“The designer must be iron,” wrote A.S. Yakovlev in the newspaper Pravda in the summer of 1944. Was it not for this quality that Stalin elevated him, who discerned a kindred spirit in the young aviation genius and appointed him deputy commissar of the aviation industry at the age of 33? However, one always has to pay a high price for being close to power - so Yakovlev made a lot of enemies, who behind his back accused him of “extreme demands, amounting to rudeness,” “intrigue,” and shameless use of “administrative resources,” and these reproaches can be heard to this day day. However, even his enemies do not deny his talent and the enormous contribution of the Yakovlev Design Bureau to the domestic aircraft industry. From the first aircraft and the unsuccessful Yak-2/Yak-4 bomber to the best Soviet fighter of the beginning of the war, the Yak-1; from the “honored front-line soldier” Yak-9 to the unsurpassed Yak-3, awarded the honorary nickname “Victory”; from the first-born jet Yak-15 to the loitering interceptor Yak-25 and the multi-purpose Yak-28; from training vehicles to passenger airliners Yak-40 and Yak-42; from helicopters to the first supersonic vertical take-off aircraft Yak-141, which became the pinnacle of activity of the Yakovlev Design Bureau, this book restores the creative biography of the great aircraft designer in its entirety, without “blank spots” and cuts, without hushing up failures and disasters, without underestimating victories and merits Alexander Sergeevich Yakovlev in front of the Fatherland, which twice awarded him the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.