 By January 1944 the Soviets were aware of successful British and American jet aircraft projects and that the Germans were about to deploy jet and rocket @-@ propelled aircraft of their own . The GKO ordered on 18 February that the NKAP ( People 's Commissariat for Aviation Industry ) centralize jet research under its control and that the NKAP was to present proposals to alleviate the situation within a month . As a result of this meeting the NKAP ordered the Lavochkin , Sukhoi , Yakovlev and Mikoyan @-@ Gurevich design bureaux ( OKBs ) to develop and build jet aircraft with the utmost dispatch . Aware of earlier problems encountered with other novel propulsion systems such as ramjets both Sukhoi and Mikoyan @-@ Gurevich chose to use the VRDK booster engine that had been under development since 1942 . 
