Mikhail Petrovich Simonov was a Russian aircraft designer famed for creating the Sukhoi Su-27 fighter-bomber, the Soviet Union’s answer to the American F-15 Eagle.
Russian aircraft designer
Mikhail Petrovich Simonov was a Russian aircraft designer famed for creating the Sukhoi Su-27 fighter-bomber, the Soviet Union’s answer to the American F-15 Eagle.
Born: 19 October 1929, Rostov-on-Don, Russia
Died: 4 March 2011, Moscow, Russia
Award: Hero of the Russian Federation

Mikhail Simonov, an aircraft designer whose Sukhoi jet fighter became an essential part of the Soviet defense industry and a cash cow for post-Communist Russia..
Developed to counter the United States’ F-15 fighter, Mr. Simonov’s twin-engine, twin-fin Su-27 was first used by the Soviet Union’s air force in the early 1980s and won respect in the West for its range of over 2,000 miles, its agility and its ability to fly at 2.35 times the speed of sound. It was a star of international air shows, performing aerobatics that few other fighter planes could accomplish.
The Su-27’s thrust-to-weight ratio and sophisticated control system allowed it to perform exceptional maneuvers at very low speeds. In a stunt called the cobra, a pilot could raise the plane’s nose so that it literally stood on its tail for a few seconds.
When state defense orders ground to a near halt after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, Mr. Simonov played a critical role in winning lucrative export deals. The government sold hundreds of fighters to China, India and other foreign customers under contracts worth billions of dollars.
The Su-27 also remained a mainstay of the Russian Air Force.
Mr. Simonov started working as an aviation engineer in the 1950s and joined the Sukhoi design bureau as a deputy chief designer in 1970. During the next nine years he led the development of the Su-24 bomber, the Su-25 ground attack plane and the Su-27. He was the deputy minister of aircraft industries from 1979 to 1983.
While Mr. Simonov upgraded the original Su-27 design, work on a prospective fifth-generation fighter — the Sukhoi T-50 — to compete with the United States’ F-22 Raptor has stalled amid the post-Soviet industrial decline.
The Sukhoi T-50 made its maiden flight last year, nearly 20 years after the Raptor’s first prototype took to the air. Russian officials say it will take at least five more years for the new jet to enter service.