Honored Test Pilot of the Russian Federation Sergey Tresviatsky (June 17, 1999), Major.
Born on May 6, 1954, in the city of Nizhneudinsk, Irkutsk Oblast. He spent his childhood and youth in the town of Novospasskoye, Ulyanovsk Oblast. In 1971, he graduated from the secondary school in Novospasskoye.
Sergey Tresviatsky has served in the military since 1971. In 1975, he graduated from the Kachinskoe Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots, named after A.F. Myasnikov (Flight school awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner). He served in the Air Force combat units (in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, or “GSVG”) as a pilot, senior pilot, and flight leader. From 1980, he served as a flight leader in a fighter aviation regiment (IAP) of the Air Force in the Far East. From 1981, he was in the military reserve.
In 1983, he graduated from the Test Pilots School, and in 1985 from the Moscow Aviation Institute. Since June 1983, he worked in flight test operations at the Gromov Flight Research Institute (LII) as a test pilot, cosmonaut-test pilot, complex chief, and deputy head of the Flight Test Center.
He conducted a wide range of critical and complex flight test tasks related to the aerodynamic and structural characteristics of the MiG-21, MiG-23, Yak-38, the powerplant characteristics of the Su-15, Su-24, MiG-29, and the enhancement of combat capabilities and reliability of the Su-25, and also contributed to developing experimental control systems on the Su-27LL(Flying laboratory).
He performed extensive testing of take-offs from a mobile ski-jump ramp on the MiG-21(first take-off on April 7, 1994) and MiG-29 (first take-off on January 24, 1998). He was one of the inventors of this system and developed methods for correcting errors during ski-jump take-offs.
He was a lead test pilot and one of the key personnel in the flight testing of naval-based aircraft, including the first take-off from a ship-style ski-jump ramp, approach landings (day and night), and trials of various optical landing systems. He contributed to the development of the OSP-3 carrier-based landing system using arresting gear.
Since 1985, he was in the cosmonaut-test pilot group, serving as a cosmonaut-test pilot and test pilot of the LII Department for Cosmonaut Training. In 1987, he graduated from the Cosmonaut Training Center and trained under the Buran reusable spacecraft program. He played a key role in that program. On a Tu-154 flying laboratory equipped with Buran’s onboard control system, he performed the first fully automatic landing along the spacecraft’s unpowered descent trajectory.
In 1990, he participated as a Su-27 pilot at the Everett airshow in the USA. On October 24, 1990, he ejected together with pilot Victor Alexandrov from a MiG-23UB at Ramenskoye airfield. On July 24, 1993, during an airshow commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Royal Air Forceat RAF Fairford, UK, he ejected from a MiG-29 after a mid-air collision with another MiG-29 piloted by Alexander Beshchasnov.
From 2003–2008, he served as the Authorized Representative of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (“Rosaviakosmos”) for implementing the Russian Government’s decree on restructuring the defense-industrial complex in the Republic of Tatarstan and Samara Oblast.
From 2004–2008, he was the General Director of the Samara Scientific and Technical Complex named after N.D. Kuznetsov. He was one of the creators of the world’s first industrial gas turbine engine powered by cryogenic fuels (liquefied natural gas and liquid hydrogen): the NK-361 and GT-1 (dual-section gas turbine locomotive) – Patent №2352484, designed for ground transport systems and industrial gas turbine power plants.
From 2009–2011, he served as Deputy Director for Flight Testing and Head of the Flight Test Center at the Gromov Flight Research Institute (LII). From 2011–2015, he was Deputy Director and Executive Director of the Flight Research Center (“FGUP”). From 2016–2019, he served as Deputy Head of the Research Complex and Deputy Chief Designer for life support systems and protective equipment (including for the Su-35 and Su-57) at NPP “Zvezda” named after Academician G.I. Severin.
Since 1990, he was a Member (M) of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP), promoted to Fellow Member (FM) in 1999, and to Fellow (F)in 2021.
Sergey Tresviatsky was decorated with several Russian State awards. He lived in Zhukovsky, Moscow region… passed away on May 27, 2025 because of fatal stroke.
