Utochkin, Sergei

Born June 30 (July 12), 1876, in Odessa; died Dec. 31, 1915 (Jan. 13, 1916), in Petrograd. One of the first Russian aviators; popularizer of aviation in Russia.

The son of a merchant, Utochkin competed successfully in many sports, including swimming, fencing, wrestling, and boxing. In 1907 he made a solo flight in a balloon over Odessa; he then toured Egypt and made eight flights over the Sahara. He also tested gliders. In Odessa on Mar. 15, 1910, within a week after M. N. Efimov’s flights, Utochkin made his first flight in a Farman-4 airplane. In August 1910 he became a test pilot at the Duks plant in Moscow. Utochkin constructed a biplane of the same type as the Farman and used it to make dozens of flights over Odessa and the Black Sea in December 1910. In 1910 and 1911 he became the first to give demonstration flights in many cities in Russia and abroad. Utochkin’s flights were observed by such future distinguished aircraft designers and aviators as V. la. Klimov in Moscow, N. N. Polikarpov in Orel, A. A. Mikulin in Kiev, P. O. Sukhoi in Gomel’, P. N. Nesterov in Tbilisi, and S. P. Korolev in Nezhin.

Utochkin was buried in Nikol’skoe Cemetery at the Aleksandro-Nevskaia Laura.