Fifty Years Of Soviet Aircraft Cosntruction | A. S. Yakovlev

It is impossible in this brief outline to describe or mention all the diverse work done in each stage of development of aircraft construction and the work of all the design offices and individual designers who produced original types and kinds of aircraft, some of which were only of experimental interest but enriched our knowledge and others which at some time reached the production stage in small series but were withdrawn in favor of better aircraft.

Here we deal only with the main trends at each stage of aircraft construc­ tion development which were decisive for the creation of Soviet air power, corresponding to general political, military and economic tasks solved by the Party and government.

 The creation of a powerful aircraft industry, of a modern air force and a first-class civil aviation fleet, the development of aviation science and tech­ nology, these are some of the greatest historical achievements of the Communist Party, the Soviet state, the working class, and the scientific and technical intelligentsia, simply of all the Soviet people.

The victories in aviation, achieved by the Soviet Union, are of fundamental importance. They are the result of practicing the Leninist policy of industrialization which ensures that the USSR will be technically and economically independent of the capitalist world. They demonstrated the preponderance of the socialist economic system, its ability to liquidate the technical backwardness within the shortest possible time. They convincingly showed the sweep of the scientific and cultural revolution in the Soviet Union. They are a testimony to the incessant care by the Party and the nation to strengthen the defense potential of the country.