The Bartini Stal-7 was a twin-engined transport
aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...
designed and produced in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
from 1934.
Development
Aeroflot
PJSC AeroflotRussian Airlines (russian: ПАО "Аэрофло́т — Росси́йские авиали́нии", ), commonly known as Aeroflot ( or ; russian: Аэрофлот, , ), is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Russia. The ...
issued a requirement for two transport aircraft types. Bartini began design work in October 1934 on an aircraft to meet the larger 10/12 passenger specification. Initially Bartini intended the Stal-7 to use a steel tube truss airframe, with fabric covering, but problems with complexity and the flexibility of the truss structure led Bartini to re-design the aircraft with a light-alloy monocoque structure.
The hydraulically retractable main undercarriage legs retracted rearwards into the engine nacelles, which were positioned at the junction of the
inverted gull wing
The gull wing is an aircraft wing configuration, known also as ''Pulaski wings'', with a prominent bend in the wing inner section towards the wing root. Its name is derived from the seabirds which it resembles. Numerous aircraft have incorporat ...
s. The trailing edges had hydraulically operated flaps inboard and ailerons outboard. Both the wings and tail surfaces were sharply tapered and the inboard wing sections sloped sharply upwards to pass through the fuselage cabin.
Flight testing began in the Spring of 1937 piloted by
N. P. Shebanov, revealing high efficiency in speed, range and load. The Stal-7 crashed on take-off during full load testing, prompting the arrest of Bartini who was sent to a
gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
in
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
.
Repair of the Stal-7 was carried out under
Vladimir Yermolaev
Vladimir Grigoryevich Yermolaev (; 29 August 1909 31 December 1944) was a Soviet Union, Soviet aircraft designer, general-major of the aviation engineering service. He graduated from the Moscow State University in 1931.
Yermolaev was a leading e ...
's direction in 1939 and the aircraft continued to demonstrate excellent cruise performance during a ,
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
–
Sverdlovsk –
Sevastopol
Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...
– Moscow, non-stop flight averaging .
The impressive performance of the Stal-7 prompted the appointment of Yermolaev as the head of
OKB-240, to develop the Stal-7 into an effective long-range
bomber
A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped ...
, resulting in the DB-240 (''Dal'niy Bombardirovschik'' – long-range bomber),
Yer-2 and
Yer-4 aircraft.
Specifications (Stal-7)
See also
References
* Gunston, Bill. ''The Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft 1875–1995''. London, Osprey. 1995.
External links
* https://web.archive.org/web/20070703081400/http://www.aviation.ru/Bartini/
{{Bartini aircraft
Inverted gull-wing aircraft
1930s Soviet airliners
Stal-007