I just finished watching this show on the Military Channel and was surprised to see that the Soviets were working on ramjet and true jet power aircraft during the late 30's. I did not know that the Soviets were that advanced in aircraft technology. Reason we did not see any of the aircraft in production was due to Stalin's paranoia. After his death, Soviet aircraft technology took off. A nice and informative show.
During the Spanish civil war the Soviet Mig-3 surprised all. Nothing this fast and advanced had been seen yet. The Soviets were leading the way in aviation but then the purges came...
I was under the impression that the I-200 prototype of the Mig-1 first flew on April 5, 1940, and the Mig-3's first flight was in October of the same year. By this time, the Spanish Civil War had ended.
You are correct, serves me right for posting with out thinking. The Polikarpov I-16 was what I was thinking of. The I-16 was revolutionary at the time and ruled the skies over Spain until the introduction of the BF 109. Ooops
Okay, i might be doing your trick here...but wasnt the design "heavily" borrowed or learned from the He100? (he writes...wincing).
According to the show, the I-16 was the first operational monoplane and was very fast at it's introduction. They showed a restored I-16 in flight. Looked pretty nice.
When did they say it was introduced? A quick google shows: WWI Aviation Development: Monoplanes Which lists: Loening M-8 - introduced in 1918 but only a few became operational due to the end of the war. Bristol M1C entered service in 1917 Blériot XI entered service in 1914 Morane-Saulnier H, L, and N - first flight 1913 and saw service in several militaries on both sides during WWI. Morane-Saulnier AR / MS.35 continued in service after WW1 up to 1929 Taube Fokker Eindecker Fokker E.V - D.VIII Junkers CL.I Caproni Ca.20 Torpedo, Olkhovskij a Russian entry in the list. While wiki at: Polikarpov I-16 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia states It does give it a number of "firsts" but certainly wasn't the first operational monoplane.
I believe the I-16's claim to fame is not the first monoplane. it is the first with fully enclosed cockpit and fully retractable landing gear. and please stop this non-sense about one designer stealing ideas from a designer in another country. that kind of thing is called Espionage and usually gets one arrested.
Really dont know enough about either to comment. I do remember reading that the He100 was not very successful so I would be surprised if any of the Russian fighters were inspired by the He100. I do know that the Lagg3 came from Lagg1 and the later La5 and La7 were both excellent fighters.... La7 even reportedly shot down a Me262.
Here is a good article on the I-16, and while the gear was retractable it was done by hand cranking and quite laborious for the pilot, and while it had the ability to enclose the cockpit, the thing was so troublesome that most pilots flew it with the top locked back and the cockpit open behind a conventional windshield. One version even eliminated the closing portion completely. Goto: http://russian.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/poli16.html
there were no production examples of the LaGG-1 (it existed only on paper) the I-301 prototype leads directly to the LaGG-3-no intermediate prototype. the demand for longer range meant adding larger fuel tanks to the I-301 and this changed the designation to LaGG-3.
