or a sailing boat, on which I myself sailed. When dad proudly showed this boat to the guests at the cottage (I was about 14 years old), I wanted to create something even more perfect. I started designing a small submarine (having read Cousteau) or a spaceship (influenced by Tsiolkovsky's ideas).
Naturally, all this was at a childish level, but when I recently found my own sketches, I did not find any fundamental mistakes there.
My father was a very gambling man and loved taking risks. He taught me that risk should be conscious, based on knowledge, not stupidity. The faith in my abilities, brought up by him since childhood, has helped me all my life.
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| In the family circle. |
| Source: Valery Ageev |
The hard way to aviation
The influence of his father on the young man connected him with aviation.
- I never thought that I could have any other paths in life. It couldn't have occurred to me, he said. Therefore, Hovhannes's admission to the Moscow Aviation Institute was a matter of course for him. But before that, after graduating from school, in 1967, before entering the institute, he worked for one month as a draftsman in the representative office of MMZ Zenit at the Znamya Truda plant with M.R.Waldenberg, the future chief designer of the MiG-29.
He did his thesis in the D.N.Koshelev project team, defended his diploma in 1973 and was sent to work at the Design Bureau "MMZ named after A.I. Mikoyan" in the fuselage department, where he participated in the development of the airframe of MiG-29 and MiG-31 aircraft. He was engaged in scientific work, published articles, and spoke at conferences.
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| With V. Menitsky and G.Mosolov. |
| Source: Valery Ageev |
At the same time, he studied at the University of Marxism-Leninism at the Moscow State Committee of the CPSU at the Faculty of International Relations and Foreign Policy, from which he graduated in 1977, and received a second higher education. In 1978, he graduated from the correspondence graduate school of the MAI.
In 1978. Hovhannes Artemovich was invited to work at NPO Molniya, which was created specifically for the development of the Buran orbiter of the reusable Energia –Buran space system. He was appointed the lead designer for the design of a ship designed for atmospheric testing and landing testing. He was engaged in flight tests and cosmonaut training.
S.V.Ilyushin Prize "For simplicity and reliability of construction"
In the late 80s, O. A. Mikoyan became interested in ultralight aviation, organized a youth design bureau, which in 1989 was transformed into an industry Center for aviation scientific and technical creativity. He had to organize amateur designers, create a certification system for homemade crafts, and hold All-Union show contests. They took place all over the Soviet Union: in Koktebel, Moscow, Riga, Kiev.
Several aircraft models were developed, built and tested at the Center, in particular, the ultralight M-5 aircraft, which received the S.V.Ilyushin Prize "For simplicity and reliability of design". It subsequently carried out work on the registration of animals and birds, for example, cranes in the Oka State Biosphere Reserve.
Then O. A. Mikoyan, for the first time in our country, organized the training of amateur pilots on Yak-18T aircraft with the issuance of certificates "Amateur Pilot of the USSR".
He is the author of 28 scientific papers on strength, flight dynamics, non-motorized landing of aircraft, flight safety, as well as 8 inventions in the field of aviation.
Everyone who worked with him noted his analytical mindset, his penchant for scientific and rationalizing work. Therefore, it is not surprising that he has three inventions and one patent. Wherever O.A.Mikoyan worked, he proved himself to be a good leader who knows how to captivate the team and competently solve the tasks set.
Since 2000, O. A. Mikoyan has worked at RSC MiG in various positions, and currently works as an adviser to the Deputy General Director – Director of the IC "OKB named after A.I.Mikoyan".
Valery Ageev
