| Il-102 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Ilyushin Il-102 in display | |
| Role | Ground-attack aircraft |
| Manufacturer | Ilyushin |
| First flight | 25 September 1982 |
| Status | Prototype |
| Number built | 2 |
| Developed from | Ilyushin Il-40 |
The Ilyushin Il-102 was a Soviet experimental jet-powered ground-attack aircraft designed by Ilyushin. Once described as the "most gorgeously ugly combat jet ever," [1] this aircraft was never chosen for production, being surpassed by the Su-25. Only a few development prototypes were built.
In 1967, the Soviet Air Forces drew up a specification for a jet-powered shturmovik or armoured ground attack aircraft. While Sukhoi designed an all-new single seat aircraft, the Su-25, Ilyushin proposed a modified version of their Il-40 of 1953 under the designation Il-42, which, unlike the Sukhoi, was a two-seat aircraft with a remotely-controlled rear gun turret. The design was rejected by the Soviet Air Forces, but Ilyushin decided to continue in-house development regardless, renaming the programme Il-102. [2]
The Il-102 first prototype flew on 25 September 1982, with a second airframe built for static tests, and carried out 250 test flights until it was grounded in 1984 when the engine life expired. [3]
The Il-102 was a low-winged monoplane with moderately swept (30 degrees) wings, powered by two Klimov RD-33I turbofans (non-afterburning versions of the engines that power the Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter). It was highly unusual for its time in having a rear gun turret, something not seen in ground-attack aircraft since the World War II Il-2 Shturmovik and Il-10, the Il-102's spiritual ancestors, controlled remotely by a gunner sitting in a cockpit above the trailing edge of the wing. The crew cockpits, engines and fuel tanks were armoured to protect against ground fire.[ citation needed ]
Although development was abandoned in 1984, the prototype Il-102 was publicly unveiled at the 1992 Mosaeroshow air show at Zhukovsky, being claimed to be available for export. [4]
As of 2005, the prototype No. 10201 was placed on display at the Gromov Flight Research Institute.[ citation needed ]
Data from The Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft 1875–1995 [5]
General characteristics
Performance
Armament
Related development
Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era
The Ilyushin Il-4 (DB-3F) was a Soviet twin-engined long-range bomber and torpedo bomber, widely used by the Soviet Air Force and Soviet Naval Aviation during World War II.
The Ilyushin Il-2 is a ground-attack plane that was produced by the Soviet Union in large numbers during the Second World War. The word shturmovík, the generic Russian term for a ground-attack aircraft, became a synecdoche for the Il-2 in English sources, where it is commonly rendered Shturmovik, Stormovik and Sturmovik.
The Ilyushin Il-10 was a Soviet ground attack aircraft developed at the end of World War II by the Ilyushin construction bureau. It was also license-built in Czechoslovakia by Avia as the Avia B-33.
The Mikoyan-Gurevich I-250, aka MiG-13, was a Soviet fighter aircraft developed as part of a crash program in 1944 to develop a high-performance fighter to counter German turbojet-powered aircraft such as the Messerschmitt Me 262. The Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau decided to focus on a design that used something more mature than the jet engine, which was still at an experimental stage in the Soviet Union, and chose a mixed-power solution with the VRDK motorjet powered by the Klimov VK-107 V12 engine. While quite successful when it worked, with a maximum speed of 820 km/h (510 mph) being reached during trials, production problems with the VRDK fatally delayed the program and it was canceled in 1948 as obsolete.
The OKB-1 '140', was a jet bomber produced in the USSR from 1947.
The Ilyushin Il-28 is a jet bomber of the immediate postwar period that was originally manufactured for the Soviet Air Forces. It was the Soviet Union's first such aircraft to enter large-scale production. It was also licence-built in China as the Harbin H-5. Total production in the USSR was 6,316 aircraft, and over 319 H-5s were built. Only 187 examples of the HJ-5 training variant were manufactured. In the 1990s hundreds remained in service with various air forces over 50 years after the Il-28 first appeared. The only H-5s in service currently are approximately 80 aircraft which operate with the Korean People's Air Force. The Il-28 has the USAF/DoD reporting name "Type 27" and NATO reporting name "Beagle", while the Il-28U trainer variant has the USAF/DoD reporting name "Type 30" and NATO reporting name Mascot.
The Tupolev Tu-110 was a jet airliner designed and built in the USSR, which saw its maiden flight in 1957.
The Tupolev Tu-14, was a Soviet twinjet light bomber derived from the Tupolev '73', the failed competitor to the Ilyushin Il-28 'Beagle'. It was used as a torpedo bomber by the mine-torpedo regiments of Soviet Naval Aviation between 1952–1959 and exported to the People's Republic of China.
The Yermolayev Yer-2 was a long-range Soviet medium bomber used during World War II. It was developed from the Bartini Stal-7 prototype airliner before the war. It was used to bomb Berlin from airbases in Estonia after Operation Barbarossa began in 1941. Production was terminated in August 1941 to allow the factory to concentrate on building higher-priority Ilyushin Il-2 ground-attack aircraft, but was restarted at the end of 1943 with new, fuel-efficient, Charomskiy ACh-30B aircraft Diesel engines.
The Ilyushin Il-30 was a Soviet turbojet-powered tactical bomber designed as a higher-performance, swept wing version of the Ilyushin Il-28, in the late 1940s. Its thin wing and engine nacelles necessitated the use of tandem landing gear, the first Soviet aircraft to do so. It was apparently canceled before the prototype made its first flight, although sources disagree with this.
The Sukhoi Su-6 was a Soviet ground-attack aircraft developed during World War II. The mixed-power high-altitude interceptor Su-7 was based on the single-seat Su-6 prototype.
The Sukhoi Su-8 or DDBSh was a Soviet prototype ground-attack aircraft of World War II.
The Ilyushin Il-20 was a Soviet prototype for a heavily armored ground-attack aircraft to replace the Ilyushin Il-10. It featured a number of innovative concepts including a cockpit mounted on top of the engine, directly behind the propeller, and wing-mounted autocannon that could be adjusted on the ground to fire level or depressed 23° to allow the aircraft to strafe ground targets while remaining in level flight. However it was slower than the Il-10, and its M-47 engine was problematic in flight tests in 1948–49. It was not placed into production. The test pilots called the aircraft the Gorbach (Hunchback).
The Ilyushin Il-40 was a two-seat Soviet jet-engined armored ground-attack aircraft. The first prototype flew in 1953 and was very successful except when it fired its guns, as their combustion gasses disturbed the airflow into the engines and caused them to flameout or hiccup. Remedying this problem took over a year and involved the radical change of moving the engine air intakes all the way to the very front of the aircraft and repositioning the guns from the tip of the nose to the bottom of the fuselage, just behind the nosewheel. The aircraft, now resembling a double-barreled shotgun from the front, was ordered into production in 1955. Only five production aircraft had been completed before the entire program was canceled in early 1956 when the VVS discarded its close air-support doctrine in favor of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield.
The Ilyushin Il-1 was a Soviet fighter aircraft developed during World War II by the Ilyushin design bureau. It was designed in 1943 as an armored fighter for use at low and medium altitudes against the latest German fighters, but by the time it made its first flight in 1944, the Soviets had already achieved air superiority and it was therefore redundant. Only one example was built, but the parallel two-seat attack version led to the successful Ilyushin Il-10.
The Chyetverikov MDR-6 was a 1930s Soviet Union reconnaissance flying-boat aircraft, and the only successful aircraft designed by the design bureau led by Igor Chyetverikov.
The Ilyushin Il-16 was a Soviet lightweight armored ground-attack aircraft developed at the end of World War II by the Ilyushin Design Bureau. It was in essence a scaled-down version of the Ilyushin Il-10, but was fitted with a newly developed Mikulin AM-43 engine with the expectation that it would be faster and more maneuverable than its predecessor. However, the engine's defects proved to be impossible to rectify and further development was canceled in mid-1946.
The Mikoyan-Gurevich I-75 was the final design of a series of three experimental swept-wing interceptors developed in the Soviet Union in the mid-late 1950s by the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau from their Mikoyan-Gurevich I-3 airframe. All the aircraft in the I-3 program were affected by delays in the development of the Klimov VK-3 turbojet engine, its cancellation and ultimate replacement by the Lyulka AL-7F turbojet engine.
The Mikoyan-Gurevich I-320 was a prototype Soviet long-range all-weather interceptor aircraft of the late 1940s-early 1950s. Only two were made, with no production following.
The Ilyushin DB-4 or TsKB-56 was a Soviet twin-engined bomber aircraft of the early 1940s. It was a development of the Ilyushin DB-3 and was intended as a replacement for the earlier aircraft, but only two prototypes were built; engine problems and the need to concentrate production on existing types following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 meant that no more examples were built.
