Aircraft Designer. Andrei Tupolev attended the Imperial Moscow Technical School. In 1909, he began studying aerodynamics under the Russian aviation pioneer Nikolay Zhukovski. He built one of the world's first wind tunnels, which led to the formation of an aerodynamic laboratory at IMTU. In 1911, he was accused of taking part in revolutionary activities, and was arrested. He was later released on condition that he return to his family home and was only allowed to return to IMTU in 1914. He completed his studies in 1918, and by 1920 he was teaching a course there on the basics of aerodynamic calculations. His work method was to insist on fast and adequate technical fixes at the expense of ideal solutions. He would get a plane into service very rapidly; then begin a process of improving the shortcomings of the initial design. In 1925, he designed a twin-engine bomber, the TB-1, which was considered one of the most advanced designs of the time. He was a leader of the Moscow-based Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute from 1929 until his death in 1972. By 1934, he led the bureau that designed the largest aircraft in the world, the Maksim Gorki. As the number of aircraft designers increased, he set up his own office, producing a number of designs designated with the prefix ANT from his initials. On October 21, 1937, he was arrested together with many others in his offices on charges of sabotage, espionage and of aiding the Russian Fascist Party. Many of his colleagues were executed. In 1939, he was moved from a prison to an NKVD labor camp for aircraft designers near Moscow. The camp was dubbed "Tupolevka" after him. He was tried and convicted in 1940, and given a ten-year sentence. During this period, he developed the Tupolev Tu-2. He was released in July 1941. He headed the project of reverse engineering the American Boeing B-29 strategic bomber. Using aircraft which landed in Siberia after bombing Japan in 1945, he replicated them down to trivial detail, and got them into volume production, with crews fully trained in time for the 1947 May Day parade. By 1955, he had designed and was about to start testing his turboprop strategic bomber, the Tu-95. He followed that with jet-powered strategic bombers, starting with the Tu-16 design. At about the same time, he introduced the world's second jet airliner, the Tu-104. The plane was the first jet transport to stay in uninterrupted service, and the only one in service in the world for two years until late 1958. After Khruschev's removal from office in late 1964, he gradually lost positions at the centers of power to rivals. Though his programs enjoyed top level support until 1973, the favored position the Tupolev Design Bureau enjoyed through his political connections was eclipsed. He was awarded the Hero of Socialist Labor three times, the Eight Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor twice, the Order of the Red Star, and many others. He was made an honorary Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society of Great Britain and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, an Honorary Citizen of Paris, New York and the city of Zhukovsky, Moscow Oblast, and was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.