first pilot to destroy an enemy airplane in flight. During the Battle of Galicia on 25 August 1914 (by the Old Style calendar still used in Russia), after trying various methods on previous occasions unsuccessfully, he used his Morane-Saulnier Type G (s/n 281) to ram the Austrian Albatros B.II reconnaissance aircraft of observer Baron Friedrich von Rosenthal and pilot Franz Malina from FLIK 11. Eager to destroy enemy aircraft, he probably intended to hit it with a glancing blow but damaged his own aircraft as much as the enemy's and both planes crashed. As was common for the time, Nesterov was not strapped in and he fell from his plane, dying of his injuries the next day. The Austrian pilot and observer also died. The town of Zhovkva (currently in Lviv Oblast, Ukraine), located near the battle, was renamed Nesterov in his honor in 1951. Legacy Nesterov was buried in Kyiv, Russian Empire. His ramming method was used during the Second World War by a number of Soviet pilots with success and without loss of life. The technique became known as taran. In his honor, the Soviet Union established the Nesterov Cup for the best aerobatics team. The cup was donated to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) in 1962. It is awarded to the Men's World Team Champions of the World Aerobatic Championships. The outer main-belt asteroid 3071 Nesterov, discovered by Soviet astronomer Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova in 1973, is named after him. References Sources Annette Carson. Flight Fantastic: The Illustrated History of Aerobatics. 1986. Jon Guttman, et al. Pusher Aces of World War 1. London: Osprey Pub Co, 2009. , . External links Biography of Pyotr Nesterov 1887 births 1914 deaths Military personnel from Nizhny Novgorod People from Nizhegorodsky Uyezd Russian aviators Aerial warfare pioneers 20th-century Russian inventors Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents Imperial Russian Air Force personnel Russian military personnel killed in World War I Aerobatic pilots Pilots who performed an aerial ramming