Alexander Kartveli — aviation (designer a-10) with roots in the Russian Empire
Alexander Kartveli was born Aleksandre Kartvelishvili in Tiflis, now Tbilisi, on 9 September 1896, when Georgia was part of the Russian Empire. He graduated from an artillery school in 1914 and served in the First World War, during which he became interested in aviation.
In 1918 Georgia declared independence, and in 1919 its government, short of aviation specialists, sent him to Paris to study at the École supérieure d'aéronautique et de constructions mécaniques. When Georgia was absorbed into Soviet Russia in 1921, he stayed abroad. He graduated in 1922, briefly worked as a test pilot until injuries from a crash ended his flying, and then joined a French aircraft firm, where he took part in designing the Bernard and Ferbois racing aircraft; a plane built in 1924 with his participation set a world speed record.
In 1927 the American aviation entrepreneur Charles Levine, who that year became the first transatlantic airline passenger, brought him to New York as head of engineering of a new aircraft venture, and in 1928 he worked for the Fokker company's American branch. Soon afterwards Alexander de Seversky, another émigré from Tiflis, made him chief engineer of the company that became the Seversky Aircraft Corporation, in 1928 according to one account and 1931 according to another. Kartveli designed its P-35 fighter and, after the company was reorganised as Republic Aviation in 1939, developed from it the P-47 Thunderbolt, which first flew in 1941 and was used widely in the Second World War by the air forces of the United States and its allies.
As Republic's chief designer and vice-president for engineering, he went on to design the F-84 Thunderjet, begun in 1944, and in the 1950s led the team that developed the F-105 Thunderchief. His last project was the design that became the A-10 Thunderbolt II close-support aircraft, whose first flight he lived to see. Much of his work was shielded from public view for years because of its military character.
He died in New York on 20 July 1974, aged seventy-seven; some sources give 20 June. An association in Georgia preserves his archive and name.
"Sent to Paris in 1919 by the government of independent Georgia to study aeronautics; stayed abroad after 1921, worked in France and moved to the United States in 1927."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Georgia)
Born Aleksandre Kartvelishvili in Tiflis in 1896, when Georgia was part of the Russian Empire, he trained at an artillery school, served in the First World War and in 1919 was sent to Paris to study aeronautics by the government of the newly independent Georgian republic.
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Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Georgia). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.