N.N. Polikarpov, perhaps the most tragic figure in the history of domestic aviation - one of the pioneers of the Soviet aviation industry, the creator of a series of magnificent fighters and the world's best training aircraft U-2, he was practically unclaimed during the Great Patriotic War and remained in the shadow of the younger generation - Yakovlev, Lavochkin, Ilyushin. Fate released Polikarpov for only 52 years; Nikolai Nikolaevich did not live to see Victory and did not have time to "bring" his best plane. Some researchers consider the cause of this "disgrace" the death during the tests of the Polikarp fighter I-180 Valery Chkalov, Stalin's favorite. However, the matter is most likely different. By the beginning of World War II, Polikarpov's fighters I-15, I-16, I-153, which formed the basis of the Red Army Air Force fleet, were already hopelessly outdated and lost to the latest modifications of the Me-109 in all major indicators. And although there was no direct fault of the aircraft designer in this, the monstrous losses of his cars in the first months of the war laid a black spot on Polikarpov's professional reputation. And somehow it was forgotten that his "donkeys" and "seagulls" were not only the "workhorses" of the Air Force at the beginning of World War II, but fought until the end of 1943 and, with proper use, more than once gave a worthy rebuff to the aces of the Luftwaffe - it was Polikarpov's "outdated" fighters in the first weeks of the war caused huge damage to enemy aviation, which the Germans never managed to compensate.