Vladimir Chelomey - World War II

World War II

From the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Chelomey worked at the Baranov Central Institute of Aviation Motor Building (TsIAM) in Moscow, where he created the first Soviet pulsating air jet engine in 1942, independently of similar contemporary developments in Nazi Germany.

In summer 1944, it became known that Nazi Germany used V-1 cruise missiles against Southern England. On October 19, 1944, following a decision by the USSR State Defense Committee and People's Commissar for Aviation Industry Alexey Shakhurin, Chelomey was appointed the Director and Chief Designer of Plant N51 (its previous director Nikolay Polikarpov having died a short time before). Chelomey was to design, build, and test the first Soviet cruise missile at the earliest possible date. As early as December 1944, the missile, code-named 10Kh, was test fired from Petlyakov Pe-8 and Tupolev Tu-2 aircraft.