Few aircraft designers manage to create more than one truly legendary car worthy of entering the "major league" of world aviation. Sergei Vladimirovich Ilyushin has more than half a dozen such projects. The unsurpassed IL-2 is rightfully considered the best attack aircraft of World War II, and the IL-4 and IL-28 are outstanding bombers. Truly revolutionary for its time, the IL-18 became the first mass and most economical airliner, and the handsome IL-62 revolutionized the civil aircraft industry and for many years competed on equal terms with the best foreign models. The new book of the leading aviation historian is the most complete, detailed and competent story about all the projects of the great aircraft designer and his design bureau - both military and civilian, from the first prototypes of the 1930s. to modern airliners.