History
Three operating regimes. Fifteen aircraft programmes. One factory floor.
Foundation
Order N#31.
The factory's origins trace to the WWII evacuation of two Soviet aircraft facilities to Tbilisi. On 20 December 1941 it was officially renamed Dimitrov's N#31 Tbilisi Aviation Factory.
The LaGG-3 was the first product off the line — a wooden-frame interceptor pressed into service across the Caucasus Front. Production ran flat-out through the war years. By 1942 the plant had already delivered 714 aircraft into combat.
The jet age
First Soviet jet fighter.
After the war the plant transitioned to jet aviation. In 1946, in collaboration with the Yakovlev Design Bureau, the workshop produced the Yak-15 — the first Soviet jet fighter.
Production continued through the Yak-17 and Yak-23. By the early 1950s the factory had pivoted again, this time into the line that would define it for the next three decades.
MiG production node
1960s
Through the 1950s the plant became a principal MiG production node for the southern Soviet Union. The MiG-15 entered series production in the early 1950s; the MiG-17 followed shortly after.
In 1957 the plant pivoted again — this time to the supersonic MiG-21, the most-produced supersonic fighter in history. Between 1959 and 1966 the workshop also produced the La-17 and La-17M unmanned aerial vehicles, decades before "UAV" became part of the vocabulary.
From the 1950s
MiG-15
Mikoyan-Gurevich subsonic fighter.
From the 1950s
MiG-17
Transonic successor to the MiG-15.
From 1957
MiG-21
Supersonic. Most-produced supersonic ever.
Frogfoot
The Su-25 production line that defined the plant.
Series production of the Su-25 "Frogfoot" close-air-support aircraft began in 1978 and ran until the Soviet collapse. The plant became one of the principal Su-25 production lines.
In parallel, the missile lines spun up. Pre-collapse output of the R-60 and R-73 short-range air-to-air missiles peaked at more than six thousand units per year.
Restart
TAM Management LLC founded.
In 2015 Vaja Tordia founded TAM Management LLC and restarted continuous operations at the Tbilisi facility. The workshop was re-equipped to current technical and labor-safety standards.
The first modernization programmes began on the same floor that had built the originals: the Su-25NG variants, the Mi-24 "Super Hind" with Paramount Group, R-60 / R-73 lifecycle extension, the T-31 UCAV developed in-house, and the Ka-27 and L-39 Albatros programmes. In 2023 the quality management system was certified by DEKRA against ISO 9001:2015 and EN 9100:2018.
Active programmes
Su-25NG
L-39
T-31 UCAV
Mi-24 Super Hind
Mi-8 / 17M
Ka-27
R-60 / R-73
Same plant. Same floor.