On 2nd April 1946 I. V. Stalin, Chairman of the Council of
People’s Commissars, held a briefing on the prospects of Soviet aviation,
including jet aircraft development. One of the items on the agenda was the
possibility of copying the Messerschmitt Me 262A-1 a fighter, an example of
which had been evaluated by GK Nil WS in August-November 1945, and putting it
into production at one of the Soviet aircraft factories. In its day the Me 262
had an impressive top speed of 850 km/h (459 kts) , heavy armament comprising
four 30-mm (1.18 calibre) cannons and was generally well designed. However, the
idea was rejected for various reasons.
By then several Soviet design bureau had a number of
high-speed aircraft projects in the making; many of them fell for the ‘German’
layout with two turbojet engines under or on the wings ala Me 262 (which,
incidentally, was also employed by the British Gloster Meteor). For instance,
Pavel O. Sukhoi’s OKB used it for the izdeliye K fighter, the Mikoyan OKB
developed a Me 262 look-alike designated 1-260, while the Lavochkin OKB came up
with the ‘160’ fighter (the first fighter to have this designation) and the
Alekseyev OKB with the 1-21 designed along similar lines. A notable exception
was the Yakovlev OKB because A. S. Yakovlev cordially disliked heavy fighters,
preferring lightweight single-engined machines. (Later Yakovlev did resort to
the twin-engined layout, but that was in the early 1950s when the Yakovlev OKB
brought out the Yak-120 (Yak-25) twinjet interceptor which lies outside the
scope of this book.)
As an insurance policy in case one OKB failed to achieve the
desired results, the Soviet government usually issued a general operational
requirement (GOR) for a new aircraft to several design bureau at once in a
single Council of People’s Commissars (or Council of Ministers) directive. This
was followed by an NKAP (or MAP, Ministerstvo aviatsionnoy promyshlennosti –
Ministry of Aircraft Industry) order to the same effect. This was also the case
with the new jet fighters. Initially all the abovementioned OKBs designed their
fighters around Soviet copies of the Jumo 004B or BMW 003A engines; later the
more promising indigenous TR-1 came into the picture.
It should be noted that in the early postwar years the
Soviet defence industry enterprises continued to operate pretty much in wartime
conditions, working like scalded cats. In particular, the Powers That Be
imposed extremely tight development and production schedules on the design bureau
and production factories tasked with developing and manufacturing new military
hardware. The schedules were closely monitored not only by the ministry to
which the respective OKB or factory belonged but also by the notorious KGB.
‘Missing the train’ could mean swift and severe reprisal not only for the OKB
head and actual project leaders but also for high-ranking statesmen who had
responsibility for the programme. Nevertheless, even though the commencement of
large-scale R&D on jet aircraft had been ordered as far back as May 1944,
no breakthrough had been achieved by early 1946. For instance, the aircraft
industry failed to comply with the orders to build pre-production batches of
jet fighters in time for the traditional August fly-past held at Moscow’s
Tushino airfield; only two jets, the MiG-9 and Yak-15, participated in the fly-past
on that occasion. This was all the more aggravating because jet fighters had
been in production in Great Britain since 1944 and in the USA since early 1945.
Unfortunately the Soviet aero-engine factories encountered major difficulties
when mastering production of jet engines; hence in early 1946 jet engines were
produced in extremely limited numbers, suffering from low reliability and
having a time between overhauls (TBO) of only 25 hours.
As was customary in the Soviet Union in those days, someone
had to pay for this, and scapegoats were quickly found. In February-March 1946
People’s Commissar of Aircraft Industry A. I. Shakhoorin, Soviet Air Force
C-in-C Air Marshal A. A. Novikov, the Air Force’s Chief Engineer A. K. Repin
and Main Acquisitions Department chief N. P. Seleznyov and many others were
removed from office, arrested and mostly executed.
The early post-war years presaged the Cold War era, and the
Soviet leaders attached considerable importance not only to promoting the
nation’s scientific, technological and military achievements but also to flexing
the Soviet Union’s military muscles for the world to see. This explains why the
government was so eager to see new types displayed at Tushino, regardless of
the fact that some of the aircraft had not yet completed their trials – or,
worse, did not meet the Air Force’s requirements. Thus, the grand show at
Tushino on 3rd August 1947 featured a whole formation of jet fighter
prototypes: the Yak-19, the Yak- 15U, the Yak-23, three Lavochkin designs – the
‘150’, the ‘156’ and the ‘160’, plus the MiG- 9, the Su-9 and the Su-11 .
Sometimes the initial production aircraft selected for the fly-past
lacked armament or important equipment items. This was not considered
important; the world had to see the new aircraft at all costs. Behold the
achievements of socialism! Feel the power of the Soviet war machine! Fear ye!
Still, despite this air of ostentation, the achievements and the power were
there beyond all doubt; the Soviet Union’s progress in aircraft and aero engine
technologies was indeed impressive, especially considering the ravages of the
four-year war. It just happened that, because of urgent need, some things which
could not be developed in-country quickly enough had to be copied; and copied
they were – and with reasonably high quality at that.
Thus by the end of the 1940s the Soviet Union had not only
caught up with the West as far as jet aviation was concerned but gained a lead
in certain areas. The first Soviet jet fighters dealt with in this book were
instrumental in reaching this goal.
Even before the end of World War 2 it was clear that the
future of combat aircraft lay with jet engine power. German designs, although
limited in their application, had shown to many the shape of things to come and
the British and Americans were moving quickly to develop their jet fighters.
The Soviets were at first slow to catch up mainly due to the
fact that they had no domestic turbojet engine which was effective enough to
base a fighter upon. The Soviet designer Arkhip Lyul’ka had been working on
axial turbojets during the war but they weren’t as effective as the German
engines, while the Americans and British, seen now as the main rivals to the
Soviet Union, were far advanced with good coaxial engines and some centrifugal
jet engines. The leading jet engine of the time was the British Rolls-Royce
Nene, which with nearly 5,000lbs of thrust had double the power of any German
engine as well as other advantages.
The Russians had decided at the end of the war to loot what
they could of German industry and talent to rebuild their economy and this
attitude continued in their approach to jet fighter development. The Soviet design bureaus (OKBs) responded to
Stalin’s order to quickly develop jet fighters by using former German
specialists in gas turbines, aerodynamics and other technologies to catch
up with the Western powers’ technological advantage. The three main Soviet aircraft designers
Mikoyan and Gurevich (MiG), Yakovlev (Yak) and Lavochin (La) were tasked to
build jet fighters based on soviet air frames but using German engines.
The first of these two hybrids were the MiG-9 which had
engines based on BMW 003A engines and the Yak-15. The MiG-9 had been on the drawing board
before the German surrender and was to use the weaker Lyul’ka engines. A fourth
designer (Sukhoi) had also been developing a jet fighter – the Su-9 – which
apart from having straight rather than swept wings looked remarkably like a
Me262. It was this similarity which was to doom the aircraft when in 1946
Alexander Yakovlev went to see Stalin and told him that the Su-9 was just a
Me262 copy and outdated and dangerous. It was cancelled and Yakovlev had
effectively put a rival out of the race. Yakovlev’s design was based on his
successful Yak-3 design (variants of which would continue to serve into the Korean
War). The design drawings were finished in just 3 days and three months later
in May 1945 detailed plans were complete for what was to become the Yak-15
‘Feather’. The Yak-15 was short ranged but agile and well-armed with two 23mm
cannon. Despite his political and design skill Yakovlev was to loose the race
to have the first Soviet jet fighter to fly.
Ready to fly at the end of 1945 a waterlogged runway at the Moscow test
site and internal politics meant that the Yak-15 was made to wait till the
MiG-9 ‘Fargo’ prototype was also ready.
On 24th April 1946 both were ready. Apparently a coin was tossed to see
which plane flew first and the MiG team won, so the MiG-9 flew first followed
by the Yak-15 a few minutes later.
Both of these fighters were simple but gave Soviet pilots
valuable experience of jets. The MiG-9 was used mainly as a ground attack
fighter while the Yak-15 developed into the Yak-17 which had wingtip fuel
tanks, tricycle landing gear and a more powerful engine. Over 400 were built
and some exported. Meanwhile Yakovlev’s old rival, Lavochkin was having little
success. In September 1946 the La-150 flew but was outdated in its design and
performed poorly compared to the Yaks.
On 24th June 1947 the La-160 flew the world’s first swept
wing fighter but Lavochkin had fallen from favour and was destined to create
‘also rans’ for the rest of the early Soviet jet fighter race. He was aided by
some strange good fortune when the Soviets were given some of the best British
jet engines by the Labour government of Prime Minister Attlee. Lavochkin
quickly produced the La-168, 174D, 176 and 180 all using engines based on the
Rolls-Royce engines the Soviets had been given. The La-176 was the first
aircraft in the world to have wings swept back at 45 degrees and with the help
of its engine based on the Rolls-Royce Nene it was the first European fighter
to break the sound barrier (Mach 1) in a shallow dive on 26th December 1948.
About 500 of Lavochkin’s fighters were produced but handling problems dogged
them and they were soon over shadowed by the success of MiG.
Meanwhile MiG whose OKB had been founded in 1939 began to
dominate Soviet combat aircraft design – a dominance that continues to this day
to a large extent. MiG also benefited from the British engines as some of their
best designs were hampered by the lack of a good engine. This problem now
solved, their aircraft S was to become the legendary MiG-15 ‘Fagot’, which flew
on 30th December 1947. The Nene engine fitted it perfectly and the combination
of a great design and a great engine was to be a world beater. The impact of
the MiG-15 on the Korea war was drastic; facing the US F-86 Sabres it could
match them for speed but had longer range and longer ranged more powerful guns
in the shape of its one 37mm cannon and twin 23mm cannons compared to the
Sabre’s six 12.7mm machine guns. This meant that although the Sabre pilots
could hit more often the MiG pilots could open fire at far greater range. The
MiG-15 was produced in huge numbers and some were still being used more 40
years after the first one flew.
