On June 20, 1939, the first ever experimental jet aircraft, the He.176, created by German aircraft designers, flew. With some lag, the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, as well as Japan, produced jet vehicles.

1. First pancake

Work on the creation of the first jet aircraft began at Heinkel in 1937. And two years later the He.176 made its first flight. After five flights, it became clear that he did not have the slightest chance of going into production.

The designers chose for it a liquid-jet engine with a thrust of 600 kgf, which uses methanol and hydrogen peroxide as fuel and oxidizer. It was assumed that the car would reach a speed of 1000 km/h, but it was only possible to accelerate it to 750 km/h. The enormous fuel consumption did not allow the aircraft to move more than 60 km from the airfield. The only advantage compared to conventional fighters was the enormous rate of climb, equal to 60 m/s, which was three times higher than that of vehicles with piston engines.

The fate of the He.176 was also influenced by a subjective circumstance - during the display, Hitler did not like the plane.

2. First serial

Germany was ahead of everyone in creating the first production jet aircraft. It became Me.262. It made its first flight in July 1942 and entered service in 1944. The aircraft was produced both as a fighter, and as a bomber, and as a reconnaissance aircraft, and as an attack aircraft. In total, almost one and a half thousand vehicles entered the army.

The Me.262 used two Jumo-004 turbojet engines with a thrust of 910 kgf, which had an 8-stage axial compressor, a single-stage axial turbine and 6 combustion chambers.

Unlike the He.176, which succeeded in devouring fuel, the jet Messerschmitt was a successful machine with excellent flight characteristics:

Maximum speed at altitude - 870 km/h

Flight range - up to 1050 km

Practical ceiling - 12200 m

Rate of climb - 50 m/s

Length - 10.9 m

Height - 3.8 m

Wingspan - 12.5 m

Wing area - 21.8 sq.m.

Empty weight - 3800 kg

Curb weight - 6000 kg

Armament - up to 4 30 mm cannons, from 2 to 14 hardpoints; weight of suspended missiles or bombs up to 1500 kg.

During the period of hostilities, Me.262 shot down 150 aircraft. Losses amounted to 100 aircraft. This accident rate was largely due to both insufficient training of pilots for flights on a fundamentally new aircraft, and to defects in the engine, which had a short service life and low reliability.

3. One way ticket

The liquid-propellant jet engine was used in only one production aircraft during World War II. In the Japanese Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka manned bomber aircraft designed for kamikaze use. From the end of 1944 until the end of the war, 825 of them were produced.

The plane was built on the principle of “cheap and cheerful.” A wooden glider with 1.2 tons of ammonal in the nose was equipped with three liquid-propellant rocket engines that operated for 10 seconds and accelerated the aircraft to a speed of 650 km/h. There were no landing gear or takeoff engines. The bomber delivered the Ohka on a sling within visual range of the target. After which the rocket engine was ignited.

However, the effectiveness of such a scheme was low. Because the bombers were detected by the locators of American Navy ships before the kamikazes were aimed at the target. As a result, both bombers and aircraft filled with ammonal were senselessly lost at distant approaches.

4. British centenarian

The Gloster Meteor was the only Allied jet aircraft to see action in World War II. It made its first flight in March 1943, entered service with the Royal Air Force in July 1944, was produced until 1955 inclusive, and was in service with the air forces of a number of British military allies until the end of the 70s. A total of 3,555 vehicles of various modifications were produced.

During the war period, two modifications of the fighter were produced - F. Mk I and F. Mk III. The F. Mk I squadron shot down 10 German V-1s. F. Mk III, due to their special secrecy, were not released into enemy territory. And they had to repel the attacks of the Luftwaffe, based near Brussels. However, starting in February 1945, German aviation was exclusively engaged in defense. Of the 230 Gloster Meteors produced up to mid-1945, only two were lost when they collided while landing in heavy cloud conditions.

Performance characteristics of Gloster Meteor F. Mk III:

Length - 12.6 m

Height - 3.96 m

Wingspan - 13.1 m

Wing area - 34.7 sq.m.

Take-off weight - 6560 kg

Engines - 2TRD

Thrust - 2×908 kgf

Maximum speed - 837 km/h

Ceiling - 13400 m

Range - 2160 km

Armament - 4 30mm cannons

5. Late to the call

The American Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star began arriving at British airfields immediately before the end of hostilities in Europe - in April 1945. He didn't have time to fight. The F-80 was used extensively as a fighter-bomber a few years later during the Korean War.

The first ever battle between two jet fighters took place on the Korean Peninsula. F-80 and the more modern transonic Soviet MiG-15. The Soviet pilot won.

A total of 1,718 of these first American jet aircraft.

Performance characteristics of Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star:

Length - 10.5 m

Height - 3.45 m

Wingspan - 11.85 m

Wing area - 22.1 sq.m.

Take-off weight - 5300 kg

Engines - 1TRD

Thrust - 1×1746 kgf

Maximum speed - 880 km/h

Rate of climb - 23 m/s

Ceiling - 13700 m

Range - 1255 km, with PTB - 2320 km

Armament - 6 12.7 mm machine guns, 8 unguided rockets, 2 454 kg bombs.

6. Soviet-style tender

The first Soviet experimental aircraft BI-1 was designed in the spring of 1941 in twenty days and completed in a month. A wooden glider to which a liquid-propellant rocket engine was attached - it was purely Stakhanov-style. After the start of the war, the plane was evacuated to the Urals. And in July they began testing. According to the designers' plans, BI-1 was supposed to reach a speed of 900 km/h. However, when the famous tester Grigory Yakovlevich Bakhchivandzhi approached the 800 km/h line, the plane lost control and crashed to the ground.

The creation of a jet fighter was normally approached only in 1945. And not even one, but two. By the middle of the year, the twin-engine MiG-9 and single-engine Yak-15 were designed. They took off on the same day - April 24, 1946.

The MiG was more fortunate in terms of its use in the Air Force. As a result of a comparison of the characteristics of the two machines, in which Stalin also took part, the Yak-15 was ordered to be made into a training aircraft for training jet pilots.

The MiG-9 has become a fighting machine. And already in 1946 he began to join the Air Force units. Over three years, 602 aircraft were produced. However, two circumstances greatly affected its fate, and therefore the MiG-9 was discontinued.

Firstly, its development was carried out at an accelerated pace. As a result, until 1948, changes were regularly made to the design of the aircraft.

Secondly, the pilots were very suspicious of new car, which required a lot of effort to master and was not forgiving of even minor piloting errors. They were much more familiar with the Yak-15, which was as close as possible to the Yak-3, perfectly familiar to everyone. Actually, it was built on its basis with the necessary minimal deviations.

And in 1948, the first jet fighter, which turned out to be damp, was replaced by the more advanced MiG-15.

Flight characteristics of MiG-9:

Length - 9.75 m

Wingspan - 10.0 m

Wing area - 18.2 sq.m.

Take-off weight - 4990 kg

Engines - 2TRD

Thrust - 2×800 kgf

Maximum speed - 864 km/h

Rate of climb - 22 m/s

Ceiling - 13500 m

Flight duration at an altitude of 5000 m - 1 hour

Armament - 3 guns.

It's always difficult to be first, but interesting

On the morning of March 27, 1943, the first Soviet jet fighter "BI-1" took off from the airfield of the Koltsovo Air Force Research Institute in Sverdlovsk region. The seventh test flight to achieve maximum speed took place. Having reached a height of two kilometers and picking up a speed of about 800 km/h, the plane suddenly went into a dive at 78 seconds after running out of fuel and collided with the ground. Experienced test pilot G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi, who was sitting at the helm, died. This disaster became an important stage in the development of aircraft with liquid rocket engines in the USSR, but although work on them continued until the end of the 1940s, this direction of aviation development turned out to be a dead end. Nevertheless, these first, although not very successful steps, had a serious impact on the entire subsequent history of the post-war development of Soviet aircraft and rocketry.

“The era of propeller airplanes should be followed by the era of jet airplanes...” - these words of the founder of jet technology K. E. Tsiolkovsky began to receive real embodiment already in the mid-1930s of the twentieth century. By this point, it became clear that a further significant increase in aircraft flight speed due to an increase in the power of piston engines and a more advanced aerodynamic shape is practically impossible. The aircraft had to be equipped with engines whose power could not be increased without excessively increasing the engine's mass. Thus, to increase the flight speed of a fighter from 650 to 1000 km/h, it was necessary to increase the power of the piston engine by 6 (!) times.

It was obvious that the piston engine had to be replaced by a jet engine, which, having smaller transverse dimensions, would allow reaching higher speeds, giving greater thrust per unit of weight.

Jet engines are divided into two main classes: air-breathing engines, which use the energy of oxidation of combustible air with oxygen taken from the atmosphere, and rocket engines, which contain all the components of the working fluid on board and are capable of operating in any environment, including airless ones. The first type includes turbojet (TRJ), pulsating air-jet (PvRJ) and ramjet (ramjet) engines, and the second type includes liquid-propellant rocket engines (LPRE) and solid-fuel rocket engines (STRD).

The first examples of jet technology appeared in countries where traditions in the development of science and technology and the level of the aviation industry were extremely high. These are, first of all, Germany, the USA, as well as England and Italy. In 1930, the design of the first turbojet engine was patented by the Englishman Frank Whittle, then the first working model of the engine was assembled in Germany in 1935 by Hans von Ohain, and in 1937 the Frenchman Rene Leduc received a government order to create a ramjet engine.

In the USSR, practical work on “jet” topics was carried out mainly in the direction of liquid rocket engines. The founder of rocket engine building in the USSR was V.P. Glushko. In 1930, then an employee of the Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL) in Leningrad, which at that time was the only design bureau in the world for the development of solid fuel rockets, he created the first domestic liquid-propellant rocket engine ORM-1. And in Moscow in 1931–1933. scientist and designer of the Jet Propulsion Research Group (GIRP) F.L. Tsander developed the OR-1 and OR-2 liquid propellant engines.

A new powerful impetus for the development of jet technology in the USSR was given by the appointment of M. N. Tukhachevsky in 1931 to the post of Deputy People's Commissar of Defense and Chief of Arms of the Red Army. It was he who insisted on the adoption in 1932 of the Council of People’s Commissars resolution “On the development of steam turbine and jet engines, as well as jet-powered aircraft...”. The work that began after this at the Kharkov Aviation Institute made it possible only by 1941 to create a working model of the first Soviet turbojet engine designed by A. M. Lyulka and contributed to the launch on August 17, 1933 of the first liquid-propellant rocket in the USSR GIRD-09, which reached an altitude of 400 m.

But the lack of more tangible results prompted Tukhachevsky in September 1933 to unite the GDL and GIRD into a single Jet Research Institute (RNII), headed by Leningrader, military engineer 1st rank I. T. Kleimenov. The future Chief Designer of the space program, Muscovite S.P. Korolev, who two years later in 1935 was appointed head of the rocket aircraft department, was appointed his deputy. And although the RNII was subordinate to the ammunition department of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry and its main topic was the development of rocket shells (the future Katyusha), Korolev, together with Glushko, managed to calculate the most advantageous design schemes of the devices, types of engines and control systems, types of fuel and materials. As a result, by 1938, his department had developed an experimental guided missile system, including designs for liquid-propelled cruise missiles “212” and long-range ballistic missiles “204” with gyroscopic control, aircraft missiles for firing at air and ground targets, and anti-aircraft solid-fuel missiles with guidance by light and radio beam.

In an effort to gain support from the military leadership in the development of the high-altitude rocket plane "218", Korolev substantiated the concept of a missile fighter-interceptor capable of reaching high altitude and attack aircraft that have broken through to the protected object.

But on June 30, 1939, the German pilot Erich Warsitz took into the air the world's first jet aircraft with a liquid-propellant engine designed by Helmut Walter "Heinkel" He-176, reaching a speed of 700 km/h, and two months later the world's first jet aircraft with a turbojet engine "Heinkel" He-178, equipped with a Hans von Ohain engine, "HeS-3 B" with a thrust of 510 kg and a speed of 750 km/h.

In May 1941, the British Gloucester Pioneer E.28/29 made its first flight with the Whittle W-1 turbojet engine designed by Frank Whittle.

Thus, Nazi Germany became the leader in the jet race, which, in addition to aviation programs, began to implement a missile program under the leadership of Wernher von Braun at the secret training ground in Peenemünde.

In 1938, the RNII was renamed NII-3, now the “royal” rocket plane “218-1” began to be designated “RP-318-1”. New leading designers, engineers A. Shcherbakov, A. Pallo, replaced the ORM-65 liquid-propellant engine V. P. Glushko with the nitric acid-kerosene engine “RDA-1–150” designed by L. S. Dushkin.

And now, after almost a year of testing, in February 1940, the first flight of the RP-318-1 took place, towed behind the R 5 aircraft. Test pilot? V. P. Fedorov at an altitude of 2800 m unhooked the towing cable and started the rocket engine. Behind the rocket plane, a small cloud appeared from the incendiary squib, then brown smoke, then a fiery stream about a meter long. “RP-318–1”, having reached a maximum speed of only 165 km/h, began flying with a climb.

This modest achievement nevertheless allowed the USSR to join the pre-war “jet club” of the leading aviation powers.

The successes of German designers did not go unnoticed by the Soviet leadership. In July 1940, the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars adopted a resolution that determined the creation of the first domestic aircraft with jet engines. The resolution, in particular, provided for the resolution of issues “on the use of high-power jet engines for ultra-high-speed stratospheric flights.”

Massive Luftwaffe raids on British cities and the lack of a sufficient number of radar stations in the Soviet Union revealed the need to create an interceptor fighter to cover particularly important objects, the project of which, in the spring of 1941, began to be worked on by young engineers A. Ya. Bereznyak and A. M. Isaev from the Design Bureau of designer V.F. Bolkhovitinov. The concept of their Dushkin-powered missile interceptor or “short-range fighter” was based on Korolev’s proposal put forward back in 1938.

The “close fighter”, when an enemy aircraft appeared, had to quickly take off and, having a high rate of climb and speed, catch up with and destroy the enemy in the first attack, then, after running out of fuel, using the reserve altitude and speed, plan for landing.

The project was distinguished by its extraordinary simplicity and low cost - the entire structure was to be made of solid wood from plywood. The engine frame, pilot protection and landing gear were made of metal, which were retracted under the influence of compressed air.

With the start of the war, Bolkhovitinov attracted the entire design bureau to work on the aircraft. In July 1941, a preliminary design with an explanatory note was sent to Stalin, and in August the State Defense Committee decided to urgently build an interceptor, which was needed by Moscow air defense units. According to the order of the People's Commissariat of the Aviation Industry, 35 days were allotted for the production of the aircraft.

The aircraft, called “BI” (short-range fighter or, as journalists later interpreted it, “Bereznyak-Isaev”), was built almost without detailed working drawings, drawing life-size parts on plywood. The fuselage skin was glued onto a blank of veneer, then attached to the frame. The keel was made integral with the fuselage, as was the thin wooden wing of the caisson structure, and was covered with canvas. Even the carriage for two 20-mm ShVAK cannons with 90 rounds of ammunition was made of wood. The D-1 A-1100 liquid-propellant rocket engine was installed in the rear fuselage. The engine consumed 6 kg of kerosene and acid per second. The total fuel supply on board the aircraft, equal to 705 kg, ensured engine operation for almost 2 minutes. The estimated take-off weight of the BI aircraft was 1650 kg with an empty weight of 805 kg.

In order to reduce the time needed to create an interceptor, at the request of A. S. Yakovlev, Deputy People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry for Experimental Aircraft Construction, the airframe of the "BI" aircraft was examined in a full-scale TsAGI wind tunnel, and at the airfield, test pilot B. N. Kudrin began jogging and approaching in tow . The development of the power plant required a fair amount of tinkering, since nitric acid corroded tanks and wiring and had a harmful effect on humans.

However, all work was interrupted due to the evacuation of the design bureau to the Ural village of Belimbay in October 1941. There, in order to debug the operation of the liquid-propellant rocket engine systems, a ground stand was installed - the “BI” fuselage with a combustion chamber, tanks and pipelines. By the spring of 1942, the ground testing program was completed.

Flight testing of the unique fighter was entrusted to Captain Bakhchivandzhi, who made 65 combat missions at the front and shot down 5 German aircraft. He previously mastered the control of systems at the stand.

The morning of May 15, 1942 forever went down in the history of Russian cosmonautics and aviation, with the takeoff from the ground of the first Soviet aircraft with a liquid jet engine. The flight, which lasted 3 minutes 9 seconds at a speed of 400 km/h and with a rate of climb of 23 m/s, made a strong impression on everyone present. This is how Bolkhovitinov recalled it in 1962: “For us standing on the ground, this takeoff was unusual. Picking up speed unusually quickly, the plane took off from the ground after 10 seconds and disappeared from view after 30 seconds. Only the flame of the engine told where he was. Several minutes passed like this. I won’t lie, my guts were shaking.”

Members of the state commission noted in an official act that “the takeoff and flight of the BI-1 aircraft with a rocket engine, used for the first time as the main engine of an aircraft, proved the possibility of practical flight on a new principle, which opens up a new direction for the development of aviation.” The test pilot noted that the flight on the BI aircraft was extremely pleasant in comparison with conventional types of aircraft, and the aircraft was superior to other fighters in terms of ease of control.

A day after the tests, a ceremonial meeting and rally was organized in Bilimbay. A poster hung above the presidium table: “Hello to Captain Bakhchivandzhi, the pilot who flew into the new!”

Soon followed by the decision of the State Defense Committee to build a series of 20 BI-VS aircraft, where, in addition to two cannons, a cluster bomb was installed in front of the pilot’s cockpit, which housed ten small anti-aircraft bombs weighing 2.5 kg each.

In total, the BI fighter made 7 test flights, each of which recorded the best flight performance of the aircraft. The flights took place without flight incidents, with only minor damage to the landing gear occurring during landings.

But on March 27, 1943, when accelerating to a speed of 800 km/h at an altitude of 2000 m, the third prototype spontaneously went into a dive and crashed into the ground near the airfield. The commission that investigated the circumstances of the crash and the death of test pilot Bakhchivandzhi was unable to establish the reasons for the plane being pulled into a dive, noting that the phenomena that occur at flight speeds of about 800–1000 km/h have not yet been studied.

The disaster hit hard the reputation of the Bolkhovitinov Design Bureau - all unfinished BI-VS interceptors were destroyed. And although later in 1943–1944. A modification of the BI-7 with ramjet engines at the ends of the wing was designed, and in January 1945, pilot B.N. Kudrin completed the last two flights on the BI-1, all work on the aircraft was stopped.

The concept of a rocket fighter was most successfully implemented in Germany, where since January 1939, in the special “Department L” of the Messerschmitt company, where Professor A. Lippisch and his employees moved from the German Glider Institute, work was underway on “Project X” - “ object" interceptor "Me-163" "Komet" with a liquid-propellant rocket engine running on a mixture of hydrazine, methanol and water. It was an aircraft of an unconventional “tailless” design, which, for the sake of maximum weight reduction, took off from a special trolley and landed on a ski extended from the fuselage. Test pilot Ditmar performed the first flight at maximum thrust in August 1941, and already in October it exceeded the 1000 km/h mark for the first time in history. It took more than two years of testing and development before the Me-163 was put into production. It became the first aircraft with a liquid propellant engine to participate in combat since May 1944. And although more than 300 interceptors were produced before February 1945, no more than 80 combat-ready aircraft were in service.

The combat use of Me-163 fighters showed the inconsistency of the missile interceptor concept. Due to the high speed of approach, the German pilots did not have time to aim accurately, and the limited fuel supply (only for 8 minutes of flight) did not provide the opportunity for a second attack. After running out of fuel during gliding, the interceptors became easy prey for American fighters - Mustangs and Thunderbolts. Before the end of hostilities in Europe, the Me-163 shot down 9 enemy aircraft, losing 14 aircraft. However, losses from accidents and disasters were three times higher than combat losses. The unreliability and short range of the Me-163 contributed to the fact that the Luftwaffe leadership launched other jet fighters, the Me-262 and He-162, into mass production.

Messerschmitt Me.262 (German: Messerschmitt Me.262 “Schwalbe” - “swallow”)

The leadership of the Soviet aviation industry in 1941–1943. was focused on the gross production of the maximum number of combat aircraft and improving production models and was not interested in developing promising work on jet technology. Thus, the BI-1 disaster put an end to other Soviet missile interceptor projects: Andrei Kostikov’s “302”, Roberto Bartini’s “R-114” and Korolev’s “RP”.

But information from Germany and the Allied countries became the reason that in February 1944 the State Defense Committee, in its resolution, pointed out the intolerable situation with the development of jet technology in the country. Moreover, all developments in this regard were now concentrated in the newly organized Jet Aviation Research Institute, of which Bolkhovitinov was appointed deputy head. This institute brought together groups of jet engine designers who had previously worked at various enterprises, headed by M. M. Bondaryuk, V. P. Glushko, L. S. Dushkin, A. M. Isaev, A. M. Lyulka.

In May 1944, the State Defense Committee adopted another resolution outlining a broad program for the construction of jet aircraft. This document provided for the creation of modifications of the Yak-3, La-7 and Su-6 with an accelerating liquid-propellant engine, the construction of “purely rocket” aircraft in the Yakovlev and Polikarpov Design Bureaus, an experimental Lavochkin aircraft with a turbojet engine, as well as fighters with air-breathing motor-compressor engines in the Mikoyan Design Bureau and Sukhoi. For this purpose, the Sukhoi design bureau created the Su-7 fighter, in which the liquid-propellant RD-1, developed by Glushko, worked together with a piston engine.

Flights on the Su-7 began in 1945. When the RD-1 was turned on, the aircraft's speed increased by an average of 115 km/h, but the tests had to be stopped due to the frequent failure of the jet engine. A similar situation arose in the design bureaus of Lavochkin and Yakovlev. On one of the experimental La-7 R aircraft, the accelerator exploded in flight; the test pilot miraculously managed to escape. When testing the Yak-3 RD, test pilot Viktor Rastorguev managed to reach a speed of 782 km/h, but during the flight the plane exploded and the pilot died. The increasing frequency of accidents led to the fact that testing of aircraft with the RD-1 was stopped.

One of the most interesting projects of rocket-powered interceptors was the project of the supersonic (!) fighter “RM-1” or “SAM-29”, developed at the end of 1944 by the undeservedly forgotten aircraft designer A. S. Moskalev. The aircraft was designed according to the “flying wing” design of a triangular shape with oval leading edges, and in its development the pre-war experience in creating the Sigma and Strela aircraft was used. The RM-1 project was supposed to have the following characteristics: crew - 1 person, power plant - RD2 MZV with a thrust of 1590 kgf, wingspan - 8.1 m and its area - 28.0 m2, take-off weight - 1600 kg , maximum speed - 2200 km/h (and this was in 1945!). TsAGI believed that the construction and flight testing of the RM-1 was one of the most promising areas in the future development of Soviet aviation.

In November 1945, the order to build RM-1 was signed by Minister A.I. Shakhurin, but in January 1946, the order to build RM-1 was canceled by Yakovlev. Similar Cheranovsky BICH-26 (Che-24) supersonic project a fighter based on a “flying wing” with a rudder and a variable-sweep wing was also cancelled.

Post-war acquaintance with German trophies revealed a significant lag in the development of the domestic jet aircraft industry. To bridge the gap, it was decided to use the German JUMO-004 and BMW-003 engines, and then create our own based on them. These engines were named “RD-10” and “RD-20”.

In 1945, simultaneously with the task of building a MiG-9 fighter with two RD-20s, the Mikoyan Design Bureau was tasked with developing an experimental interceptor fighter with an RD-2 M-3 V liquid-propellant rocket engine and a speed of 1000 km/h. The aircraft, designated I-270 (“Zh”), was soon built, but its further tests did not show the advantage of a missile fighter over an aircraft with a turbojet engine, and work on this topic was closed. In the future, liquid jet engines in aviation began to be used only on prototypes and experimental aircraft or as aircraft boosters.

“...It’s scary to remember how little I knew and understood then. Today they say: “discoverers”, “pioneers”. And we walked in the dark and stuffed huge cones. No special literature, no methodology, no established experiment. The Stone Age of Jet Aviation. We were both complete mugs!..” - this is how Alexey Isaev recalled the creation of “BI-1”. Yes, indeed, due to their colossal fuel consumption, aircraft with liquid-propellant rocket engines did not take root in aviation, forever giving way to turbojet engines. But having taken their first steps in aviation, liquid-propellant rocket engines firmly took their place in rocket science.

In the USSR during the war years, a breakthrough in this regard was the creation of the BI-1 fighter, and here a special merit goes to Bolkhovitinov, who took under his wing and managed to attract to work such future luminaries of Soviet rocketry and cosmonautics as: Vasily Mishin, first deputy chief designer Korolev, Nikolai Pilyugin, Boris Chertok - chief designers of control systems for many combat missiles and launch vehicles, Konstantin Bushuev - head of the Soyuz - Apollo project, Alexander Bereznyak - designer of cruise missiles, Alexey Isaev - developer of liquid propellant engines for submarine and space rockets devices, Arkhip Lyulka is the author and first developer of domestic turbojet engines.

I-270 (according to NATO classification - Type 11) is an experienced fighter aircraft of the Mikoyan Design Bureau with a rocket engine.

The mystery of Bakhchivandzhi’s death has also been solved. In 1943, the T-106 high-speed wind tunnel was put into operation at TsAGI. It immediately began to conduct extensive research on aircraft models and their elements at high subsonic speeds. The BI aircraft model was also tested to identify the causes of the disaster. Based on the test results, it became clear that the BI crashed due to the peculiarities of the flow around the straight wing and tail at transonic speeds and the resulting phenomenon of the aircraft being pulled into a dive, which the pilot could not overcome. The BI-1 crash on March 27, 1943 was the first that allowed Soviet aircraft designers to solve the problem of the “wave crisis” by installing a swept wing on the MiG-15 fighter. 30 years later, in 1973, Bakhchivandzhi was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Yuri Gagarin spoke about him this way:

“... Without the flights of Grigory Bakhchivandzhi, April 12, 1961 might not have happened.” Who could have known that exactly 25 years later, on March 27, 1968, like Bakhchivandzhi at the age of 34, Gagarin would also die in a plane crash. They were truly united by the main thing - they were the first.

In any business there are pioneers: what is completely familiar today was once new. Probably few people will be able to remember flying on an airplane from the windows of which they could see air propeller(However, in Europe, regional airlines often use turboprop aircraft). Turbojet engines rule the world today - nothing better, apparently, on this moment they haven’t invented it, and hydrogen and nuclear planes don’t fly yet. Almost 80 years have passed since the appearance of the first effective motor of this type.

The German engineer Ernst Heinkel is behind the implementation of the idea, but who owns it is another question. As often happens, the idea was thought out by another person (who ultimately remained in the shadows), then, thanks to the money and resources of large businesses, it was brought to life.

Engineer Ernst Heinkel

Heinkel was born in Germany in January 1888. In his youth, he had nothing to do with aviation, which was then only taking its first serious steps. The German enthusiastically studied mechanical engineering in Stuttgart, worked as a turner's apprentice in a foundry and followed the development of Zeppelins. The accident with one of these aircraft in 1908 had a particular impact on Ernst’s professional future. Then the experimental LZ 4, already participating in a series of test flights, was destroyed by fire during landing to repair a broken engine. "The future is in airplanes"- Heinkel decided for himself.

By 1911, Ernst, who was 23 years old at the time, had built his first airplane. As the test flight showed, engineering skills required further improvement - the young man received injuries and took a long time to recover from them. Some would have given up, but that era was remembered by passionate people. Or rather, history remembers only such people. Since 1914, the German worked in large aircraft manufacturing companies and was engaged in the design of aircraft. He is sometimes credited with developing the popular Albatros B.II biplane, but many historians dispute this information.

Shortly after the end of the First World War, in 1921, Heinkel took the post of chief designer of the Caspar-Werke company, reorganized after a long pause. However, very soon the engineer leaves her due to disputes with the founder of the company, Karl Kaspar, regarding the rights to the design of manufactured aircraft. Surely Ernst highly appreciated own experience and professionalism, which is why the Heinkel-Flugzeugwerke company appeared in 1922.

The company was looking for ways to circumvent the Treaty of Versailles, which imposed serious restrictions on Germany in terms of equipment production. At a certain point, the Japanese government provided serious support to Heinkel. The fact is that Japan was at the same time a major customer of Heinkel-Flugzeugwerke and was part of a special commission that checked whether the company complied with the agreements enshrined in the Treaty of Versailles. It is alleged that this allowed Ernst to prepare in advance for upcoming inspections, and then continue to work as if nothing had happened (the Japanese warned about the events in advance).

In the 30s, Heinkel’s company was no longer “one of”, but was ranked among the industry leaders. The company naturally attracted the attention of the Reich Chancellor, who soon usurped power. “I joined the party in 1933, but I was never a Nazi,”- this is what Ernst wrote much later. By the way, in 1948 he was arrested for collaborating with the Nazi regime, but then acquitted due to his connections with the conspirators planning to overthrow Hitler.

Heinkel He 178

Heinkel-Flugzeugwerke was actively investing in the development and research of new types of engines. Therefore, when the young engineer Hans von Ohain came to Heinkel, the head of the company happily took advantage of the technology patented by this man (von Ohain registered the jet engine in 1935). It is worth noting that shortly before this, independently of Hans, Sir Frank Whittle received a patent for a turbojet engine, but the British plane took off later - it received government support after the successful tests of the He 178 became known.

Von Ohain visited Heinkel with a proposal to build a workable aircraft using his engine. The project took several years to complete, as it was decided to improve the design, making the system more powerful and efficient.

Heinrich Hertel, Karl Schwerzler and Siegfried Günther had a hand in creating the world's first operational turbojet aircraft. The latter, after World War II, took part in the development of the Soviet MiG-15 fighter. Work on the He 178 was carried out without government support; the company's own funds were used to create the concept and prototypes.

First flight

The He 178 made its first takeoff attempt on August 24, 1939. More accurately, it was a test “jump” over the runway. And a few days later, on August 27, Captain Erich Warsitz made a full flight (a couple of months before that he took off the He 176 jet).

According to available data, the maximum speed of the aircraft with a metal fuselage and wooden wings, with a single pilot on board, was just under 500 km/h (according to other information - about 600 km/h), the flight range reached 200 km.


The first independent flight ended without unnecessary pathos and sharp turns. Everything was ruined by a bird that got into the engine: there was a flameout, but Varsits was able to land the car safely. The aircraft was also demonstrated to representatives of the Ministry of Aviation. The flight lasted only 10 minutes, and it was pointless to take the He 178 into service in that condition. This is what the special commission thought.

The decision not to support Heinkel's project was probably influenced by the development of the BMW 003 and Junkers Jumo 004 engines with state support. The additional burden was seen as unnecessary, and the war that had begun should soon end (there was such an opinion). The engineer nevertheless decided to continue his work, which led to the appearance of the world's first fighter with a turbojet engine - the He 280.

The Heinkel-Flugzeugwerke company continued to develop engines, which, in general, contained the promise of aircraft of this type. On March 30, 1941, the He 280 made its debut flight, but again failed to satisfy the commission's requests. It didn't help that it used kerosene rather than burning high-octane fuel like "classic" aircraft. Heinkel time after time made attempts to prove the superiority of his designs over competitors' aircraft. In speed racing, the He 280 outperformed the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, but in vain. Only in 1942, after a demonstration battle between these two aircraft, the Ministry of Aviation recognized the promise of the He 280 - it turned out to be more maneuverable and faster.

As a result, Heinkel-Flugzeugwerke received an order for 20 test copies and 300 production samples of the He 280. However, Ernst had to solve problems with the HeS 8 engines, which were replaced by the more advanced but complex HeS 011. This had a negative impact on the execution of the order, and the engineer was forced to use the Junkers Jumo 004 imposed on him. Heavy and huge engines negated all the positive aspects of the He 280. As a result, the winner in this competition was the jet Messerschmitt Me 262, while only nine copies of the Heinkel aircraft were produced. He lose. And around the same time, his property was nationalized. In reality, this means that the engineer was detained and demanded to transfer control of the enterprise to Hermann Goering, who was later recognized as a war criminal. After this, Ernst went to Vienna, where he founded a new company.

After some time, participating in the Nazi Germany's Jägernotprogramm competition, Heinkel presented his “dream fighter” - the He 162 Salamander. Today, such a program would be called a “prototype competition” - few of the participants were able to go beyond the design stage. The planes presented are pure retro-futurism by today's standards. Ernst's brainchild looked like theirs, but one of the prototypes was able to accelerate to an incredible 900 km/h. This could make it the fastest aircraft of World War II...

In the early 50s of the last century, Ernst Heinkel founded a new company that began producing bicycles, mopeds and motorized strollers - aircraft manufacturing in Germany was banned for some time. In 1955, restrictions eased, and the company began assembling aircraft based on orders from abroad (including one of the modifications of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter for the United States). The creator of the world's first turbojet aircraft died in 1958.

Short list of sources: World War II Database, Aerospaceweb.org, EDN, Scientists and Friends,

April 18, 1941 - First flight took place German plane Messerschmitt Me.262, which later became the world's first production jet aircraft and the world's first jet aircraft to participate in combat operations. Due to delays in jet engine development, the aircraft was powered by a Jumo 210G piston engine for this flight.

History does not tolerate the subjunctive mood, but if not for the indecisiveness and short-sightedness of the leadership of the Third Reich, the Luftwaffe again, as in the early days of World War II, would have received complete and unconditional advantage in the air.

In June 1945, Royal Air Force pilot Captain Eric Brown took off in a captured Me-262 from the territory of occupied Germany and headed for England. From his memories: “I was very excited because it was such an unexpected turn. Previously, every German plane flying across the English Channel was met with a fiery wave of anti-aircraft guns. And now I was flying home on the most valuable German plane. This plane has a rather ominous appearance - it looks like a shark. And after takeoff, I realized how much trouble the German pilots could have caused us with this magnificent machine. Later, I was part of a team of test pilots who tested the Messerschmitt jet at Fanborough. Then I reached 568 miles per hour (795 km/h), while our best fighter reached 446 miles per hour, and this is a huge difference. It was a real quantum leap. The Me-262 could have changed the course of the war, but the Nazis got it too late.”

Me-262 entered world history aviation as the first serial combat jet fighter.

In 1938, the German Armaments Directorate commissioned the design bureau Messerschmitt A.G. to develop a jet fighter, on which it was planned to install the latest BMW P 3302 turbojet engines. According to the HwaA plan, BMW engines were to go into mass production already in 1940. By the end of 1941, the airframe of the future interceptor fighter was ready.
Everything was ready for testing, but constant problems with the BMW engine forced the Messerschmitt designers to look for a replacement. It was the Jumo-004 turbojet engine from Junkers. After finalizing the design in the fall of 1942, the Me-262 took off.
Experimental flights showed excellent results - the maximum speed was close to 700 km/h. But German Arms Minister A. Speer decided that it was too early to start mass production. Careful modification of the aircraft and its engines was required.
A year passed, the “childhood illnesses” of the aircraft were eliminated, and Messerschmitt decided to invite the German ace, hero of the Spanish War, Major General Adolf Galland, to the tests. After a series of flights on the modernized Me-262, he wrote a report to Luftwaffe commander Goering. In his report, the German ace in enthusiastic tones proved the unconditional advantage of the newest jet interceptor over piston single-engine fighters.

Galland also proposed to begin the immediate deployment of mass production of the Me-262.

At the beginning of June 1943, at a meeting with the commander of the German Air Force Goering, it was decided to begin mass production of the Me-262. At the factories of Messerschmitt A.G. Preparations began for the assembly of a new aircraft, but in September Goering received an order to “freeze” this project. Messerschmitt urgently arrived in Berlin at the headquarters of the Luftwaffe commander and there he familiarized himself with Hitler’s order. The Fuhrer expressed bewilderment: “Why do we need the unfinished Me-262 when the front needs hundreds of Me-109 fighters?”

Upon learning of Hitler's order to stop preparations for mass production, Adolf Galland wrote to the Fuhrer that the Luftwaffe needed a jet fighter like air. But Hitler had already decided everything - the German Air Force did not need an interceptor, but a jet attack bomber. The Blitzkrieg tactics gave the Fuhrer no rest, and the idea of ​​a lightning offensive with the support of “blitz stormtroopers” was firmly lodged in Hitler’s head.
In December 1943, Speer signed an order to begin the development of a high-speed jet attack aircraft based on the Me-262 interceptor.
The Messerschmitt design bureau was given carte blanche, and funding for the project was restored in full. But the creators of the high-speed attack aircraft faced numerous problems. Due to massive Allied air raids on industrial centers in Germany, interruptions in the supply of components began. There was a shortage of chromium and nickel, which were used to make turbine blades for the Jumo-004B engine. As a result, the production of Junkers turbojet engines was sharply reduced. In April 1944, only 15 pre-production attack aircraft were assembled, which were transferred to a special test unit of the Luftwaffe, which tested the tactics of using new jet technology.
Only in June 1944, after the transfer of production of the Jumo-004B engine to the underground Nordhausen plant, did it become possible to begin mass production of the Me-262.

In May 1944, Messerschmitt began developing bomb racks for the interceptor. An option was developed with the installation of two 250-kg or one 500-kg bombs on the Me-262 fuselage. But in parallel with the attack-bomber project, the designers, secretly from the Luftwaffe command, continued to refine the fighter project.
During the inspection, which took place in July 1944, it was found that work on the jet interceptor project had not been curtailed. The Fuhrer was furious, and the result of this incident was personal control Hitler on the Me-262 project. Any change in the design of the Messerschmitt jet from that moment on could only be approved by Hitler.
In July 1944, the Kommando Nowotny (Nowotny Team) unit was created under the command of the German ace Walter Nowotny (258 enemy aircraft shot down). It was equipped with thirty Me-262s equipped with bomb racks.
“Novotny’s team” was tasked with testing the attack aircraft in combat conditions. Novotny disobeyed the order and used the jet as a fighter, in which he achieved considerable success. After a series of reports from the front about the successful use of the Me-262 as an interceptor, in November Goering decided to order the formation of a fighter unit with Messerschmitt jets. Also, the Luftwaffe commander managed to convince the Fuhrer to reconsider his opinion about the new aircraft. In December 1944, the Luftwaffe accepted about three hundred Me-262 fighters into service, and the attack aircraft production project was closed.

In the winter of 1944, Messerschmitt A.G. felt an acute problem with obtaining the components necessary for assembling the Me-262. Allied bomber aircraft bombed German factories around the clock. At the beginning of January 1945, HWaA decided to disperse production of the jet fighter. Assemblies for the Me-262 began to be assembled in one-story wooden buildings hidden in the forests. The roofs of these mini-factories were covered with olive-colored paint, and it was difficult to detect the workshops from the air. One such plant produced the fuselage, another the wings, and a third carried out the final assembly. After this, the finished fighter took off into the air, using the impeccable German autobahns for takeoff.
The result of this innovation was 850 turbojet Me-262, produced from January to April 1945.

In total, about 1,900 copies of the Me-262 were built and eleven modifications were developed. Of particular interest is the two-seat night fighter-interceptor with the Neptune radar station in the forward fuselage. This concept of a two-seat jet fighter equipped with a powerful radar was repeated by the Americans in 1958, implemented in the F-4 Phantom II model.

In the fall of 1944, the first air battles between the Me-262 and Soviet fighters showed that the Messerschmitt was a formidable adversary. Its speed and climb time were incomparably higher than those of Russian aircraft. After a detailed analysis of the combat capabilities of the Me-262, the Soviet Air Force command ordered the pilots to open fire on the German jet fighter from the maximum distance and use an evasive maneuver.
Further instructions could have been adopted after the Messerschmitt test, but such an opportunity presented itself only at the end of April 1945, after the capture of the German airfield.

The Me-262 design consisted of an all-metal cantilever low-wing aircraft. Two Jumo-004 turbojet engines were installed under the wings, on the outside of the landing gear. The armament consisted of four 30-mm MK-108 cannons mounted on the nose of the aircraft. Ammunition - 360 shells. Due to the dense arrangement of the cannon armament, excellent accuracy was ensured when firing at enemy targets. Experiments were also conducted on installing larger caliber guns on the Me-262.
The Messerschmitt jet was very easy to manufacture. The maximum manufacturability of the components facilitated its assembly in “forestry factories”.

For all its advantages, the Me-262 had incorrigible disadvantages:
The motors have a short service life - only 9-10 hours of operation. After this, it was necessary to completely disassemble the engine and replace the turbine blades.
The Me-262's long run made it vulnerable during takeoff and landing. To cover the takeoff, flights of Fw-190 fighters were assigned.
Extremely high demands on airfield pavement. Due to the low-mounted engines, any object entering the Me-262's air intake would cause damage.

This is interesting: on August 18, 1946, at an aviation parade dedicated to Air Fleet Day, an I-300 (MiG-9) fighter flew over the Tushinsky airfield. It was equipped with an RD-20 turbojet engine - an exact copy of the German Jumo-004B. Also presented at the parade was the Yak-15, equipped with a captured BMW-003 (later RD-10). It was the Yak-15 that became the first Soviet jet aircraft officially adopted by the Air Force, as well as the first jet fighter on which military pilots mastered aerobatics. The first serial Soviet jet fighters were created on the foundations laid in the Me-262 back in 1938.

American soldiers inspect a captured German jet fighter Me262A1aU4 modification Me-262A-1a U4 with a 50-mm VK5 cannon. It was supposed to be a bomber interceptor. Not serially produced.

German jet fighter-bomber Messerschmitt Me-262A-2a “Sturmvogel” (“Petrel”) from I/KG 51 at the airfield. There are two 250 kg bombs on the aircraft's ventral suspension.

In the minds of a large number of people, one way or another connected with aviation general purpose, the concept of a “personal aircraft” was for some time inextricably linked with light single- or twin-engine propeller-driven aircraft, which were equipped with turboprop or piston engines. Until very recently jet planes seemed too expensive and uneconomical for customers who could afford this type of transport. There is nothing strange in this, since even cheap planes with jet engines cost several million dollars, and their powerful engines consumed a large amount of fuel compared to piston counterparts. Therefore, attempts to create a small jet aircraft for private use for many years ended in nothing.

However, today there is every reason to believe that significant changes will occur in business aviation in the near future: the era of single-engine and twin-engine jet aircraft is coming. Wherein we're talking about not only about business class jets, which are designed to carry 4-8 passengers, but about cars that are similar to sports cars. That is, ordinary 2-4 seater jet aircraft, which are in no way inferior to their counterparts with piston engines.

At the same time, naturally, civil business jet aircraft such as ECLIPSE 500, CITATION MUSTANG, ADAM 700 and Embraer PHENOM 100 have more prospects in the market, as they allow you to comfortably move a small company anywhere. According to experts, in the next 10 years, about 4300-5400 “pocket” jet aircraft will be sold in the world, and this is already quite an impressive figure. At the same time, there is a demand not only for standard business jets, but also for completely new machines, super-light business jets or even unique air taxis.

Such aircraft even have a special designation VLG - Very Light Jet. Entry-level jets or personal jets, formerly such aircraft were often called microjets. The maximum passenger capacity of such vehicles does not exceed 4-8 people, and the maximum weight does not exceed 4,540 kg. Such aircraft are lighter than those models that are usually called business jets and are designed to be flown by one pilot. Examples of such machines are the models already mentioned above.

The ultra-light jet is a completely new concept, and a growing number of experts around the world are concluding that the introduction of such aircraft could revolutionize the business aviation segment. Honeywell and Rolls-Royce took this factor into account in time when drawing up their rather serious annual forecasts for assessing the market situation. The market situation is already changing. The widespread use of composite materials in the creation of aircraft, the miniaturization of jet engines, the emergence of new aviation electronic systems, all this, starting from the late 1990s, has been moving the market for such aircraft forward.

Currently, owners of aircraft equipped with piston engines, some of which were designed and built in the post-war period, are beginning to think about purchasing modern jet aircraft. The enormous interest of the audience led to the emergence of a large number of very diverse projects and developments. Unfortunately, most of them will forever remain concepts and projects that have not even reached the prototype stage.

Embraer PHENOM 100


The first company that managed to overcome the entire development process and present a finished aircraft was the Brazilian company Eclipse Aviation. It was this aircraft manufacturing company that entered the civil aviation industry by being the first to receive a certificate for a “pocket” jet. The Brazilian aircraft manufacturer entered the market with its Embraer PHENOM 100 model, the demand for which exceeded all expectations, which became one of the harbingers of the coming commercial revolution.

Currently, the prospect of purchasing your own jet aircraft on the market for a conditional $500,000 leaves a large number of aviation professionals indifferent, but those people who love and have dreamed of flying all their lives - and they are the main buyers of such unusual means of transportation - simply could not believe your luck. And although the real cost of the Brazilian first-born has exceeded 1 million dollars (sales started at prices of 1.3 million dollars), it remains not just competitive, but simply a unique offer with an incredibly low price. It was simply unrealistic to purchase such an aircraft with such flight characteristics in the recent past. At the same time, all airline companies operating in this segment are trying to do everything possible to ensure that prices for their products do not exceed the psychologically important mark of $1 million.

The passion for the Very Light Jet has even led to quite bold projects, such as the transformation of a combat trainer aircraft into a civilian ultra-light jet. It’s not hard to imagine if Russia’s most modern training aircraft, the Yak-130, suddenly became available to civilian customers. There would definitely be a demand for it. There would be their own home-grown “Abramovichs” (and not their own), who would want to purchase something vaguely, but reminiscent of a combat vehicle. This opportunity was almost realized by Aviation Technology Group (ATG).


The training aircraft, which was developed by ATG, was called ATG Javelin and was quite different from its traditional representatives. It differed from promising models of training equipment, first of all, by its very low weight - no more than 2,900 kg, which, for example, is 2.3 times less than that of the Russian Yak-130 training aircraft in a similar configuration. At the same time, the American ATG Javelin was a twin-engine aircraft with full electronic filling, which allowed it (as stated) to quite effectively train pilots of both civil airliners and the latest 5th generation fighters.

A huge number of different scenarios of possible air battles were “hardwired” into its on-board electronics, as well as imitation of the operation of self-defense systems and on-board weapons, the ability to analyze the pilot’s actions and plan combat sorties. According to representatives of the ATG company, the implementation of all this in practice made it possible to successfully use the ATG Javelin not only for basic and initial training of pilots, but also for advanced training of military pilots, who could then move on to control such machines as the Eurofighter, Su-30 or Rafale.

In its design, the ATG Javelin trainer was similar to a fighter with a lightweight and durable airframe, which was produced with extensive use of composite materials. The crew members were seated in the cockpit in tandem under a special two-section canopy. The vehicle was distinguished by a low cantilever wing with a swept leading edge. The swept horizontal tail, 2 fins, 2 ventral ridges were inclined outward by 20°. The aircraft's landing gear was three-post, the nose gear was equipped with a hydraulic drive. The engines were mounted behind the cockpit, and air was supplied to them through the side air intakes. Flat exhaust nozzles were located between the fins.


Initially, this aircraft was developed and designed specifically as a training aircraft, but subsequently it increasingly began to be positioned as an air taxi or even a light business jet solution. In order to carry out civil flights without restrictions airways, ATG Javelin was supposed to be equipped with a set of equipment similar to that used on passenger aircraft, including air and ground collision avoidance equipment, systems for flights with reduced vertical separation intervals, and an aircraft navigation computer system. Reading such statements from the developers, one could only think about how they were going to fit all this equipment into the declared weight of the aircraft, which did not exceed 3 tons.

Also, the creators of the car hoped to be certified according to FAR-23 standards. The first flight, the only built copy of the ATG Javelin, was carried out on September 30, 2005. Despite the fact that the company received 150 firm orders for its creation, ATG was never able to find a strategic partner that would allow it to be launched into mass production. In 2008, the company declared itself bankrupt, and development and testing of the ATG Javelin was stopped. Thus, fans of light aviation lost the opportunity to get their hands on a practically combat training aircraft with an enviable, practically supersonic speed. The maximum speed of the ATG Javelin was 975 km/h.

Information sources:
-http://luxury-info.ru/avia/airplanes/articles/karmannie-samoleti.html
-http://pkk-avia.livejournal.com/41955.html
-http://www.dogswar.ru/oryjeinaia-ekzotika/aviaciia/6194-ychebno-boevoi-samol.html