Sukhoi

The line of "Su" aircrafts are named after Pavel Osipovich Sukhoi. Sukhoi was born on July 10, 1895, in the village of Glubokoye, not far from Vitebsk. In 1925, he graduated from the Moscow Technical Aircraft University and joined Tupolev, where he supervised the design of several aircrafts. It was there that he designed the ANT-51 which was named in honor of Sukhoi himself and given the Su-2 designation. Sukhoi died on Sept. 15, 1975, at the age of 80. Alekseyevich Ivanov became chief designer in 1977. He was followed by Mikhail Petrovich Simonov, who took the reigns in 1983.
Simonov supervised the prototype production of the Su-27 Flanker, still considered to be one of the finest fighter aircraft ever built. It entered service in 1984 as a single-seat, twin-engine all-weather air superiority fighter; a two-seat fighter-bomber variant has also been observed.