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Alekseyev I-211

1947 COLD WAR X-PLANE

Alekseev I-211 History

Like other world powers after World War II, the Soviet Union worked hard to develop a viable solution for jet fighters. Semyon M. Alekseyev won the Spurs during the war as one of Lavochkin's most important men for the LaGG-3, 1942 La-5, 1944 La-7 and La-9 series.

Before that, the brand Lavochkin had made a name for itself in Soviet history, joining prominent figures such as Mikoyan-Gurevich and Ilyushin in supporting the air war against Germany.

After the war, Alexeyev founded the Alexeyev OKB in September 1946 and immediately began work on a new twin-turbojet, all-metal, single-seat interceptor. The design mimics some of the features of those desperate fighters designed by German engineers in the late World War II: the fuselage centralizes and houses avionics, fuel and weapons, while the cockpit is built forward with a convenient bubble canopy below providing excellent All-round vision. A circular nose cone was added to the front of the fuselage, and the fuselage tapers to the rear, where a traditional tail fin is installed. This unit features a single vertical surface and a centrally located horizontal plane.

The wing main plane itself is a straight appendage - spanning across the engine nacelle, extending from the leading and trailing edges, as in the British Gloucester Meteor series jet fighters. The landing gear is fully retractable and has a tricycle arrangement - each leg is twin-tired for sturdiness.

The engine of choice became a Lyulka TR-1 axial flow unit with a thrust of 3,010 lbs. The engine was the first indigenous Soviet jet engine and ended up being used in only a handful of applications outside of the Alexeyev aircraftboth the Sukhoi Su-10 and Su-11 designs carried it.

Development of this engine began in 1944 during the war with the production of the "S-18", which later became the operational designation "TR-1". The engine never lived up to his high expectations, but it was available to Soviet aeronautical engineers at the time.

The proposed armament of the interceptor is 3 x 37mm guns and 2 x 57mm guns - allowing the aircraft to deploy a large number of enemy bombers on the front. Due to problems with the entire life cycle of Alexeyev's aircraft, these weapons were never installed.

The first version of the series was the I-210, which was equipped with 2 x Tumansky RD-20 turbojets, Soviet wartime replicas of German BMW 003 turbojets, which were dynamic with limited performance The product. The model was not further developed until Lyulka finally approved its TR-1 family of engines for service, which led to the designation of the I-211 and its maiden flight in the fall of 1947.

However, it was soon discovered that the TR-1 turbojet engine was underperforming, which in turn made for a very heavy aircraft - especially as a fighting dog - although it was found that despite the limited power available, handling But very solid.

To compensate for the limitations of the TR-1, Lyulka switched to her TR-1A turbojet, which promised 3,318 pounds of thrust, but before that, Alexeyev had purchased a pair of British Rolls-Royce "Derwent V" turbojet, witness the naming of the I-215. The other variant of the series is the I-211S, which has swept wings and tail surfaces for improved aerodynamics. The I-215D was a derivative of the I-215 ordered by OKB-1 with a "bicycle" landing gear.

The I-216 is a heavy fighter offshoot based on the I-215, armed with 2 x 75mm automatic cannons mounted on slightly modified wings.

With the TR-1A engine eventually being phased out due to high fuel consumption, Alexeyev attempted to further develop the I-215 to his liking. However, Stalin forced the Alexeyev OKB to dissolve after comments made at the Kremlin meeting.

This ended all work on the I-211 and related I-215 products - as a result, none of the aircraft was officially flight tested on the way to potential mass production.

The dimensions of the original I-211 included an overall length of 38 feet and a wingspan of 40.2 feet. Loaded weight is 15,200 lbs. Performance is estimated at a top speed of 524 mph, a range of up to 962 miles, a service ceiling of 44,620 feet, and a climb rate of nearly 5,415 feet per minute.