Lisunov

Lisunov is the make name carried by the Li-2, the Soviet licence-built version of the Douglas DC-3, and it takes its name from the aeronautical engineer Boris Pavlovich Lisunov. Between November 1936 and April 1939 Lisunov worked at the Douglas Aircraft works in Santa Monica, California, documenting every part of the DC-3 and its production tooling, and with Vladimir Myasishchev he began re-engineering the design into metric Soviet standards. After Myasishchev was arrested Lisunov was appointed to head the further development of the derivative that became the Li-2, and as technical director of Aviation Plant No. 84 at Khimki near Moscow he evacuated the plant to Tashkent in September 1941, where wartime Li-2 production continued. The Li-2 became the most common Soviet airliner of the 1940s, and Lisunov was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Star for completing the project before his death in 1946.