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Floating Base of Fighter Aviation (PBIA)

A joint NII-45 / TsKB-17 study was the 1959-60 design for 30 aircraft. In the years 1959-1960, simultaneously with the design of the air defense ship on behalf of the State Committee for Shipbuilding (until 1958 Minsudprom), TsKB-17 carried out (under the head of the project department of the bureau) a design study of the "Floating Base of Fighter Aviation (PBIA - floating dock for fighter aviation). Then the use of the term AB was then strictly forbidden. This work was carried out in order to find the best ways to solve the problem of increasing the combat stability of ship formations in remote areas (outside the zones of combat use of coastal coastal fighter aircraft) that has become aggravated with the release of the Soviet fleet to the ocean.

According to the official position of SG Gorshkov, the Main Directorate of Shipbuilding (GUK) of the Navy presented a "far-sighted" conclusion, in which it was noted that "shipborne fighter aircraft (IA) is not a promising means of air defense for naval shipboard formations. Therefore, the expenditure of large material resources for the creation of spacecraft carrying IA can not be justified."

With the blessing of Khrushchev, the continued build-up (along with the submarine missile carriers) of the US Navy's carrier forces, Air defense of which was reliably provided by the IA, in the USSR only a broad and noisy propaganda campaign was opposed. The aircraft carriers (including in speeches, and publications of SG Gorshkov) were branded as weapons of aggression, only their high cost and imaginary vulnerability from missile weapons, including ballistic (?!) missiles, were inflated unjustifiably and unreasonably.

The information about accidents on AV appearing in foreign mass media was biased as a confirmation of their low survivability. The desired provision of effective strikes of submarines and missile-carrying aircraft on AB from the composition of the compound was given for reality. At the same time, the opponents of the creation of domestic AB advanced the argument that the country's economic opportunities, the state of development of science and technology in shipbuilding and aircraft construction can not ensure the creation of such complex ships and, especially, aircraft for them.

However, such an argument, supported by the political leadership of the country at that time, was contrived and was not confirmed by reality. The country's economy, its financial and other resources, as well as the achievements of Russian science and technology, then provided solutions to no less complicated tasks that were recognized as priority ones: space exploration based on missile technology, development of nuclear power engineering and the same ground-based aircraft technology.