Arkhip Lyulka

Arkhip Mikhailovich Lyul'ka (Russian: Архи́п Миха́йлович Лю́лька, Ukrainian: Архип Михайлович Люлька) (1908–1984), was a Soviet scientist and designer of jet engines, head of the OKB Lyulka, member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Arkhip Lyulka was born on March 23, 1908 in Savarka village in the Kiev Guberniya of Russian Empire. He was educated in the Savarka village school and graduated from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute (KPI) in 1931 (Mikhail Kravchuk was his teacher and mentor in both institutions). He then worked for two years in the Kharkov turbogen factory.

Lyul'ka was a USSR aero-engine design bureau / manufacturer from 1938 to the 1990s when manufacturing and design elements were integrated as NPO Saturn based at Rybinsk. The Lyul'ka design bureau had its roots in the Kharkiv Aviation Institute where Arkhip M. Lyul'ka was working with a team designing the ATsN (Agregat Tsentralnovo Nadduva - Centralised supercharger) installation on the Petlyakov Pe-8 bomber. Lyul'ka was responsible for designing the first Soviet gas turbine engines, preferring to steer away from copying captured German equipment, he succeeded in producing home grown engines.

In 1939-1941 Arkhip Lyul'ka elaborated the design for the World's first turbofan engine, and acquired a patent for this new invention on April 22, 1941. Although several prototypes were built and ready for state tests, Lyulka was forced to abandon his research and evacuate to the Ural mountains as the Great Patriotic War began with the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

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