Early Life and Career
Mikoyan was born in Sanahin, Armenia. His older brother, Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, would become a senior Soviet politician. He completed his basic education and took a job as a machine-tool operator in Rostov, then worked in the "Dynamo" factory in Moscow before being conscripted into the military. After military service he joined the Zukovsky Air Force Academy, where he created his first plane, graduating in 1937. He worked with Polikarpov before being named head of a new aircraft design bureau in Moscow in December 1939. Together with Gurevich, Mikoyan formed the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau, producing a series of fighter aircraft. In March 1942, the bureau was renamed OKB MiG (Osoboye Konstruktorskoye Büro), ANPK MiG (Aviatsionnyy nauchno-proizvodstvennyy kompleks) and OKO MiG. The MiG-1 proved to be a poor start, the MiG-3 went into production but only occasionally could it fight in its intended high-level interceptor role. Further MiG-5, MiG-7 and MiG-8 Utka did not progress beyond research prototypes.
Read more about this topic: Artem Mikoyan
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed
And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night,
I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“There is ... an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)