A little over a hundred years ago, Nicholas II authorized the creation of a squadron of Ilya Muromets aircraft. It was then that long-range aviation arose in our country. You will read about the milestones of her story in this article.
But first, you should pay tribute to those people who stood at the head of this industry. Who were the long-range aviation commanders? Let's list them:
- P.V. Androsov.
- A.E. Golovanov.
- P.S. Deinekin.
- A. D. Zhikharev.
- I.M. Kalugin.
- A. A. Novikov, who later became a marshal.
- M.M. Oparin.
- B. In Reshetnikov.
These commanders have done much to increase the defense capabilities of our entire country.
"Ilya Muromets": how it all began
At the end of 1914, the Highest Command created a squadron of "Murom", led by Mikhail Shidlovsky. For the first time in the world, such a large combination of four-engine bombers appeared, and long-range aviation as such was born. Actually, her "great-grandfather" himself first took to the wing on December 23, 1913.
Muromets, which is better known as S-22, was created by the legendary Sikorsky at the Russo-Balt plant. For its time, it was an incredible car, the motors of which could well lift into the air as much as five tons of mass. The plane immediately had two gun sites, which for those times was also simply advanced technology.
Participation in the First World War
Oddly enough, the squadron of these aircraft was equipped perfectly, which was a pleasant exception for the Russian army of those years. For four years, from 1914 to 1918, aircraft performed more than four hundred sorties. Losses amounted to only one plane.
By 1917, Sikorsky had created a fundamentally new modification, the “Type Zh”. In total, it was planned to build up to 120 aircraft, but then a revolution broke out. Some of the cars were burned so that they would not fall into German hands, while others were used for some time as educational transport vehicles.
The era of Tupolev
But that was only the beginning. The USSR long-range aviation reached a qualitatively new level when the TB-3 aircraft was created. Design was managed by Andrey Tupolev Design Bureau. The development of the machine was started in 1926. Five years later, not only large-scale production was launched, but also the formation of a corps of heavy bombers, which for those years was unthinkable in any country in the world.
In the same 1934, the TB-4 aircraft was created, which in history remained under the name "Maxim Gorky". It was a wide-profile machine that could be used for almost all purposes.
The first flight was completed in 1934, Mikhail Gromov was at the helm. This machine set two world records: it lifted loads of ten and fifteen tons to a height of five kilometers. It was on Gorky that the legendary writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery made a flight. But the age of the aircraft was short-lived, as its design revealed ever new miscalculations and shortcomings. But the history of long-range aviation continued.
New range records
Already in 1932, the same Tupolev bureau developed a fundamentally new aircraft with an all-metal fuselage, the ANT-25. The car turned out to be excellent, it was on it that the best pilots of those years set several world records at once. So, Chkalov flew on it from Moscow to the Far East, covering a distance of 9375 kilometers. On June 18, 1937, the same Chkalov commanded a crew that performed a flight to the United States.
In just a month, a new record. Although this time the Soviet pilots again flew to America, but the final goal was California, not Washington. During this flight, two (!) World records were broken at once. Firstly, the team overcame 10,148 kilometers in a straight line, and also managed to fly 11,500 kilometers while walking along a broken coastline.
Legendary Ilyushin
In 1933, the leadership of the young country decided to gather all the promising aircraft designers in one place, as the new long-range aviation, equipped with the best, most promising aircraft, was urgently needed. That is how the famous Central Design Bureau was born, headed by Sergey Ilyushin. Just two years later, he and a team of like-minded people create a new long-range bomber DB-3. Test pilot Vladimir Kokkinaki spent long missions on it. Already in 1936, aircraft began to enter into service with the Soviet Army en masse.
An improved model of the same machine, which appeared two years later, was called the IL-4. He received powerful engines and new weapons. Before the war, in the middle of 1940, DB-3 was removed from the assembly line, and IL-4 took its place. In total, the country produced 1528 machines of the DB-3 family, which participated in both the Finnish and the Great Patriotic War.
The first Soviet attack aircraft was also created by Ilyushin. His IL-2 brought glory to this designer. Today, the legendary IL-76 is the main military transport aircraft of our country, worthily continuing the work of its ancestor.
World War II, the role of aviation
As early as June 22, 1941, long-range aircraft began to carry out their first sorties. And on the second day of the war (!) They paid a “courtesy visit” to the Nazis, bombing in Danzig, Koenigsberg, as well as some cities in Poland and Hungary.
The main machines were: Pe-8, DB-3, IL-4 and Pe-2. The backbone of long-range aviation was the IL-4 described above. For all the years of the war, they made thousands of flights, completing an incredible number of tasks. It must be said that long-range aviation at that time “gave birth” to many heroes of the USSR. Only 269 privates and officers received this high rank, and six received it twice.
But the price was high: after the Second World War, the pilots remained practically "on the beans", having lost most of the fleet. And the point here was not only in quantitative indicators: out of 1800 aircraft, more or less modern, suitable for solving important tasks, only a dozen three aircraft remained. And therefore, it was decided to copy the American B-29, making on the basis of its new aircraft.
Already in 1947, the production of heavy Tu-4s was established. A huge amount of work was done in the shortest possible time, aimed at adapting the aircraft to domestic conditions and weapons, the designers were able to significantly increase the reliability of the machines. In 1951, it was these aircraft that became the first Russian carriers of nuclear weapons.
Post-war work
In the mid-1950s, new long-range aircraft appeared, which predetermined the development of the industry for decades to come. It was at this time that the epic Tu-95, the Bear, which still stands on the defensive lines of our country, as well as some other machines, were developed and put into operation.
So, the Tu-16, which received the nickname "Badger", was the first monoplane with an arrow-shaped wing. The first car was assembled in 1953. Its crew consisted of six or more people. The main weapon for self-defense was the PU-88 bow automatic gun and three remote-controlled gun turrets. Subsequently, the aircraft received seven AM-23 guns, the caliber of which was 23 mm.
“Badgers” and their long-range pilots took an active part in the “six-day war” of 1967, almost all other Arab-Israeli conflicts of that time, and also managed to take part in the Afghan campaign.
Tu-95, Russian "Bear"
This monumental aircraft was tested in 1952. This is an all-metal midplane with four turboprop engines that were mounted directly in the swept wings. Its “highlight” is precisely the NK-12 engines, which still continue to be the best turboprop engines in their class.
The aircraft can carry twelve tons of bomb load. In addition, aircraft bombs weighing up to ten tons can be mounted in the bomb bay. In 2010, they set a new record: in 43 hours, bombers flew 30 thousand kilometers. The peculiarity of this action is also that ordinary serial cars were used to carry it out. So Russian long-range aviation even in turboprop design is still a formidable force.
ZM bomber
This machine was produced in 1956-1960. A feature of the aircraft was the latest weapon system, the “backbone” of which was a special D-5 rocket that could confidently hit both sea and ground targets. Its flight range was as much as 280 kilometers, and the speed was three times higher than the speed of sound. It should be noted that it was these missile carriers that for a long time formed the basis of strategic aviation in the Far East.
Today, the long-range aviation of the Russian Federation is represented by several machines, including the TU-95 and TU-160, but the "old" ZM were removed from service relatively recently. There is no exact information about whether there are currently aircraft of this family that can fly into the air.
Cold war and long-range aviation
After Germany was defeated, spheres of influence around the world were redrawn again. NATO and the Warsaw Pact alliance formed, which did not have a special love for each other. Today, historians and the military themselves believe that only by a miracle did the Third World War not begin at that time.
It is not surprising that in those years it was strategic aviation that was one of the guarantors of world peace, supporting the country's nuclear shield. Until 1961, aircraft were the most important means of delivering atomic bombs to a potential enemy. By the way, it was the commanders of long-range aviation that stood at the head of the first missile division of the USSR.
Development Vector Change
In the postwar years, it became completely clear that it was time to move from the old turboprop aircraft to jet engines. In principle, the first jet IL-28 appeared at the end of the distant 1940. Of course, this aircraft was, in a sense, a breakthrough, but the design still needed a lot of work.
So, in early 1970 (based on the relatively old TU-22), a new K-22 missile carrier was created. In addition, other modifications of this aircraft appeared. We are talking about the Tu-22M2 and Tu-22M3. They were characterized by the fact that in their design and production, new technologies and materials were massively used, which until then had been used exclusively in astronautics.
Finally, the time has come for the beautiful White Swan, Tu-160. He became one of the symbols of the entire Cold War. It was the world's first aircraft of this size with variable wing geometry, the design of which used thousands of advanced technical solutions, many of which have no analogues to this day. The impetus for the realization of the need to develop something similar was the intelligence data, which reported on the beginning of the creation of the B-1.
The first White Swan took off from the Ramenskoye airfield. It happened at the end of December 1981. In 1984, the Kazan Aviation Plant began the large-scale production of a unique machine.
In mid-2003, these aircraft flew over the Indian Ocean, crossing the airspace of many states. Until that moment, Russian
long-range aviation (the photo of which is in the article) did not perform flights of such a length in principle. In September last year, two TU-160s flew to Venezuela, cementing allied relations between the two states.
We can say with confidence that the development of strategic aviation is the key to the statehood and security of our country in the coming years.