The history of our jet aviation dates back 70
years ago, to
СBiТ jet was an outstanding engineering
achievement, no more, no less. This is a story of people who fought for their
dream to come true when many of their fellow countrymen were trying to survive.
However, great deeds are often necessitated or triggered by somebodyТs mistakes
or even meanness. This was exactly the case with the story of the Soviet jet
plane.
No sense of perspective
Only thirty years had passed since the first
flights of the Wright brothers, when it became clear that aviation advancement
was grinding to a halt. The piston engine and aerodynamic propeller had
exhausted their capacity and the 750 km/h was their absolute top speed limit.
This was when the world remembered rocket
scientists, who had been previously thought of as weird with their dreams of
space flights. At that time enthusiasts were experimenting with liquid-fuel
engines that could work in outer space. In the early 1930s English and German
scientists patented jet-propulsion engines. As a result, the first trials of
German jet planes took place in 1939-40, and an English Gloucester jet aircraft
took off in May 1940.
What about the
Miracles do happen, but not on a regular basis.
The gap between the
There were rocket scientists, but in 1938 The Jet
Technology Research Institute (NII) was effectively destroyed after mass-scale
arrests of its employees. Evidence suggests that repressions were guided by
denunciations of an InstituteТs employee who wanted to remain the best and brightest,
but this inevitably led to the most talented and hard-working people being
ousted. All the research activities slowed down. At that time there was only
one engineer in the
The disillusioned
Soviet aviation fed on the anticipation of a
great war in which, it became clear, the common propeller airplane was to be
used. There was, however a СgangТ of engineers who were thinking outside the
box: the design bureau headed by Viktor Bolkhovitinov
was established on the base of the newly built aircraft factory in Khimki, a suburb in the north-west of
In the end of 1940 he was joined by his recent student
Sasha Bereznyak, who had
been to the tests at NII-1 facility and saw a liquid-fuel jet engine with 1 tonne propulsion power. It wasnТt ready yet and exploded on
every other test, but the engineers in charge of the project promised to finish
it in a couple of months. Another drawback was that the engine consumed a
tremendous amount of fuel and an aircraft could only hold enough fuel for three
minutes, but it was still a tonne of propulsion
power! It was unheard of. This couldТve been an interceptor that would target a
range of bombers and then land as a glider. Bolkhovitinov
gave his team the go-ahead.
Bereznyak and Vladimir Isaev (on photo), who also joined the team, started working
on the new project. Isaev was slightly older than Bereznyak, though they were both in their thirties, but he
was deemed more experienced and serious, which, in fact, wasnТt exactly the
case. Isaev was a mining engineer and several years
before that he sent his application to the aircraft factory. His motivation was
that he lived and breathed aviation, but he thought it wasnТt Сrocket scienceТ
and he was sure he would learn everything that he needed in a year. He got the
job. At that time, Bolkhovitinov, whom they called СpatronТ had just turned 40.
By June 1941 the aircraft design was ready. The only thing lacking was the
engine, which was still a work in progress, and its fuel pumps were far from
being ready. On 21 June Bereznyak and Isaev decided to drop them altogether and use compressed
gas as the fuel supply. However, to implement, gas tanks had to be installed on
the aircraft, which meant a complete revamp of the project.
The next day the war was declared. Isaev found Bolkhovitinov at his country
house and convinced him to go to Narkom (PeopleТs Commissar - the Soviet equivalent of a
minister) of Aviation Industry to make the interceptor project top priority. Narkom gave them
a week to finish the draft. Bolkhovitinov agreed to
that, since they had been working on the project for over half a year already.
When they left the NarkomТs
office, Isaev explained that the day before that they
had decided to start from scratch.
However, they did manage to complete it in 12
days and promised the Kremlin to produce a working aircraft in three months.
The Kremlin replied back that they only had one month. To buy themselves some
time, they didnТt produce any drawings and worked straightaway with wood and veneer.
They were motivated not only by the order given by the very top people of the
country, but also by the sirens that sounded every night when
In the depth to the Ural minesЕ
On 7 November the troop train stopped at a platform amidst dense forest in Bilimbay, a factory settlement 60 km to the west of
He was desperately looking for at least some literature on the topic in the
library of the State Polytechnic Institute, but then he managed to arrange a
meeting with the countryТs biggest expert, Valentin Glushko, who was working in a
They built a stand on a bridge
across Chusovaya river:
engine with the nozzle facing the river, fuel tanks and a pilot seat with
controls. On
However, everything was ready by April and the aircraft was transported to Koltsovo airfield. The only thing they still couldnТt fix
was the acid: the moment they fixed a leak, the nasty smell was there again. By
12 May, after a number of careful taxings and 1-2 meter
СjumpsТ Bi-1 was ready for the first real flight. Unfortunately, it was raining
heavily on the 13th, as well as 14th and 15th of
May. The area around the airfield was absolutely silent, for the first time
after several weeks: for the sake of the test flights they cancelled all the
flights, including those transporting the new machinery to the frontline. Hundreds
of people gathered on trees to get a glimpse of the test flight of the new
aircraft.
The first in the
Bakhchivandzhi couldnТt wait any longer and after
lunch left for weather reconnaissance. He returned with good news Ц the rain
was about to stop. As dusk started to fall he ordered, СClear tailТ, which
originated in Koltsovo by analogy with the
traditional СClear propТ. With deafening noise and a great deal of flame the
aircraft shoot into air, and with the engine working for just one minute, it
reached the height of 1 kilometer. The landing was not altogether perfect: Bakhchivandzhi touched the ground and one landing wheel
broke down. Nevertheless, it was a triumph!
The aircraft was written off due to the damage
done by the acid. It took them more than six months to build a new one, and the
flights resumed in January 1943. The decision was made to start producing a
limited range of this aircraft provided that all the defects were rectified. After
that, flights with full operating weight started and the planes were gaining
speed with every flight. In the seventh flight, on 27 March, the pilots were
hoping to beat the world record. The engine worked, as planned, for 80 seconds,
but then the aircraft nosedived at 800 km/h and crashed into Patrushikhinsky pond near Uktus,
a village to the south of
BolkhovitinovТs design bureau continued working on
Bi plane on their return to Moscow. This was still very topical: although there
wasnТt much of a risk of air raids, Soviet aviation was up against German Messers. However, short flight time and nitric acid made BiТs usability questionable. Then came
the realization that Me-262 planes, which were faster but relatively rare, did
not make much of a difference. In 1945 Bi project was over and all bets were
now on jet-propulsion engines. Bolkhovitinov was
thinking of this back in 1941. When he found out that Lyulka
with his small team of engineers was working on Kirovsky
plant in
The first step is
always the hardest
Today we may smile condescendingly at those people who spent years and years of
their lives to make a veneer airplane weighing 1.5 tonnes
(this is an average weight of a modern car!) take off and fly for 2-3 minutes.
They could not say, unlike many of their colleagues, that their planes were
fighting the Germans, but big changes start with small steps. Airplanes with
liquid oxidizer engines turned out to be a dead end, but somebody had to try
it, fail and chalk it up to experience. A small Ural village turned out to be the
cradle of the Soviet rocket and space science.†
Vladimir Isaev spent
all his life working on rocket engines Ц they are now being used in air defense
and ballistic missile defense, as well as Soyuz space ships. Alexander Bereznyak established and headed a team working on winged
missiles. СSemerkaТ, the first intercontinental
rocket, which was a prototype for Vostok and Soyuz
space ships that are still in use, strangely embarked on its first flight on 15
May 1957, exactly 15 years later after the first flight of the Bi plane. The
best engineers from KorolevТs design bureau were Сthe
BilimbaysТ, including Vasily
Mischin, who was to follow in Sergey KorolevТs footsteps. Arvid Pallo, for instance, founded the search and rescue service for
the landing capsules. ††
One of KorolevТs closest companions was Boris Evseevich Chertok, who
contributed a lot to this†
article. He lived an amazingly long life, beyond 100 years, and
was still teaching at the