10.04.1918 - 23.02.2009_x000D_ Rank: Marshal of Air Force (introduced in January 1943)_x000D_ Branch of service: Air Force_x000D_ Biography Marshal of Air Force (April 29, 1975)._x000D_ Hero of the Soviet Union._x000D_ Born on April 10, 1918 in the village of Sukhopol, Inzerskiy Villadge Council, Arkhangelsk District of Bashkortostan. Belarusian.He studied at the school of peasant youth, and after moving to the capital of Bashkiria - the city of Ufa - in Ufa Secondary School # 3. In the Red Army since 1936. He graduated from the Engels Military Aviation School of Pilots in 1940, and was assigned to the 211st Bomber Aviation Regiment of the air force of the Odessa Military District. Lieutenant Ivan Pstygo met the beginning of the Great Patriotic war at the field airfield near the Dniester River as a flight commander. He flew his first combat mission on June 22, 1941, as part of a group of SU-2 bombers of the 211st Aviation Regiment. In total, he made 21 sorties on SU-2. After the fall of Kiev and Kharkov, when only 11 planes remained in the 211st Bomber Regiment, Lieutenant Ivan Pstygo, among other pilots, was sent to retrain in the city of Balashov at the aviation school, where they had to master the new IL-2 attack aircraft. In the following years, attack pilot Ivan Pstygo fought on the South-Western, Stalingrad, Bryansk, 1st and 2nd Baltic, 3rd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts as a squadron commander, chief of the air rifle service of the assault aviation division and the aviation corps. He met Victory Day with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel as a Commander of the 893rd Assault Vitebsk Red Banner Aviation Regiment, who was finishing off the demoralized remnants of German troops from the air. In total, during the war, I. Pstygo made 96 sorties, personally shot down 2 enemy fighters in air battles (one of them in a frontal attack). After the war, he was sent to the higher officer courses of the air force in Lipetsk. And after their successful completion, he served in the Far East. Then he studied at the General Staff Academy, after which in 1957 he was appointed Deputy Commander of the air force of the Leningrad Military District. From 1958 – first Deputy, and a year later – Commander of the air force of the group of Soviet troops in Germany. Colonel-General I. Pstygo - Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet air force for combat training since 1967. He was awarded the highest military rank of Marshal of Air Force in 1975. Ivan Pstygo was assigned to form the Central aviation safety Inspectorate of the Armed Forces of the USSR in 1977, which he later headed. Then he introduced the "formula of safety" as a sum of terms of the qualities of personall, rules of flight service, regularity, guidance, and flight control, reliability of aviation equipment. This "safety formula", built on experience of his entire life, is still effective. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 7, 1978 "for personal courage and bravery shown in the fight against the Nazi invaders during the Great Patriotic War, a great contribution to the training and improving the combat readiness of troops in the post-war period, the development of complex military equipment", Marshal of Air Force Ivan Pstygo was awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star Medal (#11300). Pstygo - in the Group of the General Inspection of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR. Mastered 52 types of aircraft, 42 years of flight experience. The Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 hosted a round table "The Battle of Kursk: a look through six decades" on July 25, 2003, where Marshal of Air Force, participant of the Battle of Kursk, Hero of the Soviet Union I. Pstygo made a report "In the Sky over the Kursk Bulge". On the same day, he was awarded the commemorative medal "60 years of the Battle of Kursk". Lived in the hero-city of Moscow. He worked as a consultant at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. He died on February 23, 2009, at the age of 91. He was buried on February 26, 2009 at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow. Gold Star Medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union #11300 (April 7, 1978), two Orders of Lenin (1955, 1978), Order of The October Revolution (1974), seven Orders of the Red Banner (August 1942, October 1942, 1945, 1953, 1956, 1968, 1969), Order oOf Alexander Nevsky (1944), two Orders of the Patriotic War, 1st degree (1943, 1985), two Orders of the Red Star (1951), Order For Service to the Motherland In the Armed Forces of the USSR 3rd degree (1988), 14 battle medals, russian Order For services to the Fatherland 4th degree (2008), medal - winning military pilot of the USSR (1967), Honorary citizen of Volgograd (May 29, 2003)