Just a couple of years after the appearance of the German project of a self-propelled carriage with an aircraft power plant Dringos authored by Otto Steinitz, a similar technique was created in our country. The original idea of building a railway carriage equipped with an aircraft engine and a propeller promised a lot of advantages, the main of which was high speed. Depending on the design and the power plant used, such a transport could accelerate to 120-150 km / h, which at that time was considered almost impossible. In 1921, a self-taught engineer Valerian Ivanovich Abakovsky presented his project for such a car.
Since 1919, Abakovsky served as a driver in the Extraordinary Commission of the city of Tambov. The future creator of the so-called. aerocar showed great interest in various equipment, including promising projects. This interest, coupled with a desire to benefit their country and people, has led to an interesting confirmation. It is not known whether Abakovsky knew about Steinitz's work or came to the original idea on his own, but, one way or another, in 1921 a proposal appeared to build a new vehicle for the railways.
The main advantage of the proposed air car (this term appeared precisely to denote the machine of V. I. Abakovsky) over all existing modes of transport, with the exception of aircraft, was the high speed of movement. Under certain conditions, this machine could reach speeds of more than 100 km / h, which made it possible to relatively quickly cover large distances inherent in the geography of the RSFSR. Thus, the air car could be used to ensure the transportation of various government documents on the lines connecting Moscow and remote cities. In addition, it could be a transport for high-ranking officials, saving them time and allowing them to quickly start their duties in the regions.
IN AND. Abakovsky sent his proposal to the leadership of the young Soviet state and received support. In the spring of 1921, the construction of a promising machine started. According to some sources, the air car was built in Tambov, according to others - in Moscow. By the summer of the same year, testing of a new model of equipment began. Test drives were carried out on existing railway tracks in the central regions of the country. By mid-July on the 21st, the air car covered more than 3 thousand kilometers and showed high speed characteristics.
The design of Abakovsky's air car was simplified and lightened as much as possible to achieve high speed. The car had a chassis with two wheelsets, brakes and other units borrowed from the railway equipment that existed at that time. A cabin of a characteristic angular shape was mounted on the frame of the air car. At its front, it had a wedge-shaped shape designed to provide acceptable streamlining, and the middle and rear sections of the cockpit were rectangular. In addition, to improve aerodynamics, the front of the roof has been sloped.
All units of the power plant of the air car were located in its front part. The car received an aircraft engine (model and power unknown), which was installed in the front of the cockpit. The engine was supposed to rotate a wooden pulling two-bladed propeller with a diameter of about 3 m. According to calculations, such a propeller-driven group could accelerate the air car to an unimaginable 140 km / h for that time.
The middle and rear part of the cab was given for the placement of seats for passengers. The dimensions of the passenger cabin made it possible to transport up to 20-25 people. At the same time, some questions are raised by the control of the machine. The existing photos show that there were windows only on the sides of the cabin, which is why it is not entirely clear how exactly the driver was supposed to follow the tracks and learn the current situation. It is quite possible that this particular feature of the air car in the future played a fatal role in its fate.
In the summer of 1921, the RSFSR hosted the III Congress of the Communist International and the I Congress of the Red International Trade Union, for which representatives of the Communist Parties of several countries arrived in Moscow. A trip of delegates to Tula was planned for July 24, where a meeting with local miners was to take place. For the delivery of Soviet and foreign communists to Tula, the newest high-speed air car designed by engineer V. I. Abakovsky.
On the morning of July 24, the air car under the control of the author of the project departed from Moscow to Tula. Abakovsky himself and 22 passengers were in the cockpit of the car. The delegates quickly got to Tula, carried out all the planned activities and headed back to Moscow in the evening of the same day. A tragedy struck not far from the town of Serpukhov. The air car, traveling at a speed of at least 80 km / h, was very sensitive to the quality of the railroad bed, and derailed on one of the uneven sections. The high speed of the car led to tragic consequences: six passengers were injured of varying severity, seven (including V. I. Abakovsky himself) were killed. The aerial car was not subject to restoration.
Engineer V. I. Abakovsky, Soviet politician F. A. Sergeev (also known as Comrade Artyom), German delegates O. Strupat and O. Gelbrich, American D. Friedman and Englishman V. D. Hewlett. All the victims were buried in the mass grave of the Necropolis near the Kremlin wall.
Investigation of the disaster showed that the reason for the derailment of the air car was the unsatisfactory condition of the railway tracks. One of the irregularities led to the fact that high-speed transport jumped on the rails and could not stay on them, after which it flew down a slope.
There are other versions of the incident. So, the son of F. A. Sergeeva, Artem Sergeev, repeatedly mentioned that at the crash site there were stones on the rails, because of which the car went off the rails. Thus, the death of the delegates and the designer of the air car could be the result of an assassination attempt. Who and for what reason could have set up the catastrophe is unknown. The official investigation concluded that the poor quality of the tracks was the main cause of the accident.
After the death of V. I. Abakovsky, the air car project was left without the main developer and ideological inspirer. For this reason, all work was stopped. In addition, the reason for the termination of the original project can be considered the conclusions drawn from the results of the investigation. Having a lot of advantages that made it possible to start full-fledged operation, the air car was highly dependent on the quality of the tracks. At that time, the state of the railways left much to be desired, which is why the hypothetical mass use of aerial cars could lead to a large number of fatal accidents.
As a result, all work in the direction that initially seemed more than promising was stopped. The next domestic project, which involved the use of an aircraft power plant in rail transport, was launched only in the late sixties. However, as in the case of Abakovsky's air car, the High-Speed Laboratory Car (SVL) project did not lead to any practical result.
