On March 30, 1894, Russian aircraft designer Sergey Vladimirovich Ilyushin is born. The youngest of eleven children born to a peasant family, Ilyushin left home at an early age, taking various jobs such as factory worker and ditch-digger before being conscripted into the Imperial Russian Army following the outbreak of World War I. Due to being literate, he was soon appointed as a clerk for the military administration in Vologda before volunteering for the new Aviation Section. Ilyushin served as part of the ground crew before obtaining his qualification as a pilot in 1917; however, the war for Russia was soon over and he was sent home. He later joined the Bolsheviks in 1918 and was drafted into the Red Army in 1919, serving in the air force. At the end of his military service in 1921, Ilyushin entered the Institute of Engineers of the Red Air Fleet where he obtained a degree in engineering in 1926. From 1926 to 1933, he served in various roles within the Soviet government's aviation committees and design bureaus before being assigned to a bureau in Moscow which would eventually become Ilyushin OKB, where he remained the chief designer until his retirement in 1970. He passed away on February 9, 1977, at the age of 82.

Ilyushin's designs feature prominently in the history of Soviet and Russian aviation. Among the aircraft he designed are military attack aircraft and bombers as well as civilian airliners. Perhaps his most famous design is the Il-2 Sturmovik attack aircraft which saw extensive service with the Soviet Union during World War II. With a production total of over 36,000 aircraft, the Sturmovik holds the record as the most-produced military aircraft in history and one of the most-produced aircraft overall (the Cessna 172 currently holds that particular record with more than 44,000 built).