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TR-1 Komsomolets

By the mid-1950s The Soviet Union was at the forefront of technological progress; positions in rocket science and aviation were especially strong. If in the first post-war year, the Soviet design school only copied Western aircraft and mastered the engines purchased under license, then five years later completely domestic world-class aircraft appeared. And by the end of the 1950s. The USSR is gaining a leading position (the first artificial Earth satellite, the first jet airliner, etc.).

All this was accompanied by a rise in creative activity and enthusiasm of the population, especially Soviet youth. With the support of the Voluntary Society for the Assistance to the Army, Aviation and Navy (DOSAAF), model-making, aircraft building, etc. mugs and sections all over the world arose, some of which later developed into design teams. The presence of a large aviation industry with a pre-war history and one of the strongest aircraft manufacturing educational institutions created favorable opportunities for such activities in the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

The first group of future designers appeared at the Kazan Aircraft Engineering Institute (KAI) in 1955, a little later it grew into a student Experimental Design Bureau (OKB KAI). Students chose gliding as the main topic. Their activities soon brought real results: one of their first all-metal gliders of the initial level KAI-12 went into mass production.

Around the same time, an initiative group of young people was formed at the Experimental Design Bureau of PO Box 477 (four were KAI students) and technicians from PO Box 747 (Plant No. 22), DOSAAF activists . The object of their activity, they immediately chose jet training and sports aircraft. And not by chance. The rapid development of jet military and civil aviation in the USSR, for a number of reasons, was not accompanied by the development of pilot-flight aircraft construction. The basic training aircraft aeroclubs was Yak-piston 18 in flight schools dominated modification combat MiG-15 (UTI-M and G-15). There was no jet aircraft for initial training; to participate in sporting events, Soviets had to buy cars abroad. A promising aircraft design bureau A.S. Yakovleva Yak-104 for lack of engine still remained in the project.

In September 1956, with the support of the Komsomol and DOSAAF committees of the plant, a group of young engineers: A. Bykov, B. Burov, G. Bikulev, A. Gadylshin, A. Nadirov, V. Mayorov, V. Ozhegov and plant technicians: L Akinina, I. Zherebtsova 5 decided to design, on their own initiative, a two-seat advanced training jet plane. The youth of the plant greeted this initiative with enthusiasm, but part of it did not go further than discussions. For example, of the 26 members of the Komsomol bureau on a regular basis people participated in the project five. Soon new members joined the team: spouses Yu. And G. Levenets, F. Rzheutsky, V. Skopin, V. Upshinsky, K. Gusev, R. Khusnutdinov. The work was conducted after hours for eight months.

In May 1957, the preliminary design of the TR-2 training aircraft was approved by the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI), as well as the Technical Council, which recommended it for construction by the youth in the workshops of the plant after hours. However, the main customer - the Office for the Experimental Construction of Aviation Equipment of the Air Force (UOSAT VVS) rejected the project due to the fact that the TR-2 had excessive speed for machines of this class 9 and suggested the installation of a jet engine with an axial compressor. At the same time, he expressed interest in continuing the work, considering the main task to maintain a new design team.

Already in December 1957, the UOSAT Air Force commissioned the development of a conceptual design of a single-seat sports and aerobatic aircraft to a youth group at the factory of post office 747. By that time, 50 people had already participated in the work. For three months, working four hours every evening, the group, by then already numbering 50 people, had completed a preliminary design of the TR-1 jet aircraft for acrobatic aerobatics and record long-range flights. In honor of the XIII Congress of the Komsomol, the aircraft was named "Komsomolets".

The aircraft was an all-metal free-flying low-wing with a straight wing and swept horizontal and vertical tail. The main flight technical characteristics of the project (for the aerobatic version): wingspan - 7.8 m; aircraft length - 10 m; height - 3.58 m; wing area - 15 m²; Estimated maximum speed - 940 km / h; minimum speed - 148 km / h; landing speed - 114 km / h; take-off weight - 2,500 kg; fuel weight - 600 kg.

The fuselage in front had a landing light and a landing gear niche. On the sides were massive air intakes of a turbojet engine mounted behind the cockpit in the fuselage. Brake shields were built into the rear of the fuselage. The cockpit, sealed with oxygen, was equipped with an ejection seat. The single glazing lantern consisted of a flat visor with a cleaner and a movable part. The wing is a two-spar wing, in the flight version of the aircraft it was equipped with an automatic slat along the entire length, aileron with axial compensation and take-off and landing flaps. The record version had an elongated wing without slats. The control of the aircraft is hard, the release and cleaning of the three-post landing gear, takeoff and landing and brake flaps were carried out hydraulically. Fuel was poured into three fuselage and two wing tanks.

The project was approved by TsAGI and the Central Committee of DOSAAF, and the Air Force UOSAT agreed to conclude a contract for the construction of prototypes. In March 1958, the work of the group was approved at a closed meeting on the current situation in sports aviation, convened on the initiative of the Komsomol Central Committee. The meeting was attended by representatives of the Central Committee of DOSAAF, UOSAT Air Force, Committee on Aviation Engineering, State Planning Commission, Ministry of Finance, General Designer of OKB-115 A. S. Yakovlev. Here, the work of DOSAAF and other institutions and organizations responsible for the development of sports aviation was criticized.

Due to the lack of an engine, the future of A. S. Yakovlev’s aircraft was very uncertain, a decision was made to support the initiative group’s project - the creation of a youth design bureau for the design of sports equipment on its basis. By the summer of 1958, the Komsomol team was formulating the main provisions “On the Youth Design Bureau at the plant of PO Box 747”, which stipulated the organization of its activities at the plant. However, the directorate of the plant and the leadership of the Council of People's Commissars of the TASSR did not agree with the proposals on exemption from the main work of the design team of 30 people, as well as on the conclusion of agreements with UOSAT and TsAGI for testing aircraft models. Plant director P.P. Smirnov, in turn, proposed maintaining the purely amateur status of the group, promising to provide them with materials and free several people from their main work at the factory.

Disagreeing with the directorate, the young designers decided to ask for help first in the Tatar regional committee of the Komsomol and the regional committee of the CPSU, a little later and personally in the name of the first secretary of the regional committee S. D. Ignatyev so that the order for the implementation of their project would be officially transferred to the plant PO Box 747 through a regulation of the Council of Ministers 21 .

But events went a different way. At the beginning of 1959, the design team was merged with the student design bureau into a single design bureau of sports aviation (Design Bureau SA). He was provided with logistical support.

However, in February 1961, the model of the aircraft was rejected by the Air Force Commission in favor of the Yakovlev-Yak-104 project , which in the summer of 1958 received an engine and more fully met the requirements of DOSAAF. But he was destined to remain only a museum exhibit. The Czechoslovak L-29 of the Aero company was adopted as a single trainer and sports aircraft.

Perhaps the personal hostility between A.S.Yakovlev and N.S.Khrushchev played a role here. Perhaps there were political factors. But in order to integrate the economic space of the countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance for many years, Czechoslovakia became the only supplier of such aircraft to the USSR. As for the Kazan Design Bureau, after the failure of 1961 with the development of sports aircraft, it proceeded to the design of gliders, and since 1968, also of air targets.