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Mikoyan-Gurevich I-270

1946 COLD WAR X-PLANE

History

In 1944, to the surprise of Allied bomber crews, the Luftwaffe introduced its rocket-powered interceptor, the Messerschmitt Me 163 "Komet". Although the plane is an extremely fast sample due to its raw rocket power, it suffers from a small window from which it can do the most damage - perhaps a few passes through a bomber formation, cannons burning, only That's all.

With the dangerous "T-Stoff"/"C-Stoff" combination and lack of conventional landing gear, the plane taxied - unpowered - back to the ground and landed with a belly skid.

According to this, the Reich Aviation Ministry considered an improved form of the same interceptor and commissioned the Junkers Group to develop it (as "Ju 248"). Over time, the product was officially designated "Me 263", but by the time the Allies took over the development facility, the product was only available as three largely incomplete prototypes. Me263 was extensively studied and provided useful information to Americans and Soviets shortly after the war.

The Me 263 inherited the bubble roof and swept wings of its predecessor (though the wooden wings introduced more fuel bags), but the fuselage was lengthened and the tricycle landing gear was fully retractable.

From these data, combining work on the Korolev RP-318 rocket plane completed by the Soviet Union in the mid-1930s and the Berezniak-Isaev BI-1 rocket plane in 1942, a A new local design, also known as Rocket - Power Point Defense - Interceptor - Mikoyan-Gurevich "I-270".

The I-270 inherited some of the design qualities of the earlier Me 263, but it was all an aircraft design before the end. The fuselage is rounded and contains a single-seat cockpit forward, behind a short nose cone, as well as fuel storage, rocket motors and an avionics suite.

The wing main plane is mounted in the middle of the sides of the fuselage, but the overall shape is straight (the tip is truncated). A single vertical stabilizer was in action (like the Me 163/263), the main change being a high-mounted horizontal stabilizer on the stabilizer to create a "T-shaped" stabilizer.

Tricycle landing gear (fully retractable) is also installed.

Power comes from a single Dushkin-Glushko RD-2 M3-V-series rocket engine, delivering 3,190 pounds of thrust. Top speed is 580 mph and service is capped at 55,760 feet. The climb rate is 16,240 feet per minute.

The proposed weapon is a 2 x 23mm Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 automatic cannon.

Only two I-270 rocket planes were built for the Mikoyan-Gurevich flight program. The airframe was tested in glider form in late 1946, but it wasn't until early 1947 that a fully equipped powered version took to the skies for the first time. However, the prototype was severely damaged upon landing beyond repair.

Another prototype suffered a similar fate, with a hard landing rendering the product completely unusable for further testing. As a result, little more effort was devoted to the project, at which point Soviet authorities turned to perfecting turbojet and missile technology, making the I-270 a brief footnote in Soviet aviation history.