Arrested, then given a bureau

Vladimir Myasishchev, born in 1902 in Yefremov and trained at the Moscow Higher Technical School, worked under Andrei Tupolev at TsAGI and in 1937–1938 adapted the Douglas DC-3 for Soviet production as the Li-2. On 4 January 1938 he was arrested and in 1940 sentenced to ten years for wrecking. Like Tupolev and Petlyakov he designed aircraft in a prison bureau, was released early in July 1940 and given his own design office, which produced the DVB-102 high-altitude bomber. After Petlyakov’s death in 1942 Myasishchev developed the Pe-2, but after the war his bureau was disbanded and he went to teach at the Moscow Aviation Institute. He was rehabilitated only in 1955.

The job Tupolev turned down

On 24 March 1951 the government re-created his bureau as OKB-23 with one task: a strategic jet bomber with one and a half to two times the range and altitude, and three to four times the take-off weight, of anything then in service. Tupolev had refused the job and argued his case to Stalin. Myasishchev accepted. His four-jet M-4 flew on 20 January 1953, flown by test pilot Fyodor Opadchy, and became the first four-engined jet bomber in Soviet operational service. It was impressive but fell short of its specified range, managing about 9,500 kilometres against 12,000.

Bison and the bomber gap

The M-4, known in the West as Bison, made its public debut over Red Square on May Day 1954. In July 1955 Western observers counted 28 Bisons in two groups at an air show; in fact the first group of ten had simply flown past again with eight more. The CIA estimated 800 by 1960, American politicians warned of a bomber gap, and the US built B-47s and B-52s in their thousands. Myasishchev built about 93 M-4s and improved 3Ms, which set payload-to-height world records in 1959, served mainly as naval reconnaissance aircraft and tankers, and flew until 1994. The supersonic M-50 Bounder followed in 1959 but never entered service.

Closed, reborn, and carrying Buran

In October 1960 the government closed OKB-23 and handed its staff to Vladimir Chelomei’s missile bureau; Myasishchev became head of TsAGI. In 1966 a new Experimental Machine-Building Plant, EMZ, was set up at Zhukovsky on the old OKB-23 test base, and Myasishchev returned as general designer. In 1976 EMZ joined NPO Molniya on the Buran shuttle, designing its cockpit, escape and life-support systems. Its most famous product was the VM-T Atlant, a 3M bomber with twin end-plate fins that carried Energia rocket sections and Buran itself to Baikonur on its back from 1982 until the An-225 replaced it in 1989.

Into the stratosphere

Myasishchev died in 1978, the year the first M-17 Stratosphera, a twin-boom balloon interceptor, took off unintentionally during taxi trials and crashed. The type flew properly in 1982 and set 12 FAI records; its twin-engined successor, the M-55 Geophysica, first flown in 1988, set 15, including 21,360 metres in 1993. The bureau drew dozens of business aircraft, airliners and space projects after 1991, but built few. Since 2011 it has been part of the United Aircraft Corporation, and in 2014 EMZ was made the managing organisation of Ilyushin.

Továrny

• EMZ Zhukovsky · Zhukovsky, Moscow Oblast — Former OKB-23 flight-test base; EMZ from 1966
• Kumertau helicopter plant · Kumertau, Bashkiria — Where the M-17 prototype was built in secret

Lidé

• Vladimir Myasishchev · founder, general designer — 1902–1978; head of TsAGI 1960–1967
• Fyodor Opadchy · test pilot — Flew the M-4 on its first flight, 1953
• Mikhail Yangel · lead designer, DVB-108 — Later a leading Soviet rocket designer
• Vladimir Arkhipenko · test pilot — Set the M-17 altitude record of 21,830 m, 28 March 1990

Rekordy a prvenství

• 3M: payload-to-height world records in 1959, including 10,000 kg to 15,317 m and 55,220 kg to 2,000 m
• M-17: 12 FAI records, including 21,830 m on 28 March 1990
• M-55: 15 FAI records, including 21,360 m on 21 September 1993