Alekseyev I-211 | Another TR-1 Problem Child

PenguinRed · September 30, 2024, 11:39am

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The Alekseyev I-211 was one of many early and unsuccessful soviet jet aircraft. Equipped with the same engines that can be found on the Su-11, It was able to reach similar speeds, but due to the overall failure of the Lyulka TR-1, the I-211 didn’t go beyond a few built prototypes and some rather extreme proposals as it was eventually superseded by the MiG-15. As of today there are no surviving airframes as they have most likely been scrapped.

History

Spoiler

Semyon Alekseyev was Lavochkin’s first deputy of his design bureau in 1943 until 1945.
In 1944 he had drawn up the concept for the La-WRD that was supposed to have a Twinboom configuration just like the Vampire, but in the end this concept was abandoned.
In 1946, Semyon became Chief Designer of the OKB-21, also known as the Lavochkin-Factory, at Gor’kiy and it didn’t take long until he had his first project.

The result was the I-21, a twin-engined, all-metal single-seat Jet Fighter with Laminar Flow wings which ended up having a remarkable resemblance to the Me 262. This aircraft was planned to be equipped with the Lyulka TR-2 engines, but due to concerns over the availability of those, the I-210 came into the picture as a fallback option.

The I-210 was to be equipped with either 2 RD-20s or 2 RD-10s. This decision to have a fallback option proved to be both good and bad as the TR-2 turbines did become unavailable quite fast, but both the RD-20 and 10 didn’t deliver enough thrust, so another engine had to be found as the Council of the People’s Commissars demanded that new aircraft be fitted with more powerful engines than what was captured by the germans. After some consideration it was agreed that the TR-1 Jet engines should be used instead. These engines were also used on the Su-11 and IL-22, amongst others. This re-engined aircraft is the I-211.

The engines were placed in the middle of the wings, just like on the Su-11, and right below those were nacelles with hardpoints that could carry either 250kg bombs or drop tanks. The body was based on mixtures of Aluminium and Magnesium alloys.
Alekseyev had drawn up additional versions armed with 3 x 37mm Nudelman N-37 autocannons à 30 rounds each, but later decided on 2 x NS-23 autocannons with 75 rounds each.

The Ministry of Aircraft Productions pressured the design team into a complete initial flight test by the 1st of August 1947, but that date was missed by a couple of weeks which in turn didn’t make good impressions in the Ministry.
After thorough testing by Pilot A. Popov on the 13th of October 1947, it only achieved 1’300kg of thrust instead of the projected 1’500kg and If that wasn’t bad enough, a pothole along the landing strip caused the undercarriage to collapse, damaging the aircraft. Although this meant further testing would be delayed, if even carried out at all, the I-211 was, in its short test flight, able to reach a higher maximum speed than the Su-11 and was therefore carried on with. The I-211 underwent repairs and was fitted with new British Derwent V Engines with a thrust of 1.590kg to finally reach the originally specified performance. This modified aircraft became the I-215.

Due to the enlarged size of the new engines, the nacelles had to be modified and alongside that it was now fitted with a ranging-radar in the nose, improved armor for the pilot and mounted the 3x N-37 guns. Several alternative armament options were planned for a proposed heavy fighter version, but probably to the sanity of some of the people involved, neither 2x 57mm nor 2x 75mm were ever fitted to the aircraft. Despite good results from further test flights, the I-215 was already surpassed by newer swept-wing designs and therefore abandoned.

Before the project was abandoned for good though, OKB-1 ordered a second I-215 to test out some landing gear configurations. These tests proved successful, but both the OKB-1 150 and the airliner version of that plane which used the new landing gear, the Baade 152, failed to work in a satisfactory manner and were also abandoned after some testing.

Specifications

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