A convoy of cars was moving along the road leading to the test airfield, in the middle of which a platform with something bulky, carefully covered with a tarpaulin was crawling behind the tractor. Only by looking closely, it was possible to guess the contours of a small plane.
The column turned onto a country road, then to the edge, where the tractor uncoupled the platform and drove off. The people who got out of the buses lowered the supports on it, removed the cover, revealing a silver fighter with retracted landing gear, resting on a guide beam. Then it was raised by 7 ° relative to the horizon, the pilot sat in the cockpit, and closed the lantern. With a whistle, turning into a characteristic roar, the engines started working, a little more time passed, and the command sounded: "Start!"
A sheaf of yellow-red flame burst out from under the plane, smoke (something similar we see in TV reports about spacecraft launches) - it was a solid-propellant booster placed under the fuselage that started working. The fighter fell off the guide, rushed into the sky. Suddenly the rocket roar ceased, and the thrown booster, tumbling, flew to the ground. So on April 13, 1957 in our country, for the first time, a non-aerodrome launch of a jet aircraft was carried out.
Left: A. G. Agronik, one of the authors of the aerodromeless launch system. Right: Test pilot GM Shiyanov was the first to take off from a ground platform.
Left: Test pilot S. Anokhin was the second to take off on the fighter from the catapult. Right: Colonel V. G. Ivanov suggested starting without fixing the rudders and tried the start in a new way.
… The idea of dispensing with airfields, “shooting” airplanes with the help of various devices is not new in principle. Back in the 1920s and 1940s, steam catapults were used to launch small reconnaissance seaplanes from cruisers and battleships, and special booster tracks were built into the bow of the takeoff and landing decks of aircraft carriers.
In the early 30s, military engineer V. S. Vakhmistrov proposed to suspend fighters first from twin-engine TB-1 bombers, and then to four-engine TB-3 bombers. Taking off in the rear of their troops, they would deliver them to the front line, thus, as it were, increasing the range. Three decades later, Vakhmistrov's idea was revived at a qualitatively new level by creating the Harpoon system. Its essence was that a Tu-4 heavy bomber took two MiG-15 fighters in tow.
But let us return to the aerodromeless start system with which the story began. Its development was entrusted to the Design Bureau of A. I. Mikoyan and M. I. Gurevich, co-authors of the famous MiGs. One of the authors of this article (A. G. Agronik) participated in its creation and testing.
We chose the MiG-19, then the most advanced supersonic fighter. The mobile launcher was equipped with a splitter, which protected it from the gas jet emitted by the accelerator. This solid-propellant rocket engine worked for only 2.5 s, but developed a thrust of several tens of tons. The catapult was reusable, it was equipped with a wheeled landing gear, a lifting and turning mechanism, four jacks for fixing it on the ground, and two mobile flyovers were installed for mechanics servicing the aircraft. A special device was used to roll a fueled and ready-to-fight fighter onto a lowered guide beam.
On the aircraft itself, the ventral ridge was replaced with two side ridge, assemblies were mounted that held the car on the beam, and the accelerator. After a long dispute, it was decided to stop the elevator control with an automatic machine operating for 3, 5 or 2, 5 seconds during takeoff - the accelerator's operating time.
They also thought about a shortened landing, replacing the standard belt parachute on the fighter with a large, conical one, with a canopy area of 12 sq. m.
Experienced pilots were selected to test the aerodromeless launch system. The 47-year-old GM Shiyanov, who had risen into the sky back in 1934, had the following in his flight book: “Flies on all types of modern aircraft”, and Hero of the Soviet Union SN Anokhin became famous for his daring glider flights even before the war. But neither they nor the engineers knew how the overload after the start would affect. Judging by calculations and laboratory experiments, it could reach 4-5 "f". We did not know how the rudders would behave after takeoff and turning on the powerful accelerator. Why, it was not even completely clear at what angle to the horizon to set the guide beam.
As you know, before sending Yu. A. Gagarin into space, a mock-up of the Vostok spacecraft was launched. So Gurevich, who was in charge of the project, ordered in August 1956 to launch an empty plane from a catapult to check the correctness of theoretical calculations. A machine gun was introduced into his control, which, a few seconds after the start, had to shift the rudders to a dive. And so it happened - shortly after takeoff, the MiG pecked its nose and crashed into the ground. Everyone knew that it should be so, but somehow it became uncomfortable …
Shiyanov was the first to start. At the moment of departure from the guide, the speed of the car was 107 km / h, the control was blocked, and by the time the accelerator was dropped, it was already 370 km / h and continued to increase. Having gained altitude, Shiyanov made several circles, checking control, and went to land. The famous test pilot P. Stefanovsky assessed the incident as follows: "If Shiyanov had not done anything special before, then only for this start he would have earned the title of Hero of the Soviet Union!" I must say that Stefanovskii turned out to be a seer …
On April 22, 1957, Shiyanov took off with a guide already installed at an angle of 15 ° to the horizon, then repeated the starts. Later, during Anokhin's flights, the rudder fixation time was reduced to 3 s. Anokhin also tested takeoff in a reloading version with two 760-liter outboard tanks and two blocks of rockets under the wing, when the mass of the MiG reached 9, 5 tons.
The MiG-19 was rolled onto the guide beam, in a few minutes the pilot will take a seat in the cockpit
Here is what he wrote in the report: “Immediately after the launch, the pilot is quite capable of controlling the position of the aircraft and controlling it consciously. Taking off from the launcher is not difficult and does not require any additional skills from the pilot. During a normal takeoff, from the moment of movement to take off from the ground, pilots must continuously control the aircraft, making adjustments to the crosswind, the state of the runway and other factors. When taking off from the launcher, all this is eliminated, the takeoff is simpler. A semi-skilled pilot who has previously flown this type of aircraft can successfully take off of this kind."
In June, Shiyanov lifted a second copy of the MiG-19 (SM-30) from the platform, and the Hero of the Soviet Union K. K. They immediately offered to unlock the rudders, and after Colonel V. G. Ivanov tested the new method, it was legalized. In particular, M. S. Tvelenev and the future cosmonaut G. T. Beregovoy took off without blocking.
Then the aerodromeless start was shown to a group of generals and to the USSR Minister of Defense, Marshal of the Soviet Union G. K. Zhukov. Further work in this direction was curtailed, but did not lose its significance to this day.
