Documentary History of the First Soviet Jet Plane BI

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Abstract

The article examines the history of the creation and testing of the first aircraft with rocket engine in the USSR. The events took place during World War II and the aircraft was from the start designed as a battleplane. A series of these aircrafts, intended to defend critical facilities from enemy bombers, was produced simultaneously with flight tests. On its seventh flight, the plane crashed and, for reasons still unclear, its test pilot, G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi, was killed. This forced the decision to abandon the adoption of the BI interceptor for service use.

The article is based on the documents from three Moscow archives. Examination of these document sources allowed clarification of some issues, in particular, to put forward a new hypothesis concerning the causes of the plane crash in 1943

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About the authors

Dmitrii A. Sobolev

S. I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences

Author for correspondence.
Email: daso1152@mail.ru
Russian Federation, Ul. Baltiyskaya, 14, Moscow, 125315

References

  1. Bakurskii, V. (2023) Poslednii polet Bakhchivandzhi. Versiia [The Last Flight of Bakhchivandzhi. A Version], Aviatsiia i kosmonavtika vchera, segodnia, zavtra…, no. 3, pp. 16–26.
  2. Bridzhmen, U., and Azar, Zh. (Bridgemen, W., and Hazard, J.) (1959) Odin v beskrainem nebe [The Lonely Sky]. Moskva: Voenizdat.
  3. Ekonomov, L. A. (1972) Kapitan Bakhchivandzhi [Captain Bakhchivandzhi]. Moskva: Izdatel’stvo DOSAAF.
  4. Green, W. (1970) The Warplanes of Third Reich. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc.
  5. Kosminkov, K., and Valuev, N. (1997) Nemetskoe vlianie [German Influence], Mir aviatsii, no. 2, pp. 23–32.
  6. Mitroshenkov, V. (1976) Reaktivnyi start: k istorii sozdaniia samoleta BI-1 [Jet Start: On the History of the Creation of BI-1 Aircraft], Volga, no. 8, pp. 152–167.
  7. Nikolaev, A. (2004) Tak nachinalisʼ ZhRD i rakety na tverdom toplive [The Beginnings of Liquid Fuel Rocket Engines and Solid Fuel Rockets], Dvigatelʼ, no. 4, pp. 44–47.
  8. Pyshnov, V. (1972) 30 let so dnia pervogo poleta sovetskogo raketnogo istrebitelia BI-1 [30th Anniversary of the First Flight of the Soviet Rocket Fighter BI-1], Iz istorii aviatsii i kosmonavtiki, no. 14, pp. 53–56.

Supplementary files

Supplementary Files
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1. JATS XML
2. A. Ya. Bereznyak (left) and A. M. Isaev (right)

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3. Layout of the BI aircraft

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4. BI in glider version, 1941.

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5. G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi

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6. Landing gear failure of the BI after the first flight

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7. Gun mount BI-2

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8. The BI-2 crash on January 12, 1943 due to a ski being lost in flight

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9. BI-3 takeoff, March 1943.

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10. Instrument panel of the BI aircraft

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11. Rocket Plane 4302

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