Roman Petrovich Taskayev 1954-

Roman Petrovich Taskayev was born in the town of Khilok of Chita Region. From 1971 he served in the military.In 1975 he graduated from Kharkov high military aviation school and served in Air Force front-line units (till 1981). Graduated from Test-pilot school in 1983.

Between 1983-1998 he worked as test-pilot at A.I.Mikoyan EDB. He tested more than 40 aircraft types. He worked on the development of the following prototypes MiG-29, MiG-31 and MiG-AT. For the first time in Russian Aviation history, Roman made a transit flight over North Pole on MiG-31 with in-flight refuelling. During 1998 he joined A.S.Yakovlev EDB as a test pilot. He has set one world aviation record and has been awarded the Order of Labor Red Banner and Order of Courage medals.