The Trotsky Naval Pilots Military School, now the Yeysk Higher Military Aviation School (YEVVAU) named after twice Hero of the Soviet Union, USSR pilot-cosmonaut V. M. Komarov, is a higher military educational institution (military institute) located in the city of Yeysk, Krasnodar Krai.
Founded on July 28, 1915, in Petrograd as an officers’ school of naval aviation. It is the only Air Force educational institution where specialists in air traffic management and organization are trained.
By Order of the Government of the Russian Federation of 2008 No. 1951-r, the school was merged as a separate structural подразделение into the Air Force Academy named after Professor N. E. Zhukovsky and Yu. A. Gagarin, and later was declared a branch of the “Military Educational and Scientific Center of the Air Force ‘Air Force Academy named after Professor N. E. Zhukovsky and Yu. A. Gagarin’” (VUNTS VVS “VVA”) (Moscow, Monino settlement, Shchyolkovsky District, Moscow Oblast).
By Order of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation of July 12, 2011 No. 1136, the branches of VUNTS VVS “VVA” in the cities of Yeysk (Krasnodar Krai), Saint Petersburg, and Chelyabinsk were abolished.
Trotsky Naval Aviation School (since 1918)
Trotsky Naval Aviation School (since 1920)
Trotsky Higher School of Red Naval Pilots (since 1923)
Trotsky Naval Pilots Military School (since 1925)
School of Naval Pilots and Observer Pilots (since March 1930)
Stalin Naval Pilots and Observer Pilots Military School of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army Air Force (since August 1930)
Stalin Military School of Pilots and Aerial Observers of Naval and Land Aviation (since 1936)
Stalin Naval Aviation School (since 1937)
Yeysk Aviation School of Pilots (since 1956)
Order of Lenin Yeysk Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots (since 1959)
On May 30, 1967, by a resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers, the school was named after twice Hero of the Soviet Union, USSR pilot-cosmonaut V. M. Komarov.
Order of Lenin Yeysk Higher Military Aviation School (Military Institute) named after twice Hero of the Soviet Union, USSR pilot-cosmonaut V. M. Komarov (since 2004).
The institution’s location also changed many times:
Oranienbaum — 1917
Nizhny Novgorod — 1918
Samara — 1919
Sevastopol — 1922
Yeysk — 1931
Mozdok — 1941
Borskoye, Kuibyshev Oblast — 1942
Yeysk — 1944
In February 1925, by an order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the country, the School was given a new name: the L. D. Trotsky Naval Pilots Military School. Naval military pilot V. A. Bukan was appointed its head. Under him, an effective training process was established, discipline was strengthened, and the aircraft fleet grew: M-20, M-24, R-1, and MR-1 aircraft entered service. Cadets were trained both by experienced specialists—pilots M. Ya. Lindel, V. S. Molokov, N. S. Melnikov, I. A. Pushkov, A. M. Virak, V. I. Myrsov—and by former student pilots, future famous polar explorers and the first Heroes of the Soviet Union: S. A. Levanevsky, A. V. Lyapidevsky, I. V. Doronin, M. I. Kozlov, and others. If in 1924 the School graduated 18 young aviators, then by 1929 their number had already increased to 46.