Boris Lisunov

Boris Pavlovich Lisunov (Russian: Борис Павлович Лисунов, 19 August 1898 – 3 November 1946) was a Soviet aerospace engineer.

Lisunov was born in Saratov Province in the Russian Empire. From 1926, he served as an engineer-mechanic to an aviation squadron in the Soviet Army, rising to the position of chief engineer at Aircraft Factory No. 39 in Kharkov. In November 1936, Lisunov travelled to the Douglas Aircraft works in Santa Monica, California, to start the process of licensed production of the Douglas DC-3 in Soviet Union. From November 1936 to April 1939, Lisunov documented every part of the DC-3 and its production tooling. He also documented post-delivery in-service support.

After his return to the Soviet Union, Lisunov, together with Vladimir Myasishchev, started the process of re-engineering the DC-3 with the objective of putting the model into production. Most of the work involved conversion of the drawings and documents into the metric system. The derivative, later named Lisunov Li-2, was produced from 1939 to 1952.

On January 27, 1938 Lisunov was appointed technical director of the Aviation Plant No. 84 near Moscow, however, he was soon afterwards arrested as part of the Great Purge.

Lisunov died in 1946. Before his death, he was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Star.

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