Nikolai Mikhailovich Skomorokhov (Russian: Николай Михайлович Скоморохов; 19 May 1920 – 14 October 1994) was a flying ace in the Soviet Air Forces who scored over 40 individual shootdowns of enemy aircraft during the Second World War.

In March 1942 he graduated from the Bataysk Military Aviation School of Pilots, which had been relocated to Yevlakh due to the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

He barely survived one of his first sorties after he got cut off from the rest of his squadron and was chased by multiple Messerschmitts; only his skillful maneuvering saved him and his fighter from the Luftwaffe.

[5] That victory was recreated in a Soviet propaganda film, which showed him taking off from the airfield and shooting down the enemy plane right after a meeting about his application to join the Communist Party.

[6] Throughout the summer of 1943 he rapidly grew his victory tally, and by the end of the year he had claimed 13 solo shootdowns of enemy aircraft.

[5] In 1944 Skomorokhov was selected as the deputy commander of a free-hunting "squadron of aces" formed out of the best pilots of the 295th Fighter Aviation Division.

[8][9] Throughout the course of the war he fought in the 5th and 17th Air Armies on the Transcaucasian, North Caucasian, Southwestern and 3rd Ukrainian fronts, and participated in military operations over Caucasus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Austria.

In 1958 he graduated from the Military Academy of General Staff, after which he was assigned to the post of first deputy commander of the 71st Fighter Aviation Corps, which was part of the Soviet forces stationed in East Germany.