On December 22, the date of the start of flight tests of another famous Soviet aircraft, more precisely, of its predecessor, falls. On this day in 1939, the high-altitude twin-engine fighter VI-100 took off for the first time, aka "weaving", made according to the project of the Special Technical Department (abbreviated - STO, hence the digital index of the machine) of the NKVD, in which the prisoners "enemies of the people" worked under the leadership of the "saboteur and the saboteur "V. M. Petlyakova. To ensure altitude and raise the working ceiling up to 12 kilometers, the car was equipped with pressurized cabins and turbochargers.
The prototype of the VI-100 fighter. In strict accordance with the "Tupolev theory" - a beautiful car.
In the spring of 1940, the views of the Soviet leadership on a future war changed. The authorities decided that a long-range high-altitude interceptor would not be needed on it, but they would need a high-speed dive bomber in large quantities. Petlyakov was given the command to urgently remake the car, and they took only a month and a half to work. To simplify and reduce the cost of the design, the turbochargers and pressurized cabins were demanded to be abandoned, which is why the ceiling of the car fell from 12,200 to 8,700 meters, but for a dive bomber this was considered sufficient. However, there were still no reliable and trouble-free turbochargers in the USSR.
In June 1940, the aircraft under the new index PB-100, later replaced by the Pe-2, was put into service and put into mass production at the Moscow aircraft plant No. 22. It was produced throughout the war, first in Moscow, and then in Kazan, becoming the most massive Soviet bomber, despite a number of serious shortcomings that reduced its effectiveness. In my opinion, the bet on this machine turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of the Red Army command in the field of aviation development, and this mistake was never corrected.
Pe-2 in all respects, except for a small advantage in maximum speed, was inferior to the Arkhangelsk Ar-2 bomber. But it was this small advantage that became the decisive argument in favor of the Petlyakov machine, despite the shorter flight range, lower ceiling, lower bomb load and much higher piloting complexity compared to the Ar-2. Sometimes one gets the impression that the then Soviet "leaders" with regard to aviation (and not only aviation) had a certain "high-speed fetishism". It was believed that a faster car was in any case better than a slower one, no matter what the price was bought for this advantage.
The "hundred" and the Pe-2 had a higher speed than the Ar-2, the speed was ensured through the use of a special laminated wing profile, which had less aerodynamic drag, but at the same time had a worse aerodynamic quality at low speeds, which made the aircraft very dangerous at takeoff and landing. Especially if the pilot was not above the average level in the cockpit. "Pawns" often fought during the approach, and only the most experienced pilots were allowed to take off with a maximum bomb load of one ton. The rest took only 500-600 kg, which was a ridiculously low value for a twin-engine bomber. At the same time, the Ar-2 had a standard bomb load of one and a half tons.
The Pe-2 reached a speed of 540 km / h during tests, and the Ar-2 reached 512 km / h. Such a difference looks good in the performance characteristics tables, however, in practice it did not matter, since the maximum speed of the most massive German fighter at the time of the beginning of the war, the Bf 109F, reached 620 km / h, and the Bf 109G that appeared in 1942 - 640 km / h. Thus, both of them overtook both the "arch" and the "pawn" without any problems.
The Pe-2 looks even less advantageous against the background of the Tupolev front-line bomber Tu-2 that appeared a little later, to which the "pawn" was fundamentally losing in almost all parameters, which is why it was removed from production and from service immediately after the end of the war, and Tu- 2 continued to be produced and remained in service for another five years. However, during the war, more than 11 thousand pawns were stamped, and the Tu-2 - only 800. And this, in general, is not at all happy.
Pe-2 model 1941 on a ski chassis.
Pe-2 model 1942 (Pe-2FT) in winter and summer camouflage.
