Vladimir Yakovlevich Klimov was born on 23 July 1892 in Moscow and studied at the Technical School Komissarovskom.
In 1918 he graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Technical State University of Moscow NE Bauman and began his career in October of 1919 in Kolomna factory, an engineering company based in Moscow.
From July 1918 to 1931 he worked interchangeably as chief laboratory engineer, department head, assistant director of the automotive research laboratory of this factory which later became the Soviet Scientific Institute of Engines (NAMI).
After 1931 he became Head of the Department of Technical Control of gasoline engines of the Central Institute of Aviation Engines and at the same time, he worked as a professor at the Moscow Higher Technical School, the Lomonosov Institute and the Military Academy of the Force, Zhukovsky Aerial.
He was also head of the Engine Design Department at the Moscow Aviation Institute.
Vladimir Yakovlevich Klimov participated in the development of the first Soviet air-cooled star-shaped aircraft engines, the M-12, M-23, and others. In 1927 he created the first and most powerful engine of the time (approx. 650 kW (880 horsepower) the M-13 with liquid cooling for cylinders.
In the mid-1930s, it organizes the production of 12-cylinder M-100 engines, whose capacity was 30% more than that of similar foreign engines of the same size, at that time the M-103 series engine for bombers. “SB” designed by AA Tupolev and Arkhangelsk.
In 1935, Vladimir Klimov was appointed Chief Designer of the Rybinsk Engine Plant No. 26.
In August 1941, he worked designing high-power engines for Soviet aircraft destined to defend the USSR during World War II in a factory evacuated to Ufa.
The engines that Klimov had designed in the late 1930s and early 1940s (M-105, VC-105PF, EC-107, EC-108), were installed in Pe-2 dive bombers designed by VM Petlyakov and fighter jets designed by Yakovlev.
In the postwar period Klimov led the design and production of a wide series of jet engines.
During his work and research, Klimov developed and implemented a series of inventions and innovations in aircraft piston engines such as the closed liquid cooling system, the closed system with a special pressure air pump with two speed traction, advanced timing, mixed fuel feed systems in powerful and high-speed engines, and proposed a number of innovative solutions in the construction of the turbojet.
Klimov made a significant contribution to the development of lubrication theory, to the solution of balance piston engine problems, and other aircraft engine problems.
In 1947-1949 he created the first engines with internal centrifugal compressors for jet aircraft.
In 1951, on the basis of the English Nene engine, Klimov created the VK-1F – one of the world’s first turbojet engines equipped with an afterburner.
Vladimir Yakovlevich Klimov was a Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from 1946 to 1950.
He reached the degrees of Major General in the USSR Air Engineering Service.
He was also an outstanding academic twice awarded as Hero of Socialist Labor (1940, 1957). Winner of four Stalin Awards (1941, 1943, 1946, 1949).
He died on September 9, 1962. He was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
In 2002, the name Klimov was given to a street in the Shevchenko district of Zaporozhye and a park called Academician Klimov already existed there.
