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The Russian Aeronautical Collection is a mix of technical, historical, and cultural reference materials, including originals or copies of articles, documents and other historical materials relating to Russian and Soviet aviation from the Tsarist period through the Soviet era. The collection focuses on key events, personalities and aircraft designs, and certain subject areas are covered in depth, including the life and career of Igor Sikorsky, the transpolar flights of the 1930s, Soviet aviation in the Spanish Civil War, and the operational history of the Soviet Air Force in World War II.
The Russian Aeronautical Collection (RAC) was assembled over the course of two decades by Von Hardesty, curator in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum. The RAC developed as a research project linked to the publication of Hardesty's book Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Air Power, 1941 -1945 (first published in 1982.)
NASM.2006.0034
Hardesty, Von, 1939-
1876-2006
Aeronautics Division / Von Hardesty, Transfer, 2006
30.81 Cubic feet (53 legal-size document boxes, 1 slim legal-size document box, 1 flat box )
National Air and Space Museum Archives
This collection contains newspaper clippings, articles, pamphlets/booklets, magazines/journals, reports, monographs, manuscripts, bibliographies and a few photographs. Note: The digital images in this finding aid were repurposed from scans made by an outside contractor for a commercial product and may show irregular cropping and orientation in addition to color variations resulting from damage to and deterioration of the original objects.
This collection was arranged by the creator first by what chronological era the subject matter dealt with, then alphabetically within each era by file unit title. Von Hardesty also created a grouping of materials that deals with aircraft design and designers and another grouping that contains reference material. Groupings and materials are in the order that the processing archivist received them which also correspondes to the guide that Von Hardesty created. The processing archivist added the last 2 series which covers materials that were not listed in the original guide to the collection. There are 8 series: Series I: 1885-1917 Series II: 1918-1940 Series III: 1941-1945 Series IV: 1946-Onwards Series V: Design Series VI: Reference Series VII: Loose Materials Series VIII: Administrative Material
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Russian Aeronautical Collection, ACC. 2006-0034, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Aeronautics -- Russia
Endurance flights
World War, 1939-1945 -- Aerial operations
Air pilots
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Newspapers
Reports
Articles