Engineering visit to the Ivchenko Progress machine building design bureau in the Ukraine.
Formerly the Ivchenko Lotarev development design beuro or Opytnoe Konstructorskoe Byuro-478 (OKB-478)

During the Soviet era OKBs were closed and sealed institutions working on the design and development of advanced technology. As a result the facilities that remain in existence today are totally self contained. Although these days facilities are moving around and expanding within the countries concerned to make better use of labour, and materials etc, the main sites still stand alone and isolated. Each beauru has its own accommodation for the workers (thousands and thousands of them) and their families, their own hospitals, welfare system, public transport system, water treatment system, power generation, reservoirs ets. As a result the places are of a size beyond imagination. Quite literally raw and innocuous raw material goes in through the (OKB) rail system, and engines (or whatever the produce) comes out. During the "good ol days" nothing or very little actually came out at all.

Some of the better known OKBs include: OKB-45 (Mikulin, engines), OKB-26 (Kilmov, engines), OKB-155 (Mikoyan, aircraft, interceptors in particular), OKB-938 (Kamov, rotary wing)

Having such an interest in eastern engines, history and culture this visit was a real treat for me. I was there to propose some design alterations to a gas turbine (hopefully their Ivchenko AL-20) that would increase engine efficiency in its role as a packaged power plant in gas compression, power generation etc.

Sitting with the Director of the company (previously the Soviet design beauro head) was for my interest in these engines and OKBs like sitting with a member of the royal family. I try to imagine all of the correspondence that has moved over that desk in the last thirty years. Some very interesting items I am sure.

Following the discussion a team of fourteen aerodynamisists, metallurgists and so on poured over the ideas. Over the course of an hour they came up with six workable solutions, alterations to my initial ideas (so they would actually work) and how to alter their engine design to incorporate them. It was no small task either as it involved lengthening the engine by nearly three feet and altering the orientation of the gas path totally. These were not just rough solutions they arrived at either. They were proper, signed off proposals to progress.....WOW! Imagine going to a western engine manufacturer and saying "please do this to your engine, you have an hour and a bit to decide if it is possible and come up with a solution" I bet they would not have the manpower in place to even start.

On the last day of the visit I was presented by the head of the design bearu a pair of FULL SCALE sectional general arrangement drawings of both of the original engine and one incorporating the modifications at over 4 meters in length......They had actually started drawing it by the time I left.....I was awe struck at the efficiency and the retention of old knowledge. Some of these guys were in their seventies but were jealously retained by the company for their experience. By this time they had actually been given their accommodation free of charge for the reminder of their lives along with full support for the family. The company retains the knowledge close at hand and the families never have to worry about their pension stretching to an extra shopping trip when the kids visit...

On returning home I marveled at the difference between UK industry today and in the past, computers and graduates rule the day, all of the experience has been made redundant or retired and left wholly un appreciated. I had just returned from a trip where a gas turbine had been totally re designed in an hour or so by the people who first drew it out thirty years ago, and here I was back in the UK unable to find someone who could frame a 4m long picture... A very sincere shame indeed.