Aircraft "Maxim Gorky" (ANT-20): specifications

It is known that the agitational Soviet passenger eight-aircraft "Maxim Gorky" - ANT-20 - is considered the largest airliner of its time, equipped with a land chassis. It was built in the city of Voronezh at an aviation plant.

Creature

Let's study how the "Maxim Gorky" airplane was developed. In 1932, in October, the 40th anniversary of the written practice of Maxim Gorky was celebrated. Journalists and writers, headed by M. Koltsov, were at this interesting event. It was on this day that they decided to build an agitmobile, calling it in honor of the legendary writer - Maxim Gorky. The construction of this facility was organized by the All-Union Committee, the whole country began to raise funds for construction. In a short time people managed to collect more than six million rubles.

Who is the inventor of the Maxim Gorky airplane? The committee in its composition organized the Technical Council, whose chairman was appointed head of the TsAPI Kharlamov. He was instructed to determine the face of the future iron bird and create technical conditions, based on its basic designations.

In the development of the Technical Council participated the institutes: CAPI, CIAM, the Research and Development Institute of the Air Force, the Printing Industry, the Cinema and Photo Institute, a number of designers and engineers: VM Petlyakov, NS Nekrasov, A. Saukke (lead engineer), A. A (Equipment), AA Arkhangelsky, VN Belyaev (calculation of strength), BM Kondorskii (cumulative species), EI Pogossky and others. The work was headed by AN Tupolev.

The airplane "Maxim Gorky" was created by a large number of organizations. The construction commission supervised the construction and transferred the order for various equipment (Chairman A. N. Goranov), organized at the committee. In 1933 on March 10 this commission concluded an agreement with CAPI for the construction of the ANT-20 airliner.

It is known that the designer A. N. Tupolev by 1933 safely launched the dive bomber TB-3 in a serial production. It was he who was engaged in the further design of impressive colossi - heavenly bastions. Further, the specialists developed a preliminary draft of the passenger model of the TB-4 bomber, named ANT-20.

The preliminary design of the novelty was considered in April 1933, it was envisaged the probability of its application in the form of a transport agitation bomber, on which passengers could also be placed. The "Maxim Gorky" airplane could carry out the tasks of the mobile headquarters for the country's higher political and military structures.

Device

ANT-20 from TB-4 (Ant-16) differed only in size and had to withstand a payload of 1500 kg more, it could be operated from small airfields. In order to rise into the air, he had to take the acceleration from a distance of 300-400 m (in TB-4 - about 800 m).

For this reason, the specialists designed a new wing, which had a greater elongation and area than the wing of TB-4. Almost all of its surface was corrugated.

The Maxim Gorky airplane was equipped with a power plant that had eight M-34FRN engines, each 900 l. from. (Total capacity of 7200 hp). Six aircraft engines were on the wings, two - above the fuselage in a tandem unit. The giant's screws were made of wood and had a diameter of 4 m. Initially it was planned to install six engines, but it turned out that their power is not enough.

The airplane "Maxim Gorky" inside was magnificent! The area of its internal premises was 100 square meters. M .: they could accommodate about seventy passengers. In the wings were two-level beds for rest. The airliner was equipped with a ladder, which, folding, turned into a part of the floor.

For the first time for a massive airplane, the experts used an electric remote control system. Navigation and aerobatic rigging of the ANT-20 ensured its use in the daytime and at night. He also could land on unprepared terrain.

By the way, ANT-20 specialists also equipped with an autopilot. A variety of agitation tools were placed on its board, including a cinema installation, a powerful radio installation "Voice from the Sky", a printing house, radio transmitters, a photo lab, a library, and so on. The novelty was equipped with pneumatic mail.

The "Maxim Gorky" (ANT-20) aircraft was equipped with a 120 V, 50 Hz alternating current power system . This innovation was applied in domestic practice for the first time (possibly in the world). Its on-board radio station consisted of two petrol engines (each had a nominal speed of 3000 rpm) and four generators (two alternators with AC power of 3 and 5.5 kW, two generators had a constant voltage of 27 V with a capacity of 3 kW and 5.8 KW).

If it was necessary, the plane could be dismantled and transported by the railway.

Flying

Agree, the best experts created the plane "Maxim Gorky". The device and its design are stunning! Its creation began in 1933, on July 4, and in 1934, on April 3, the product was already transported to the airfield. Then, on April 24, he received a special commission. For the first time on it a flight test pilot MM Gromov flew on July 17, the same year. The flight lasted 35 minutes.

The airliner left for the second flight in two days: he flew over Red Square at the time of the meeting of the Chelyuskinites. Two I-5 fighters escorted the plane.

In the same year of 1934, N. Zhurov and M. M. Gromov on this machine managed to make two unprecedented achievements: they raised luggage weighing ten and fifteen tons to a height of five thousand meters! It is known that even Antoine de Saint-Exupery himself, on a visit to the USSR, flew on it!

Tragedy

The airplane "Maxim Gorky" had excellent characteristics, but his life lasted just over a year. In 1935 on May 18 at the Moscow central airfield was an indicative flight, after which it was planned to transfer the ANT-20 agitation squadron them. Gorky. Aviator squadron IV Mikheev handed the car pilot N. Zhurov. It was allowed to fly on it and the members of the families of the creators of the ANT-20.

In general, the inventor of the aircraft "Maxim Gorky" was very proud of his brainchild. Accompanied by an iron bird, two aircraft were equipped: a two-seat P-5 (piloted by the pilot Rybushkin) and an I-5 fighter (controlled by a test car NP Blagin). Filming was carried out by the operator Shchekutiev from P-5.

Have you ever seen the "Maxim Gorky" airplane? Description, a photo of this amazing iron bird can be found in scientific books of those times! But we continue our story. It is known that N. P. Blagin had to fulfill a special task: according to the idea of documentary filmmakers, he needed during flying to fly near the ANT-20, so that the audience could see the difference in size.

Taking off, the giant described a wide circle above the airfield. But the flight unexpectedly acquired a horrendous appearance: Blagin performed virtuoso tricks on the fighter, while being a short distance from the ANT-20. Behind the tail of "Maxim Gorky" Blagin directed his car in a short peak, sharply tore the control stick (he intended to describe a "dead loop" around the giant). Having reached the top point, the fighter hovered and, losing speed, collapsed down to the ANT-20 flying under it.

It was a stunning plane - Maxim Gorky! Drawings of it were created by the best specialists. And now Blagin's plane jumped on his middle engine and knocked him out with one blow. He broke off and crashed down, and Blagin's apparatus was stuck in the broken torn hole of the wing. This terrible ram rammed the airliner.

Perhaps Mikheev and Zhurov could have planted it if the tail had not fallen off at the I-5, which struck a second, now fatal blow to Maxim Gorky: he crashed into his controls.

The majestic bird fell to the wing, turned over and began to disintegrate in the sky. A couple of seconds later, a terrible explosion rattled, and the ANT-20 crashed into the country hamlet of Sokol. This flight took the lives of 49 people, including Blagin, 11 members of the airliner crew and 37 passengers - employees of CAPI and their relatives, including six kids. The filming of this disaster disappeared (many think that it was classified along with the case materials).

Monument

The funeral of all the victims of the plane crash took place at the Novodevichy Cemetery. The last way was followed by the members of the government, among whom were N. Khrushchev, the first secretary of the MC and the CPSU (b), and N. A. Bulganin, the head of the Moscow City Council. The bodies of the dead were cremated, the urns with ashes were buried in the third section of the columbarium in the old part of the churchyard. Today the memorial is crowned with an impressive bas-relief of the crashed giant, made of granite.

Causes of tragedy

Everyone liked the Maxim Gorky airplane very much. The description of it gives some scope of thought and excites the imagination! The Soviet official press blamed Blagin for breaking the discipline and performing the aerobatics figure that caused the catastrophe.

Another, absolutely fantastic version says that Blagin deliberately rammed the ANT-20. The Polish newspaper "Sword" in 1935 on September 12 published a letter signed by Blagin, in whose content there were appeals defaming the communist regime. Later it appeared in the Parisian newspaper of Russian immigrants "Revival". Today they acknowledged that this letter was a forgery.

Buried Blagin next to the other victims of the disaster. His daughter and widow were helped: they were placed in a new apartment, their daughter was identified as a new school. Daughters, the widow and one of Blagin's parents were instantly assigned pensions for the loss of the bread-winner. His family was surrounded by the attention and concern of local party leaders. Obviously, the version of the bad intention was untenable.

Unexpected fate befell the plane "Maxim Gorky." His drawings are still kept in the archives. We continue to study the tragedy of that time. So, the above facts gave rise to talk about the third, most truthful version: many believed that Blagin was ordered to perform unacceptable stunts in the air. As a result, he fell into a "corkscrew" because of the small speed. Before this event, Stalin was introduced to foreign newsreels, which contained footage of aviation tricks popular in those years. As a result, the idea of such actions with the participation of the Maxim Gorky aircraft appeared.

NKVD officers conducted a investigation that determined that for an hour and a half before the flight with the pilots who participated in the flight with the giant airplane, the employees of the film factory of educational and military films VG Ryazhsky and AA Pullin met. They were very interested in the ANT-20 airplane. Photo ("Maxim Gorky" was really great) it made a huge impression on them, they wanted a sensation. The sanction of the senior leadership of the Air Force allowed them to insist on changing the flight scenario. As a result, the pilots, without agreement with the head of the flight and immediate commanders, were forced to agree. The documentary filmmakers pursued the goal of providing shooting of aerial tricks near Maxim Gorky for campaigning. Ryazhsky and Pullin were imprisoned after the tragedy.

ANT-20 bis

In fact, we examined the aircraft "Maxim Gorky". Who invented it, we now also know. After its collapse it was decided to create a second, improved copy. The tandem installation was eliminated, and instead of eight M-34FRNs, six M-34FRNVs with a capacity of 1000/1200 liters were installed. from. The creation of a new machine was completed in 1938, MM Gromov was again engaged in her trial.

In 1940-1941 this liner under the name PS-124 (L-760) transported passengers from Moscow to Mineralnye Vody via Kharkov and Rostov-on-Don. When the war began, it was used as a carrier of cargoes in the rear. He crashed in 1942 on December 14 at 60 km from Tashkent at the approach to landing, flying 272 hours.

In general, it was planned to create 18 more ANT-20 bis, however, neither ANT-20 nor ANT-20 were allowed to mass production. Of course, the specialists developed the projects of even bigger machines Ant-26 and Ant-28, but they were stopped in 1936.

Confused situation

So what happened on that ill-fated day in 1935? Let's talk about the unique plane crash that happened on May 18. First of all, it is necessary to single out a terrible symbolic commonality of dates: in 1896, on May 18 (art style) exactly 39 years ago, on the day of the wedding on the reign of Nicholas II, on the Khodynka field, about 1,300 people were mutilated in a terrible crush behind unpretentious tsars' Still as many died.

TASS officially reported the details of the tragedy: it seems that, indeed, about fifty innocent people, and six kids, including, killed the pilot-driver. And nevertheless, there are no reliable answers to the myriad questions connected with the crash of the liner to this day. Quite recently documents from the Lubyanka archives were declassified, and they further confused the circumstances of the case.

We already know that the designing and construction of the liner was entrusted to the design bureau of AN Tupolev in TsAGI: the object was to be built by May 1, 1934. The airplane "Maxim Gorky" inside was made with a special comfort: in the passenger compartments windows hung curtains, tables were equipped with table lamps, there were spacious armchairs, the floor was covered with carpets. The liner also had a number of sleeping cabins, a warehouse for provisions, a luggage compartment, a library, an electrified buffet with cold and hot snacks, toilets and wash basins.

And at last the giant machine climbed into the sky. And then the worst began. I-5 began to make figures around the ANT-20. When he performed the second "dead loop", he collided with the wing of Maxim Gorky. The blow was a monstrous force. Ant-20 banked first to the right, flew by inertia for another 10-15 seconds, then crossed into a sheer dive and overturned on his back. The plane fell on the pines, brought down the trees and in the end crumbled on the ground. This was written a day later by the newspaper Pravda (No. 137 of 1935 on May 20).

Of course, the number of victims was not limited to those flying on the plane. The wreckage flung through the territory of the artists' gallery "Sokol", crushing the house number 4 on the street. Levitan and damaged on the street. Surikov home number 7 and 11. Here the death toll is not specified.

Analysis of the catastrophe of its true causes has not been clarified. The answer to the main riddle - was there somebody's instruction to perform aerial tricks around the ANT-20, or is this usual "airy mischief" Blagin - never received. In Pravda on May 19-20, shots were filmed, but they did not dock with the text of the TASS report. The tragedy was tried to be quickly forgotten, and even the art film "Big Wings", which was almost ready for hire, was liquidated.

"Barrel" or "loop"?

It is necessary to emphasize that the ill-fated air trick in the text of the TASS message is called a "dead loop", and in his story the pilot Rybushkin called him "a barrel". Yagoda in his report form Blagin also called a "barrel", and later some aviation historians began to claim in their research that Blagin was performing a "barrel" - after all, Stalin could not have been wrong to report! As a result, in recent years, the analysis of the versions and causes of the incident, instead of constructive discussion, has often been replaced by a useless debate on the topic "barrel" or "loop"? According to some experts, one can adhere to the version that Blagin performed a "loop".

One can say only one thing: in the main task, NP Blagin was much more extreme than the well-known pilot VP Chkalov, who made a flight under the Nevsky Bridge.

It should be noted that Blagin performed the first loop jewelry, which indicates that the pilot on the eve of a lot of work on the scheme and the flight path. It is not known whether the pilot had a design profession ... We know that he actively invented various things and, without a doubt, was perfectly familiar with engineering calculations. About what happened at the moment of execution of the second loop, you can only guess. God knows if he fulfilled it consistently (considering the frames of different points of shooting, it's impossible to detect), or he left for a new call.

Assumptions

Based on the above information, many experts state the following assumptions:

1. The view of the P-5 camera at the moment of loop execution, its position and the minimum distance from the airliner (the wings into the frame did not completely fall) allows us to think that everything was coordinated in advance between the cameraman and the pilots. No doubt, there was somebody's indication of doing such a shooting.
2. It can not be asserted that "air hooliganism" was committed. Of course, the trick was dangerous (first it turned out, then it was not), but we only see that the rules of flight safety are violated. In general, such flights with passengers on board for filming are criminal.
3. The real source of the tragedy was the error of the pilot Blagin, and not even the methodical one (he correctly calculated the first loop), but only technical, which was expressed in a small (less than one second) delay at the moment of entering the second loop.
4. Flight skills NP Blagin speak of his universalism and high professionalism - he could compete with the very MM Gromov. In 1935 Blagin flew in only five months 26 hours 11 minutes.

It is known that during the investigation all those involved in fatal filming were blamed for Blagin. However, the urn with the ashes of Blagin is buried in the wall of the Novodevichy Cemetery, along with other victims of the disaster. On the grave collective board is written the official version of the death, which TASS reported.

Writer M. Gorky, by the way, was very upset because of the death of the "namesake". But, by and large, the projects of serial production of transport and passenger jets-giants did not affect the tragedy.