P-47 to A-10
Among the founding fathers of the United States of America, there are many immigrants from Russia. "Russian settlers - hardworking, skilled in crafts, friendly to the local population, settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, had a great influence on the development of California" (from the history of "Fort Ross" - a former Russian settlement 100 km north of San Francisco Francisco). Who hasn't seen the Warner Bros. Presents splash screen on TV? - the legendary Hollywood studio was founded by the Voronin brothers from Belarus. By the way, television itself, as a principle of transmitting a moving image at a distance, appeared thanks to the fundamental research of another Russian emigrant - Vladimir Zvorykin.
An invaluable contribution to the history of American aviation was made by Igor Sikorsky - "the father of helicopter construction", the founder of the "Sikorsky Aircraft" corporation. However, Sikorsky is far from the only pioneer of aviation: Alexander Kartveli and Alexander Seversky occupy a special place among the outstanding American aircraft designers and creators of aircraft. The result of their creative union was the legendary WWII fighter P-47 Thunderbolt and its modern reincarnation - the A-10 Thunderbolt II anti-tank jet attack aircraft.
Thunderbolts creators
Alexander Mikhailovich Kartveli (Kartvelishvili) (September 9, 1896, Tiflis - July 20, 1974, New York). Artillery officer of the Russian Imperial Army. World War I. Emigration to France. After graduating from the Paris Flying School, Kartveli was hired as a test pilot at the well-known Bleriot company. Accident, long treatment, work as an aircraft designer at Societte Idustrielle. An unexpected invitation to the United States, where a chance acquaintance with Alexander Seversky took place - from that moment the career of a young aircraft designer rushes upward.
Alexander Prokofiev-Seversky (May 24, 1894, Tiflis - August 24, 1974, New York) - the legendary "Meresiev" of the First World War, Knight of the St. George Cross, a naval pilot who lost his leg during a sortie, but returned to duty. After the revolution, he emigrated to the United States, where he created the company "Seversky Aircraft" (the future "Republic Aviation"). At the same time, he held the positions of president, designer and test pilot in it; the chief engineer was his fellow countryman, talented Georgian aircraft designer Alexander Kartveli.
In 1939, there was a discord - under the pressure of circumstances, Seversky left the business, becoming a leading consultant for the Air Force. Kartveli, on the contrary, continued to develop aviation technology, and achieved significant success in this field.
Thunderbolt
Problem condition: there is an aircraft with a take-off weight of 2000 kg, equipped with an engine with a rated power of 1000 hp. An aircraft cannon is installed on the "hypothetical aircraft"; the mass of weapons and ammunition is 100 kg, i.e. is 5% of the normal take-off weight.
It is required to increase the power of the weapons by installing a second aircraft cannon (additional weight 100 kg).
Question: how will the flight characteristics of the aircraft change, and what needs to be done to maintain their initial values?
It clearly follows from the problem statement that all speed, acceleration and maneuverability characteristics of a somewhat "heavier" aircraft will slightly deteriorate. But we don't compromise! Our goal is to preserve all the original performance characteristics, while having on board not one, but two guns.
It would seem that the answer is obvious - in this case, a more powerful engine will be required. However, the more powerful engine turned out to be larger, heavier and more voracious - you will have to strengthen the airframe structure, install a larger and heavier propeller, and definitely increase the fuel supply (we are not going to sacrifice flight range, right?). An already heavier machine, in order to maintain its original maneuvering characteristics, will need to increase the wing area - and this is guaranteed to cause an increase in aerodynamic drag, which will require an even more powerful motor to compensate … The hellish circle has closed!
But do not get discouraged - this "weight spiral" has a quite tangible limit: it will stop when all the elements of the aircraft structure increase and return to the original ratio. Simply put, we will get a new aircraft with a normal take-off weight of 4000 kg and an engine power of 2000 hp, in which the mass of weapons (those two guns) will be 5% of the mass of the aircraft. At the same time, all other performance characteristics - rate of climb, bend radius, flight range will remain the same. The problem is solved!
It is impossible to deceive the fundamental laws of nature - all of the above is one of the fundamental principles of aviation (and, in the general case, of any technical system): when the mass of one structural element (weapon, engine, fuselage, chassis) changes, in order to preserve the original flight characteristics, the mass of all the rest will have to be changed. components.
The payload of any WWII fighter averaged 25% of its normal takeoff weight, with the remaining three-quarters of the airframe and powerplant. Despite all the antics of the designers, this proportion was absolutely correct for all fighters of those years: Yak-1, La-5, Messerschmitt, Focke-Wulf, Spitfire or deck-based Zero - all these machines have useful the load (fuel + weapons + pilot carcass + instruments and avionics) accounted for an average of 25% of the normal takeoff weight. Another thing is that the maximum take-off weight of the vehicles varied widely and was limited only by the power of the power plant.
Aircraft designer Alexander Kartveli was fabulously lucky: by the beginning of work on a promising fighter, he had at his disposal a super-development of American engineering - an incredible "double star" turbocharged "Pratt & Whitney" R-2800 with a capacity of 2400 hp. Kartveli managed to install this monster on his fighter by placing a turbocharger in the tail section of the fuselage: despite the considerable length and mass of pipelines, the enormous engine power eliminated all the shortcomings. In addition, the duct tunnels provided additional protection for the pilot and important aircraft components.
This is how the P-47 Thunderbolt ("thunderbolt") appeared - one of the best fighters of the Second World War, an invincible killer with a normal takeoff weight of over 6 tons!
"Thunderbolt" could carry 1.5 tons of payload - twice as much as Messerschmitt-109G-2 or Yak-9. It is easy to imagine what fantastic vistas opened up in front of this car! And Kartveli did not miss his chance, saturating the plane to the maximum with various "bells and whistles".
A luxurious set of flight and navigation equipment, an autopilot, a radio compass, a multichannel radio station, a urinal, an oxygen system - for complete happiness the American pilot needed only a coffee maker and an ice cream machine.
On the side of the front hemisphere, the cockpit was shielded by a huge engine, and the pilot himself was additionally protected in front by frontal bulletproof glass and armor plate, at the rear by an armored back plate, an additional radiator and a turbocharger - damage to these units only led to a decrease in engine power, the rest of the aircraft remained combat-ready. Below the cockpit, Kartveli installed a steel "ski", which excluded the death of the pilot during a forced landing with the landing gear retracted.
A combat fighter is not created as a luxury vehicle - it must fight enemy aircraft and do everything possible to promote the successes of ground forces. For these purposes, eight large-caliber Browning guns were installed in the Thunderbolt wing with 425 rounds of ammunition per barrel - a continuous burst length of 40 seconds! 3400 rounds - the sieve will remain from the target. In terms of muzzle power, the 50-caliber Browning was superior to the German 20 mm Oerlikon MG-FF cannons. Additionally, 10 guides for rockets were mounted under the Thunderbolt planes. All this made the Thunderbolt the most powerful single-engine fighter of the Second World War.
(It is fair to say that 425 rounds is an obvious overload, the standard ammunition load was much less - 300 pieces for each barrel).
However, the Thunderbolt still had a payload reserve. Taking into account the fact that the maximum take-off weight of the "Thunderbolt" reached 7-8 tons (depending on the modification), it was found in practice that the "Thunderbolt" could without much effort "take on the road" another ton of bombs - like two Il -2. But, much more often, the P-47 fighter carried outboard fuel tanks under the planes. With the use of PTB, the maximum flight range increased to 3700 km - enough to fly from Moscow to Berlin and return back. A specialized vehicle for escorting long-range bombers.
Surprisingly, the huge Thunderbolt was one of the fastest aircraft of its time. Due to the high wing loading, the fat-bellied P-47 cleared the skies at a speed of 700 km / h! However, there was also the opposite effect - despite the preservation of the general proportions in the design of the aircraft (3/4 of the mass - the structure and the engine, 1/4 - the payload), Kartveli nevertheless went beyond the limits: the take-off weight of the Thunderbolt itself was somewhat larger than the engine would allow (even such as the Pratt & Whitney R-2800).
196 Thunderbolt fighters entered the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease program. The unexpected happened - the super-plane disappointed the Soviet pilots.
“Already in the first minutes of the flight, I realized - this is not a fighter! Stable, with a comfortable spacious cockpit, comfortable, but not a fighter. "Thunderbolt" had unsatisfactory maneuverability in the horizontal and especially in the vertical plane. The plane accelerated slowly - the inertia of the heavy machine affected. The Thunderbolt was perfect for a simple en-route flight without harsh maneuvers. This is not enough for a fighter."
- test pilot Mark Gallay
Deliveries of "Thunderbolts" were immediately stopped at the initiative of the Soviet side, all received aircraft were sent to serve in the air defense as high-altitude interceptors. Several cars ended up in the Air Force Research Institute, where they were dismantled "to a screw" - Soviet specialists were most interested in the turbocharger and other unique "stuffing" of the P-47.
On the Soviet-German front, air battles took place at altitudes below 6,000 meters, often our pilots fought the Germans in general at the very surface of the Earth. In such conditions, "sharpened" for high altitude, "Thunderbolt" was a slow and clumsy target. The means for escorting long-range bombers of the Red Army Air Force was not required, and for the attack on ground targets there were countless hordes of cheaper and easier-to-operate IL-2s.
As for the designers of the Third Reich, these brilliant engineers who created thousands of samples of "wunderwaffe" - "gloomy Teutonic geniuses" were never able to create a high-power piston engine suitable for installation on a fighter. And without a normal power plant, all projects of a promising "miracle weapon" were suitable only for museum showcases.
Finally, returning to Thunderbolt, there is no doubt about it, aircraft designer Alexander Kartveli has made a real masterpiece.
Thunderjet, Thunderstreak, Thunderflash
The era of jet aircraft has set new standards. In 1944, Kartveli made a series of fruitless attempts to install a jet engine on his Thunderbolt - alas, in vain. The old design has exhausted itself. Over the next two years, a new aircraft was born on the drawing boards - the F-84 Thunderjet fighter-bomber (first flight - ferval 1946).
The F-84 "Thunderjet" is interesting, first of all, from a technical point of view - the world's first fighter with an air refueling system, the first fighter-carrier of nuclear weapons. Otherwise, it was an ordinary aircraft of its time, the firstborn of jet aviation: a pressurized cockpit with an ejection seat, a radar sight, additional fuel tanks at the wingtips, 6 machine guns of 12.7 mm caliber, up to two tons of combat load on external nodes.
The fighter-bomber was actively used in the skies of Korea, about a hundred of them fell prey to the faster and more advanced MiG-15. For example, on September 9, 1952, eighteen MiGs of the 726th IAP intercepted a group of "Thunderjets", staging a real massacre, shooting down fourteen F-84s (all losses were recognized by the US Air Force).
On the other hand, in the early 50s, the F-84 was no longer positioned as an air superiority fighter. The task of "Thunderjets" was much more prosaic - attacking ground targets. According to statistics, Thunderjets flew 86,000 sorties in Korea, dropped 50,427 tons of bombs and 5560 tons of napalm, and fired 5560 unguided missiles. On account of these aircraft 10,673 strikes on railways and 1,366 on highways, 200,807 buildings were destroyed, 2,317 cars, 167 tanks, 4,846 guns, 259 steam locomotives, 3,996 railroad cars and 588 bridges were destroyed. The tenacity with which the Americans destroyed objects can be noted: they seemed to want to raze everything over which their planes flew.
Taking into account the certain success of the F-84 in combat conditions, Alexander Kartveli carried out a deep modernization of the Thunderjet, having received the F-84F Thunderstreak at the exit (first flight - February 1951) - despite the similar name, it was already a completely different aircraft with a swept wing and transonic flight speed.
"Thunderstreak" did not acquire much fame, it was quietly and peacefully exploited in different countries until the early 70s, chronically suffering from increased corrosion. The only trophies of the "Thunderstriks" were a pair of Il-28s of the Iraqi Air Force, which violated the Turkish air border in 1962.
A special modification of the F-84F, the tactical reconnaissance aircraft RF-84F Thunderflash, served a little longer. They say they were seen at military airfields in Greece even in the early 90s.
Thug
The final chord in Alexander Kartveli's career was the F-105 Thunderchif (Thunderbolt) fighter bomber, which received the shorter and more savory name Tad (Thug) in the army. The machine is curious in every sense - it is perhaps the heaviest single-engine aircraft in the history of aviation. Normal takeoff weight - 22 tons! Serious technique.
Kartveli was faithful to his traditions to the end - a large, extremely equipment-rich aircraft with powerful weapons and high flight characteristics. Armament - six-barreled "Volcano" (1020 rounds) and up to 8 tons of combat load in the internal bomb bay and on the external hardpoints.
Already in the mid-50s, a Georgian-American designer seriously thought about the idea of breaking through air defense at an extremely low altitude: in theory, this should reduce the likelihood of detecting an enemy radar aircraft, and the high speed of the Thunderchif would not allow anti-aircraft gunners to conduct aimed fire. In some ways, Kartveli was undoubtedly right, but neither the pulse radar, nor the double speed of sound, nor the Doppler navigation system, nor the all-weather blind bombing system saved the F-105 in Vietnam - 397 Thunderchiefs were mercilessly shot down. Well, that was the price to pay for the most dangerous operations.
The F-105s struck at the most important targets with the most powerful air defense, hunted for radars and air defense missile systems, and in the event of a meeting with MiGs they had little chance of surviving - they had neither a supply of fuel for air combat, nor high-quality weapons "air -air "(maximum - six-barreled cannon and Sidewinder missiles).
On the other hand, the single-engine aircraft showed good survivability (number of losses / number of sorties), and in terms of bomb load it was only surpassed by the B-52.
