Volodymyr Petrovich Grigoriev (07.11.1883 - 04.05.1922) is a Ukrainian aircraft designer. He is the Head еngineer of the plant “Motor Sich” (1921).
He was born in a military family. In 1894 he entered the Kyiv real school, in 1902 he entered the mechanical department of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Due to lack of funds and poor health, he was dismissed several times from the institute, because of what he studied until 1915.
The most successful result of his technical creativity at that time was a horizontal spindle special-type machine for drilling holes and longitudinal grooves in the wheels of artillery guns and other products. The project was approved by the technical department of the Arsenal plant, and the machine tool was manufactured at the Tula`s weapons plant.
Since 1910 Grigoriev was interested in aviation, he became a member of the Kyiv Aeronautics Society, a member of his scientific and technical committee. In 1909-1915 he worked at the factory of F. Tereshchenko as a draftsman, head of workshops, design engineer, head of technical bureau, assistant director. In 1911 he studied in France, he graduated from an aeronautical school and trained in the aerodynamic laboratory of Eiffel.
In 1916, he was sent to the aviation workshop of the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, where under his leadership the plane was designed, for the construction of which thе idea of alternate angle of surface attack was used. Since July 1917, he has headed the aviation workshops of the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute ( he organized a school of aviation technicians and mechanics). In 1919 he worked as the Head of the first technical and economic, and then the scientific and technical departments of the Directorate General of the Air Force of Ukraine. During this period, he published the work of his French teacher Eiffel “Resistance to air in aviation”, prepared a guide for aircraft designers, engineers and aircraft technicians, also he wrote several popular science articles on aviation.
Since 1921 he was in the city of Aleksandrovsk (now Zaporozhye) at the aircraft plant “Deka” for inspection of the state of affairs and the organization of aircraft repair. It was young, created before the revolution of the department of the Petrograd "Joint-stock company of electromechanical equipment," which released the first experimental series of aircraft engines of the Mercedes type, collected exclusively from domestic materials and components, in November 1916. The new plant was named "State Aviation Plant № 9". On 2 January, 1921, Grigoriev was appointed Head engineer of this plant and, at the same time, was the Head of aircraft construction department of thise plant. But due to the state of health on 22 September, 1921, he resigned because of pulmonary tuberculosis and returned to Kyiv. He died 4 May, 1922.
For a long time the name of Volodymyr Petrovich Grigoriev was forgotten, only in 1957 on his grave at the Solomensky cemetery a monument was installed.