The Grigorovich ROM-2 (bureau designation MR-3; military designation MDR-1) was a long-range reconnaissance
flying boat
A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fusela ...
designed by the Grigorovich Design Bureau for the
Soviet Navy in the late 1920s.
Design
The ROM-2 (ROM = ''Razviedchik Otkrytovo Morya''
pen Sea Reconnaissance was a long range maritime reconnaissance
sesquiplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a ...
flying boat with the engines arranged in tractor form in two separate nacelles. The wing and the hull were radically redesigned, most of the plywood wing skin was replaced by fabric. As a result, payload (including fuel) almost doubled, and other parameters were improved
Test flights began in the summer of 1929, and the ROM-2 had much better performance than the ROM-1, but those performance results were unsatisfactory for the 1930s. Testing ended after a rough landing on one flight. Modifications were undertaken to the airframe, with the hull shortened by 0.2m, the engines raised above the wing on short N-struts, and the aircraft was redesignated ROM-2bis, but the aircraft never flew in this configuration.
[Шавров, В. Б. История конструкций самолётов в СССР до 1938. - М .: Машиностроение, 1988. - . pp.397-398]
Specifications
References
Sources
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{{Soviet scout designations
Biplanes
Flying boats
1920s Soviet military reconnaissance aircraft
ROM-2
Aircraft first flown in 1929