The first Soviet jet fighters (25 photos). A brief history of civil jet aircraft The first jet aircraft in the world

April 18, 1941 - The first flight of the German aircraft Messerschmitt Me.262 took place, which later became the world's first serial jet aircraft and the world's first jet aircraft that participated in hostilities. Due to delays in the development of jet engines, a Jumo 210G piston engine was installed in this flight.

History does not tolerate the subjunctive mood, but if it were not for the indecision and shortsightedness of the leadership of the Third Reich, the Luftwaffe again, as in the first days of World War II, would have received a 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 occupied Germany and headed for England. From his memoirs: “I was very excited because it was such an unexpected turn. Previously, every German plane flying over the English Channel was met by a barrage of fire from anti-aircraft guns. And now I was flying home in the most valuable German plane. This plane has a rather sinister appearance - it looks like a shark. And after takeoff, I realized how much trouble the German pilots could bring us in this magnificent car. Later I was part of a team of test pilots who tested the Messerschmitt jet at Fanborough. I did 568 mph (795 km / h) on it then, while our best fighter did 446 mph, which is a huge difference. It was a real quantum leap. The Me-262 could have changed the course of the war, but the Nazis had it too late. "

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

In 1938, the German Armaments Directorate assigned the Messerschmitt A.G. to develop a jet fighter, on which it was planned to install the latest BMW P 3302 turbojet engines. According to HwaA's plan, BMW engines were to go into mass production in 1940. By the end of 1941, the glider of the future fighter-interceptor was ready.
Everything was ready for testing, but constant BMW engine malfunctions 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 to the air.
Experimental flights showed excellent results - the maximum speed was close to 700 km / h. But the Minister of Armaments of Germany A. Speer decided that it was too early to start mass production. Thorough revision of the aircraft and its engines was required.
A year passed, the "childhood diseases" of the aircraft were eliminated, and Messerschmitt decided to invite the German ace, the hero of the Spanish war, Major General Adolph Galland to the test. After a series of flights on the modernized Me-262, he wrote a report to the commander of the Luftwaffe Goering. In his report, the German ace in enthusiastic tones proved the unconditional superiority of the newest jet interceptor over single-engine piston fighters.

Galland also suggested starting the immediate deployment of the serial production of the Me-262.

In early June 1943, at a meeting with the commander of the German Air Force Goering, it was decided to start mass production of the Me-262. At the factories of Messerschmitt A.G. preparations began for the assembly of the new aircraft, but in September Goering received an order to "freeze" this project. Messerschmitt urgently arrived in Berlin at the headquarters of the commander of the Luftwaffe and there he got acquainted with Hitler's order. The Fuehrer expressed bewilderment: "Why do we not get the 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 Fuehrer that the Luftwaffe needed a jet fighter like air. But Hitler had already decided everything - the German Air Force needed not an interceptor, but a jet attack bomber. The tactics of "Blitzkrieg" did not give the Fuehrer rest, and the idea of ​​a lightning attack with the support of "blitz stormtroopers" firmly stuck in Hitler's head.
In December 1943, Speer signed an order to begin development of a high-speed jet attack aircraft based on the Me-262 interceptor.
The Messerschmitt design office 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 lack of chromium and nickel, which were used to make the turbine blades of the Jumo-004B engine. As a result, the production of Junkers turbojet engines fell sharply. In April 1944, only 15 pre-production attack aircraft were assembled, which were transferred to a special test unit of the Luftwaffe, which was practicing the tactics of using new jet technology.
Only in June 1944, after the transfer of the production of the Jumo-004B engine to the underground plant Nordhausen, it became possible to start mass production of the Me-262.

In May 1944, Messerschmitt began developing bomb racks for the interceptor. A variant 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 was not curtailed. The Fuehrer was furious, and the result of this incident was Hitler's personal control over the Me-262 project. Any change in the design of the jet "Messerschmitt" from that moment could only be approved by Hitler.
In July 1944, the Kommando Nowotny unit was created under the command of the German ace Walter Novotny (258 enemy aircraft shot down). It was equipped with thirty Me-262, equipped with bomb racks.
The Novotny team was tasked with testing the attack aircraft in combat conditions. Novotny violated the order and used a jet plane as a fighter, in which he achieved considerable success. After a series of reports from the front on the successful use of the Me-262 as an interceptor in November, Goering decided to order the formation of a fighter unit with jet Messerschmitts. Also, the commander of the Luftwaffe was able to convince the Fuhrer to reconsider his opinion about the new aircraft. In December 1944, the Luftwaffe adopted about three hundred Me-262 fighters, 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 the assembly of the Me-262. Allied bomber aircraft bombed German factories around the clock. In early January 1945, HWaA decided to disperse jet fighter production. Nodes 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 spot the workshops from the air. One such plant produced the fuselage, another made the wings, the third made the final assembly. After that, the finished fighter took off into the air, using the impeccable German autobahns for takeoff.
The result of this innovation was 850 Me-262 turbojets, produced from January to April 1945.

In total, about 1900 Me-262s were built and eleven modifications were developed. Of particular interest is a two-seater night fighter-interceptor with a 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, using the F-4 Phantom II.

In the fall of 1944, the first air battles between the Me-262 and Soviet fighters showed that the Messerschmitt was a formidable enemy. Its speed and climb time were incomparably higher than that 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 evasion maneuver.
Further instructions could have been adopted after testing the Messerschmitt, but such an opportunity presented itself only at the end of April 1945, after the capture of the German airfield.

The design of the Me-262 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. Armament consisted of four 30-mm MK-108 cannons mounted on the nose of the aircraft. Ammunition - 360 shells. Due to the dense layout of the cannon armament, excellent accuracy was provided when firing at enemy targets. Experiments were also carried out to install larger-caliber guns on the Me-262.
The jet Messerschmitt was very easy to manufacture. The maximum manufacturability of the units facilitated its assembly in the "forest factories".

With all the advantages, the Me-262 had incorrigible disadvantages:
Small motor resource of engines - only 9-10 hours of operation. After that, it was required to carry out a complete disassembly of the engine and replace the turbine blades.
The long takeoff run of the Me-262 made it vulnerable during takeoff and landing. Fw-190 fighter units were assigned to cover takeoff.
Extremely high requirements for aerodrome coverage. Due to the low-located engines, any object entering the Me-262's air intake caused a breakdown.

This is interesting: on August 18, 1946, at an aviation parade dedicated to the Air Fleet Day, an I-300 (MiG-9) fighter flew over the Tushino airfield. It was equipped with an RD-20 turbojet engine - an exact copy of the German Jumo-004B. Also at the parade was presented 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 basis laid in the Me-262 back in 1938.

American soldiers inspect the captured German Me262A1aU4 jet fighter, Me-262A-1a U4 modification, with a 50mm VK5 cannon. It was intended as an interceptor for bombers. Not serially produced.

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

In our era, you can hardly surprise someone with technological innovations. Moreover, now, when the momentum of the development of technology has gained such a speed, which in the past epochs simply did not dream of. The same goes for airplanes. Now with turbojets - a common thing. And once people could not dream of such a thing.

The world's first passenger jet aircraft appeared only in the middle of the last century, when the development of aviation was actively continuing. Of course, in connection with the Second World War, special attention was paid primarily to the military, therefore, after its end, engineers and inventors turned their attention to passenger liners.

To begin with, let's define what kind of aircraft it is? This is an airplane with a jet engine.

Its principle of operation consists in using a mixture of air taken from the atmosphere and oxygen oxidation products of the fuel that are in the air. Due to the oxidation reaction, the working fluid heats up and, expanding, is ejected from the engine very quickly, while producing jet thrust.

First models

Airplanes, which then became prototypes for passenger liners, were then developed in Germany, or rather in the Third Reich, and in Great Britain. The pioneers in this area are the Germans.

Heinkel He 178- considered the first jet-powered aircraft. It was first tested on August 27, 1939. The aircraft showed quite encouraging results, but the higher management in the person of the Reich Aviation Ministry considered that this technology was not interesting. And the main focus at that time was precisely military aviation technology.

The British also kept up with the Germans. And in 1941 the world saw the Gloster E.28 / 39. The engine was designed by Frank Whittle.

Gloster E.28 / 39.

It was these prototypes that showed everyone how aviation would go in the future.

First jet passenger aircraft

The first jet aircraft for passengers is considered to be created by the British, "Comet-1"... It has been tested July 27, 1949. He had 4 turbojet engines, and the salon was calculated for 32 passengers... In addition, it was installed 2 hydrogen peroxide accelerators... It was used on highways to Europe and Africa. For example, Johannesburg with stops along the way. The entire flight time was 23.5 hours.

Later, "Comet-2" and "Comet-3" were developed., but they did not meet expectations and were discontinued due to metal fatigue and insufficient strength of the fuselage. Nevertheless, some modifications are still used for the design of British Air Force fighters.

Six years later, the USSR introduced the TU-104. The first Soviet jet passenger aircraft. For the first time he took to the air June 15, 1955. A.N. Tupolev took as the basis of his project bomber with jet engines TU-16. He simply increased the fuselage, lowered the wing under it, and placed 100 seats for passengers. Since 1956 it was launched into mass production.

For the next two years, it was the world's only jet aircraft., which was used to transport civilians. He had 2 turbojet engines. Its maximum the speed reached 950 km / h, and he could fly up to 2700 km.

Such novelties for the USSR were also introduced on it, like dining on board, beautifully dressed flight attendants and smart pilots.

However, over 4 years of its operation, 37 accidents occurred with the participation of this aircraft. This is the largest number of accidents among all Russian aircraft. It is not surprising that N.S. Khrushchev refused to even approach him. Despite the fact that it was removed from production, it was still used until 1979. for flights.

In 1958 went to the passenger lines. He could take on board from 90 to 180 passengers. Engines of different powers were installed on different models. The aircraft was intended for medium and long haul routes. However, there were much more accidents with it than with the TU-104.

SE.210 Caravelle 1.

A breakthrough in world aviation was the creation of the French SE.210 Caravelle 1... He started flying in 1959 mainly in the French colony in Africa. He also had 2 turbojets, but Rolls-Royce, in the tail of the aircraft. This helped to achieve that improved aerodynamics, and noise in the cabin was minimized, and the reliability of the air intakes was increased.

And the ladder was also made in a different way than other aircraft of that time - in the form of a descending part of the fuselage. The salon also carried out innovations: the windows became larger and the passage was widened. It was used on medium-range routes only.

A total of 12 aircraft of this type were produced, but still it could not stand the rivalry with Boeings, and further production was stopped.

In the minds of a large number of people, one way or another associated with general aviation, such a concept as a "personal plane" for some time was inextricably linked with light one- or two-engine propeller-driven aircraft, which were equipped with turboprop or piston engines. Until very recently, jet aircraft were perceived as too expensive and uneconomical for customers who could afford this mode of transport. There is nothing strange in this, since even cheap aircraft with jet engines cost several million dollars, and their powerful engines consumed a large amount of fuel, in comparison with 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 take place in business aviation in the near future: the era of single-engine and twin-engine jet aircraft is coming. At the same time, we are talking not only about business jet planes, which are designed to carry 4-8 passengers, but about cars that are similar to sports cars. That is, the usual 2-4 seater jet aircraft, which are already in no way inferior to their counterparts with piston engines.

At the same time, naturally, civilian business jets such as ECLIPSE 500, CITATION MUSTANG, ADAM 700 and Embraer PHENOM 100 have more market prospects, 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 peculiar air taxis.

Such aircraft even had a special designation VLG - Very Light Jet. Entry-level jets or personal jets, previously often referred to as microjets. The maximum passenger capacity of such vehicles does not exceed 4-8 people, and the maximum weight does not exceed 4,540 kg. These planes are lighter than those models that are usually called business jets and are designed to be flown by 1 pilot. Examples of such machines are the models already mentioned above.

The ultra-light jet is a completely new concept, and an increasing number of experts around the world are concluding that the emergence of such aircraft could revolutionize the business aviation segment. Honeywell and Rolls-Royce took this factor into account in 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, since the late 1990s, has been driving the market for such aircraft forward.

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

Embraer PHENOM 100

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

The Very Light Jet passion even led to some rather daring projects, such as transforming a combat trainer into a civilian ultralight jet. It is not hard to imagine if the most modern Russian training aircraft Yak-130 suddenly became available to civilian customers. There would be a demand for it. They would have found their own home-grown "Abramovichs" (and not their own) who would want to acquire something remotely, but reminiscent of a combat vehicle. This opportunity was nearly realized by the Aviation Technology Group (ATG).

A huge number of different scenarios of possible air battles, as well as imitation of the operation of self-defense systems and airborne weapons, the possibility of analyzing the actions of the pilot and planning combat missions, were "sewn" into its on-board electronics. 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 switch to control of such machines as Eurofighter, Su-30 or Rafale.

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

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

Sources of information:
-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

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

1. First pancake

Work on the first jet aircraft began at Heinkel in 1937. 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 the series.

The designers chose for it a liquid-jet engine with a thrust of 600 kgf, in which methanol and hydrogen peroxide are used as fuel and oxidizer. It was assumed that the car would develop 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 over conventional fighters was their tremendous rate of climb, equal to 60 m / s, which was three times higher than that of machines with piston engines.

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

2. The first serial

Germany was ahead of everyone in the creation of the first serial jet aircraft. It was the Me.262. It made its first flight in July 1942, and was put into 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 Messerschmitt jet was a successful aircraft with excellent flight characteristics:

Maximum speed at altitude - 870 km / h

Flight range - up to 1050 km

Practical ceiling - 12200 m

Climb rate - 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 x 30-mm cannons, from 2 to 14 suspension points; the mass of suspended rockets or bombs is up to 1500 kg.

During the period of hostilities, the Me.262 shot down 150 aircraft. The losses amounted to 100 aircraft. Such an accident rate was largely associated with both inadequate training of pilots for flying on a fundamentally new aircraft, and with defects in the engine, which had a low resource and low reliability.

3. One way ticket

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

The plane was built on the "cheap and cheerful" principle. A wooden glider with 1.2 tons of ammonal in the bow was equipped with three 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 Ohka on a harness at a visual distance to the target. After that, the LPRE was ignited.

However, the effectiveness of such a scheme was low. Because the bombers were detected by the locators of American naval ships before the kamikazes were aimed at the target. As a result, both bombers and aircraft-shells stuffed with ammonal were senselessly killed on distant approaches.

4. British long-liver

The Gloster Meteor was the only Allied jet to take part 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, and was in service with the Air Force of a number of British military allies until the end of the 70s. A total of 3555 vehicles of various modifications were produced.

During the war, two modifications of the fighter were produced - F. Mk I and F. Mk III. 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 were supposed 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 before mid-1945, only two were lost: they collided during an approach in heavy cloudiness.

LTH Gloster Meteor F. Mk III:

Length - 12.6 m

Height - 3.96 m

Wingspan - 13.1 m

Wing area - 34.7 sq.m.

Takeoff weight - 6560 kg

Engines - 2TRD

Thrust - 2 × 908 kgf

Maximum speed - 837 km / h

Ceiling - 13400 m

Range - 2160 km

Armament - 4 cannons 30 mm

5. Latecomer with an appeal

The American Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star began arriving at British airfields just before the end of hostilities in Europe - in April 1945. He did not have time to fight. The F-80 was widely used as a fighter-bomber several years later during the Korean War.

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

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

LTH Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star:

Length - 10.5 m

Height - 3.45 m

Wingspan - 11.85 m

Wing area - 22.1 sq.m.

Takeoff weight - 5300 kg

Engines - 1TRD

Thrust - 1 × 1746 kgf

Maximum speed - 880 km / h

Climb rate - 23 m / s

Ceiling - 13700 m

Range - 1255 km, with PTB - 2320 km

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

6. Soviet-style tender

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

The normal way to create a jet fighter was approached only in 1945. And not even one, but two. By the middle of the year, the twin-engine MiG-9 and the single-engine Yak-15 were designed. They took to the air 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 a training aircraft for training jet pilots.

The MiG-9 became a combat vehicle. And already in 1946 he began to enter the Air Force. In three years, 602 aircraft were produced. However, two circumstances strongly influenced its fate, in connection with which 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 aircraft's design.

Secondly, the pilots were very suspicious of the new car, which required a lot of effort to master and did not forgive even minor errors in aerobatics. They were much more accustomed to the Yak-15, which was as close as possible to the Yak-3, well known to everyone. Actually, it was built on its basis with the required minimum deviations.

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

LTH MiG-9:

Length - 9.75 m

Wingspan - 10.0 m

Wing area - 18.2 sq.m.

Takeoff weight - 4990 kg

Engines - 2TRD

Thrust - 2 × 800 kgf

Maximum speed - 864 km / h

Climb rate - 22 m / s

Ceiling - 13500 m

Flight duration at an altitude of 5000 m - 1 hour

Armament - 3 cannons.

In June 1955, an experimental aircraft "104" developed by the Tupolev Design Bureau took off from an airfield near Moscow in Zhukovsky. Factory tests of the machine began, which by the fall of the same year will turn into a Tu-104 jet airliner - the third in the world, the second commissioned and the first in the USSR.

The very theme of "104th" got off the ground only after Stalin's death, although proposals for the creation of a jet passenger fleet were repeatedly put forward under him. But the leader, with his inherent parsimony and a penchant for repeated reinsurance, inexorably “hacked” such ideas. The country had just overcome the post-war devastation and could not afford substantial "non-core" spending, and jet passenger aviation in the early 1950s was still not an essential problem for the Soviet national economy.

A common joke among railway students is: "Soviet cars are not designed to carry passengers, they are adapted for it." When creating the first Soviet jet liner, the Tupolev Design Bureau used a similar principle, but seriously and competently. A successful Tu-16 bomber was taken as a basis (the plane "104" even at one time bore the Tu-16P index - "passenger") in order to gain resources and time for general development of the structure.

Thus, the task of training flight technical personnel was also facilitated, and they also saved on ground maintenance equipment.

As one of the arguments in favor of the creation of such an aircraft, A.N. Tupolev cited the possibility of flying at high altitude, “over the weather” - screw passenger aircraft, which had a small ceiling, suffered mercilessly from turbulence. But it was there that the first jetliner was guarded by a new, as yet unknown danger.

When it comes to a passenger plane, the first thing that seriously worries potential passengers is reliability. Who in the USSR has not heard the black song: "Tu-104 is the fastest plane: it will take you two minutes to the grave"? For all its offensiveness, it somehow reflected the harsh reality. The plane was made in a hurry. The accident rate of the new car exceeded reasonable - by today's standards - indicators. Over the entire history of operation, 37 cars have suffered serious accidents - 18% of the total number produced. At the same time, it should be noted that the 104th behaved much more decently in flight than its English competitor Comet, the De Havilland company (23% of lost vehicles), which had an unhealthy habit of falling apart in the air due to fatigue loads in a carelessly designed fuselage.

The first Tu-104 aircraft flew at the beginning of November 1955. Thus, it took very little time to develop. During this flight, there were some problems: during the flight, the plane was unexpectedly thrown up, after which control of the machine was lost for some time. The pilots called this condition "catch". It was not possible to determine the reason for this phenomenon. Despite this, the operation of the aircraft was continued, and the tests did not stop.

Khrushchev liked the Tu-104 plane so much that he even decided to fly it to Great Britain in 1956. Since the problems with the plane could not be resolved, he was persuaded to abandon such a flight. But it was necessary to demonstrate to the world the successes of Soviet aircraft construction. Therefore, by order of Khrushchev, the Tu-104 was driven to the British capital.

The arrival of the Soviet airliner, according to the British press, had an effect comparable to the landing of a UFO. The next day, a second copy of the Tu-104 flew to London, with a different number. British newspapers reported that it was one and the same plane, and the "Russian priests" "were repainting the numbers on their experimental plane." "Russian priests" are Russian pilots dressed in all black. Chief Designer A.N. Tupolev was offended and, firstly, ordered to allocate funds to the pilots to dress in something fashionable and not black, and the next day - March 25, 1956 - send three Tu-104s to London at once, which was done.

It was a triumph for the Soviet Union - after all, at that time no other country in the world had operating jet passenger airliners.

The Tu-104 made its first regular flight on September 15, 1956. And in 1958, a black streak began.

As the further development of events showed, the problems with the "pickup" were not resolved. In August 1958, the Tu-104, having lost control, crashed, as a result of which 64 people died. Designer Tupolev denied in every possible way that there were any problems, and the disaster, according to him, was due to the fault of the crew. There is a version that the plane simply did not have enough fuel. But after a while the second Tu-104 also crashed, entering a tailspin and crashing into the ground.

And two months later, exactly the same situation developed near Kanash.

On October 7, 1958, the new Tu-104A with the tail number CCCP-42362, operated by the crew of the most experienced pilot Harold Kuznetsov, performed the flight Beijing - Omsk - Moscow. The flight altitude was 12 kilometers. In the salon were mainly foreign citizens - a delegation of Chinese and North Korean Komsomol activists.

The weather in Moscow was bad, and at the Gorky alternate airfield, too, and after the flight over Kazan, the dispatcher ordered to turn around and go to Sverdlovsk, suitable for landing. During the turn at an altitude of 10,000 meters, the aircraft most likely got into a zone of strong turbulence and a "catch" occurred - a spontaneous increase in the pitch angle uncontrolled by the crew. Suddenly, the plane was thrown up sharply, and with such force that such a huge colossus flew up two kilometers, left the echelon up, lost speed, fell onto the wing and went into a tailspin.

In the situation that arose, the crew did everything possible to save the aircraft. But the lack of elevator travel prevented the car from being taken out of lethal mode. Harold Kuznetsov, knowing that the Birobidzhan story might be repeating itself, ordered the radio operator to broadcast his words to the ground.

The commander of the crew, Harold Kuznetsov, and the co-pilot, Anton Artemyev, tried to level the plane, taking the steering wheel all the way. But it did not help. Then the plane went down sharply, disobeying control. Thus, the plane entered a steep uncontrollable dive. At supersonic speed, almost vertically, the plane was heading towards the ground.

Here the crew accomplished the almost impossible: Commander Harold Kuznetsov, in two minutes of falling from a height of 13 kilometers, managed to transmit the features of the vehicle's behavior by radio. The connection worked almost until the very moment of the collision with the ground. The last words of the commander were: “Goodbye. We are dying. "

The plane crashed in the Vurnarsky region of Chuvashia, a few tens of meters from the Moscow-Kazan-Sverdlovsk railroad, not far from the village of Bulatovo. Killed 65 passengers and 9 crew members.

According to the results of the work of the state commission, the accident lasted no more than two minutes.

The information conveyed by Kuznetsov was of great value, since all previous incidents remained unsolved. None of the investigations carried out by specialists from the Main Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet, the Air Force, the State Research Institute, as well as the Tupolev Design Bureau itself, could shed light on what actually happened. Many assumptions were put forward: technical malfunction, defects in design, bad weather conditions, crew errors.

All the bumps, of course, fell on the pilots' heads, since no one doubted the technical characteristics of the aircraft. But the information transmitted by Kuznetsov dotted the "i". From the information received, the commission concluded that the liner was caught in a huge updraft. None of the designers could even imagine that this was possible at an altitude of more than 9 kilometers, since simple piston machines could rise to a much lower height. Therefore, such a phenomenon as turbulence was considered a trifle. Until tragedy struck.

Kuznetsov's crew got into the very center of the vertical air flow. Later, in the process of reproducing the flight, the designers managed to determine its parameters: the width of the air flow was about 2 kilometers, the length was about 13, and the thickness was about 6 kilometers. At the same time, its speed was approaching 300 kilometers per hour.

It was urgent to find a way to deal with such a dangerous natural phenomenon. As a result, the maximum flight altitude was lowered, the structure itself was modernized, new methods for centering machines were developed, but still the problem was not completely solved. The high accident rate remained at the same level, but it was difficult to determine what was the reason - either design errors or unavailability of the pilots.

The transmitted information was enough to find and fix the problem. The aircraft centering rules were changed, the stabilizer angle was changed and the elevator was modified. The maximum flight altitude has also been reduced. The propensity of the aircraft to "catch" has been greatly reduced.

After that, the Tu-104 carried passengers for another three decades, and although it was not without disasters (after all, about 200 aircraft were built and flew), their reasons were already different. For a long time, the Tu-104 became the main passenger aircraft of Aeroflot: for example, in 1960, a third of the passenger air traffic in the USSR was carried out on the Tu-104. For 23 years of operation, the Tu-104 fleet has carried about 100 million passengers, having spent 2,000,000 flight hours in the air and performed more than 600,000 flights.

Much credit for this belongs to Harold Kuznetsov and his crew. Here are their names:

Kuznetsov Harold Dmitrievich - FAC instructor
Artemov Anton Filimonovich - FAC
Rogozin Igor Alexandrovich - co-pilot
Mumrienko Evgeny Andreevich - navigator
Veselov Ivan Vladimirovich - flight mechanic
Fedorov Alexander Sergeevich - radio operator
Smolenskaya Maya Filippovna - flight attendant-translator
Goryushina Tatiana Borisovna - flight attendant
Maklakova Albina - flight attendant

Unsurprisingly, the plane took on a bad name. In 1960, the Tu-104 liner was discontinued, and its place was temporarily taken by the Il-18 turboprop liners. And since a long runway was needed to accelerate the Tu-104, it was rarely used on domestic flights.

The need arose to create new passenger aircraft. Tupolev decided not to retreat from the intended path. As a result, the first modification of the Tu-104, Tu-124, was created, which also had a high accident rate. Therefore, another version was created - Tu-134. This aircraft was more successful, therefore, since the beginning of operation in 1967, it still operates domestic flights. And only in 1972, the first Tu-154 jet airliner appeared, which was not converted from a military vehicle, but was originally designed as a passenger one. This is one of the favorite aircraft of Russian experienced pilots.

Aeroflot removed the last Tu-104s from regular airlines only in 1979. But by that time the aircraft had firmly taken root in military aviation - it was used to train pilots of naval missile carriers, as a flying laboratory, for meteorological research and as a command aircraft. Finally, the flights of the "104" were terminated only at the beginning of 1981, after an overloaded vehicle belonging to the Soviet Navy crashed at a military airfield near Leningrad. It almost completely killed the command staff of the Pacific Fleet - 52 people, including 17 admirals and generals, including the commander of the fleet, Vice Admiral Emil Spiridonov, who owned the ill-fated vehicle.

Such a bitter experience forced domestic designers to think over new aerodynamic forms that could withstand air currents.

Officially, the last flight of the Tu-104 took place in November 1986. But some people claim that at the very end of the 80s they saw "104s" on the platforms of regional airports and even in flight. The son of a warrior and the grandfather of Soviet jet airliners did not want to retire, remaining such a kind ghost in an impoverished, but comfortably inhabited castle of Russian civil aviation.

Near Moscow, on the Kiev highway, at the turn to Vnukovo airport, a Tu-104B was met, standing on a high pedestal. As it turned out, this plane was installed in 2006, before it was another Tu-104B in Vnukovo, which, by someone's stupid order, was cut in 2005. The side number of the car is not real, the number USSR-L5412 was worn by the first Tu-104, which performed the first flight with passengers.

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