The Grigorovich MK-1 (MK - ''Morskoi Kreiser'' - sea cruiser) was a large

trimotor A trimotor is an aircraft powered by three engines and represents a compromise between complexity and safety and was often a result of the limited power of the engines available to the designer. Many trimotors were designed and built in the 1920s ...

floatplane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...

, built and tested in

Imperial Russia The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...

in 1916.

Design and development

Grigorovich responded to a requirement for a reconnaissance-bomber, for use in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

and

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...

, issued by the

Imperial Russian Navy The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from a ...

central headquarters. The resulting large seaplane following the layout of the

Sikorsky Ilya Muromets The Sikorsky ''Ilya Muromets'' (russian: Сикорский Илья Муромец) (Sikorsky S-22, S-23, S-24, S-25, S-26 and S-27) were a class of Russian pre-World War I large four-engine commercial airliners and military heavy bombers used ...

, with a large glazed cabin sitting atop a long slender fuselage. The fuselage and large wings were mounted on a large central float, which also housed a large gunners cockpit housing two gunners. The wings, mounted with flexible bungee joints allowing up to of movement, also carried wing-tip floats for stability on the water. Two

Renault 12E Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of ...

V-12 water-cooled engines were mounted in strut-supported nacelles between the upper and lower mainplanes. A third engine was added to the centre section of the upper mainplane, to address perceived centre-of-gravity problems and increase the power available; initially this was to have been a

Sunbeam Crusader The Sunbeam Crusader, originally known as the Sunbeam 150 hp, Sunbeam 110 hp or Sunbeam 100 hp (variations on the engine may also have been referred to as Sunbeam 120 hp or Sunbeam 135 hp), was an early British, side-va ...

, later replaced by a

Hispano-Suiza 8A The Hispano-Suiza 8 was a water-cooled V8 SOHC aero engine introduced by Hispano-Suiza in 1914, and was the most commonly used liquid-cooled engine in the aircraft of the Entente Powers during the First World War. The original Hispano-Suiza 8A ...

before flight trials commenced. The sole MK-1 was readied for flight trials in mid-November 1916 but nosed over and sank during taxy trials before the first flight.

Specifications (MK-1)

References

Bibliography

External links

Russian Aviation Museum clone

{{Grigorovich aircraft MK-1 Flying boats Biplanes