The long-range aviation of Russia and its history

A little over a hundred years ago, Nicholas II authorized the creation of a squadron of Ilya Muromets aircraft. It was then that the long-range aviation in our country was born. You will read about the main milestones of its history in this material.

But first you should pay tribute to those people who stood at the head of this industry. Who were the commanders of long-range aviation? Let's list them:

• P. V. Androsov.
• AE Golovanov.
• PS Deinekin.
• A. D. Zhikharev.
• I. M. Kalugin.
• AA Novikov, who later became a marshal.
• M. M. Oparin.
• V.V Reshetnikov.

These commanders have done much to enhance the defense capability of our entire country.

"Ilya Muromets": how it all began

At the end of 1914, the Supreme Command created a squadron of "Muromtsev", at the head of which was set Mikhail Shidlovskiy. For the first time in the world there was such a large combination of four-engine bombers, and also long-range aviation was born as such. Actually, the "great-grandfather" himself first rose on the wing on December 23, 1913.

"Muromets", which is better known as the S-22, created the legendary Sikorsky at the Russo-Balt plant. For its time it was an incredible machine, the motors of which could quite lift into the air as much as five tons of mass. The plane had two guns at once, which for those times was also just advanced technology.

Participation in the First World War

Strangely enough, the squadron of these aircraft was equipped perfectly, which for the Russian army of those years was a pleasant exception. For four years, from 1914 to 1918, the aircraft carried out more than four hundred sorties. The loss was only one aircraft.

By 1917, Sikorsky had created a fundamentally new modification, "type G". In total it was planned to build up to 120 aircraft, but then a revolution broke out. Some of the machines were burned, so that they did not fall into German hands, while others were used for some time as training vehicles.

The Age of Tupolev

But that was only the beginning. At a qualitatively new level, long-range aviation of the USSR came out when the TB-3 aircraft was created. The design was managed by the design office of Andrey Tupolev. The development of the machine was started in 1926. Within five years, not only large-scale production was started, but also the formation of a corps of heavy bombers, which for those years was unthinkable in any country in the world.

In the same year, 1934, a TB-4 aircraft was created, which in the history remained under the name "Maxim Gorky." It was a wide-profile machine that could be used for almost all purposes.

The first flight was made in 1934, at the helm was Mikhail Gromov. This car set two world records: raised cargoes of ten and fifteen tons to a height of five kilometers. It was on "Gorky" that the legendary writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery flew his flight. But the age of the aircraft was short, since in its design all the new miscalculations and shortcomings were revealed. But the history of long-range aviation continued.

New range records

Already in 1932 the same Tupolev bureau developed a fundamentally new aircraft with an all-metal fuselage, the ANT-25. The car turned out to be excellent, it was on it that the best pilots of those years installed several world records at once. So, Chkalov flew on it from Moscow to the Far East, covering a distance of 9375 kilometers. June 18, 1937, the same Chkalov commanded the crew, who flew to the United States.

Just a month later - a new record. Although this time Soviet pilots flew back to America, but the ultimate goal was California, not Washington. During this flight, two (!) World records were beaten at once. First, the team crossed 10,148 kilometers in a straight line, and also managed to fly 11,500 kilometers, walking along the broken coastline.

Legendary Ilyushin

In 1933, the leadership of the young country decided to collect all promising aircraft designers in one place, as a new long-range aviation was urgently needed, equipped with the best, most promising machines. This is how the famous Central Design Bureau was born, headed by Sergei Ilyushin. Just two years later, he and a team of like-minded people are creating a new long-range bomber DB-3. The test pilot Vladimir Kokkinaki conducted long-distance flights there. Already in 1936, aircraft began to massively enter the arsenal of the Soviet Army.

An improved model of the same machine, which appeared two years later, was called IL-4. He received powerful engines and new weapons. Before the war, in mid-1940, DB-3 was removed from the assembly line, and its place was occupied by Il-4. In total, the country produced 1,528 cars of the DB-3 family, which participated both in the Finnish and in the Great Patriotic War.

The first Soviet attack aircraft was also created by Ilyushin. His IL-2 brought fame to this designer. Today the legendary Il-76 is the main military transport plane of our country, worthily continuing the work of its ancestor.

The Great Patriotic War, the role of aviation

Already on June 22, 1941 long-range aircraft began to carry out their first combat sorties. And on the second day of the war (!) They paid a "courtesy visit" to the Nazis, bombing over Danzig, Koenigsberg, and also some cities in Poland and Hungary.

The main machines were: Pe-8, DB-3, Il-4 and Pe-2. The backbone of long-range aviation was the Il-4 described above. For all the years of the war, they made thousands of sorties, having accomplished an incredible number of tasks. It must be said that long-range aviation in that period "gave birth" to many heroes of the USSR. Only 269 rank and file officers received this high rank, and six were awarded it twice.

But the price was high: after the Second World War the aviators remained practically "on beans", having lost most of the aviation fleet. And the point here was not only in quantitative indicators: out of 1800 aircraft more or less modern, only a dozen or three cars were available for solving important tasks. That is why it was decided to copy the American B-29, making a new airplane based on it.

Already in 1947, the production of heavy Tu-4s was set up. In the shortest time, huge work was done to adapt the aircraft to domestic conditions and armament, the designers managed to significantly improve the reliability of the machines. In 1951, these aircraft were the first domestic carriers of nuclear weapons.

Postwar work

In the mid-1950s, new long-range aircraft appeared, which predetermined the development of the industry for decades to come. It was at this time that the epic Tu-95, the "Bear" was developed and put into operation, which still stands on the defensive lines of our country, as well as some other machines.

So, Tu-16, which received the nickname "Badger", was the first monoplane with a swept wing. The first car was assembled in 1953. Her crew was six or more people. The main weapon for self-defense was the automatic nap gun PU-88 and three turret gun turrets, controlled remotely. Subsequently, the aircraft received seven AM-23 guns, the caliber of which was 23 millimeters.

"Badgers" and their long-range aviation pilots took an active part in the 1967 Six-Day War, practically all the other Arab-Israeli conflicts of that time, and also took part in the Afghan campaign.

Tu-95, Russian "The Bear"

This monumental plane was tested in 1952. This is an all-metal mid-plane with four turboprop engines, which were mounted directly in swept wings. Its "highlight" is just the engines of NK-12, which still continue to be the best turboprop engines in its class.

The aircraft can carry twelve tons of bomb load. In addition, in the bomb compartment, you can mount air bombs weighing up to ten tons. In 2010, they set a new record: in 43 hours bombers flew 30 thousand kilometers. The peculiarity of this action is also in the fact that for its carrying out the usual serial cars were used. So Russian long-range aviation, even in turboprop design, still represents a formidable force.

Bomber 3M

This machine was produced in 1956-1960. A special feature of the aircraft was the latest weapon system, the backbone of which was a special D-5 missile, which could surely hit both sea and land targets. The range of its flight was as much as 280 kilometers, and the speed was three times higher than the speed of sound. It should be noted that it was these missile carriers that for a long time formed the basis of strategic aviation in the Far East.

Today, the long-range aviation of the Russian Federation is represented by several vehicles, including the TU-95 and the TU-160, but the "old men" ZM were removed from the armament relatively recently. Precise information about whether there are currently aircraft of this family that can go up in the air, no.

The Cold War and long-range aviation

After Germany was defeated, spheres of influence around the world were redrawn. Formed by NATO and the Union of Warsaw Pact countries, which did not have a special love for each other. Today, historians and the military themselves believe that only by a miracle the Third World War did not begin at that time.

Not surprisingly, in those years it was strategic aviation that was one of the guarantors of peace in the whole world, supporting the fortress of the country's nuclear shield. Until 1961, aircraft were the most important means of delivering atomic bombs to a likely enemy. Incidentally, it was the commanders of long-range aviation that led the first Soviet missile division.

Change in the development vector

In the postwar years it was finally clear that it was time to move from old turboprop aircraft to jet cars. In principle, the first jet IL-28 appeared at the end of the distant 1940. Of course, this aircraft was in a sense a breakthrough, but the design required a lot more work.

So, in early 1970 (based on a relatively old TU-22), a new K-22 rocket carrier was created. In addition, there were other modifications to this aircraft. We are talking about the Tu-22M2 and Tu-22M3. They were characterized by the fact that during their design and production, new technologies and materials were massively used, which until then had been used exclusively in cosmonautics.

Finally, it's time for the most beautiful "White Swan", Tu-160. He became one of the symbols of the entire Cold War. It was the world's first aircraft of this size with variable geometry of the wing, in the design of which thousands of advanced technical solutions were used, many of which have no analogues to this day. The impetus to realize the need to develop something similar was the intelligence data, which reported the beginning of the creation of the B-1.

The first "White Swan" climbed from the airfield "Ramenskoye". It happened in late December 1981. In 1984, a large-scale production of a unique machine was started at the Kazan Aviation Plant.

In mid-2003, these aircraft flew over the Indian Ocean, crossing the airspace of many states. Until then, the long-range aviation of Russia (photo of which is in the article) did not fly such a length in principle. Last September, two TU-160s flew to Venezuela, having consolidated allied relations between the two states.

It can be said with confidence that the development of strategic aviation is a pledge of statehood and the security of our country in the coming years.