Yevgeny Chertovsky

Yevgeny Yefimovich Chertovsky (Russian: Евгений Ефимович Чертовский; born February 15, 1902 - died 1961) was a Soviet Russian inventor who designed the first full pressure suit in Leningrad in 1931.[1]

Chertovsky, an engineer at the Aviation Medicine Institute, was involved in the early Soviet stratospheric balloon program, and co-designed the ill-fated Osoaviakhim-1. The first aircraft designed for crew wearing Chertovsky's pressure suits could have been a gigantic (300,000 cubic meters) USSR-3 balloon that burnt down on launch pad in September 1935.[2]

The CH-1 was a simple pressure-tight suit with helmet which did not have joints, thus requiring substantial force to move the arms and legs when pressurised. This was remedied in CH-2 (1932–1935) and later suits, up to the 1940 CH-7.[3] CH-3 was the first operational suit that allowed the pilot sufficient freedom of movement, first tested in flight in 1937 at a 12 kilometer altitude.[4]

Chertovsky coined the term "skafander" for full pressure suits; from the Greek words skaf ("boat", "ship") and andros ("man"); skafandr has since become the term used by Russians to refer to standard diving dresses or space suits.