The Gudkov Gu-82 (in Cyrillic characters Гудков Гу-82) was a single-engine low-wing fighter developed by Mihail Ivanovich Gudkov 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 ...

in the 1940s. A

radial engine The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ca ...

d variant of the original Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov LaGG-3, the Gu-82 was intended to alleviate the performance shortcomings of its predecessor already employed by Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily (VVS) in the initial phases of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Design and development

Background

1939 This year also marks the start of the Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Third Reich *** Jews are forbidden to ...

the Soviet government believed that it was necessary to modernize the VVS, which had been using the radial engine

Polikarpov I-16 The Polikarpov I-16 (russian: Поликарпов И-16) is a Soviet single-engine single-seat fighter aircraft of revolutionary design; it was the world's first low-wing cantilever monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear to attain ope ...

and

I-153 The Polikarpov I-153 ''Chaika'' (Russian ''Чайка'', "Seagull") was a late 1930s Soviet biplane fighter. Developed as an advanced version of the I-15 with a retractable undercarriage, the I-153 fought in the Soviet-Japanese combats in Mong ...

. They issued a specification for a new generation of aircraft, characterized by higher overall performance, equipped with high-powered

liquid cooled Liquid cooling refers to cooling by means of the convection or circulation of a liquid. Examples of liquid cooling technologies include: * Cooling by convection or circulation of coolant, including water cooling * Liquid cooling and ventilatio ...

V-12 engines A V12 engine is a twelve-cylinder piston engine where two banks of six cylinders are arranged in a V configuration around a common crankshaft. V12 engines are more common than V10 engines. However, they are less common than V8 engines. The fi ...

. Four

OKB OKB is a transliteration of the Russian initials of "" – , meaning 'experiment and design bureau'. During the Soviet era, OKBs were closed institutions working on design and prototyping of advanced technology, usually for military applications. ...

s presented proposals, three of which were approved and launched for series production, the

Yakovlev Yak-1 The Yakovlev Yak-1 (russian: Яковлев Як-1) was a Soviet fighter aircraft of World War II. The Yak-1 was a single-seat monoplane with a composite structure and wooden wings; production began in early 1940.Angelucci and Matricardi 1978 ...

, Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov I-22, and Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-1. The I-22, later redesignated LaGG-1, was found to be unsuitable and in need of technical improvements, but was nevertheless ordered to be developed, as it was almost entirely made of non-strategic materials, although only 100 were built. Even the LaGG-1s successor, the LaGG-3, continued to suffer from a series of problems that were reflected in the overall performance of the aircraft in combat, mainly related to the maximum speed, which on production aircraft was lower than the prototypes tested by the VVS. The lack of confidence in the potential of the aircraft by the pilots was summarized in the nickname they assigned: the initials LaGG, identifying designers Lavočkin, Gorbunov, and Gudkov became ''lakirovanny garantirovanny grob'' ("guaranteed painted casket").

Development

Mihail Ivanovich Gudkov, who together with Semyon Lavochkin and

Vladimir Petrovich Gorbunov Vladimir may refer to: Names * Vladimir (name) for the Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Macedonian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak and Slovenian spellings of a Slavic name * Uladzimir for the Belarusian version of the name * Volodymyr for the Ukra ...

had collaborated on the design of the aircraft, believed that a quick remedy to the shortcomings of the LaGG-3 was a new engine, the Shvetsov ASh-82 (also known as M-82) radial. The new unit developed more power than the Klimov M-105 in the LaGG-1/3; moreover, at the expense of a slightly higher frontal area, it enjoyed the advantage of continuing to operate in the event of one of the cylinders being shot out. On 25 August

1941 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January–August – 10,072 men, women and children with mental and physical disabilities are asphyxiated with carbon monoxide in a gas chamber, at Hadamar Eu ...

, Gudkov was allocated an engine and began installation into an LaGG-3, so increasing the offensive firepower by installing 2x Berezin UB machine-guns and 2x

ShVAK cannon The ShVAK ( ru , ШВАК: Шпитальный-Владимиров Авиационный Крупнокалиберный, Shpitalnyi-Vladimirov Aviatsionnyi Krupnokalibernyi, "Shpitalny-Vladimirov Aviation Large-calibre") was a 20 mm autocann ...

. The aircraft, given the official designation Gu-82, was flown successfully on 11 September 1942, when it was found that the maximum speed, attested to , was slightly higher than its predecessor, the agility was also significantly increased. Gudkov presented the results to Stalin and advocated the establishment of a new production line, news that was greeted with enthusiasm by the pilots who had the hope of having an aircraft more suitable to fight against the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

. However, Lavochkin had developed another variant of the LaGG-3 with a radial engine, the

Lavochkin La-5 The Lavochkin La-5 (Лавочкин Ла-5) was a Soviet fighter aircraft of World War II. It was a development and refinement of the LaGG-3, replacing the earlier model's inline engine with the much more powerful Shvetsov ASh-82 radial engine. ...

, which proved to be far superior, thus the development of the Gu-82 was cancelled.

Specifications (Gu-82)

References

External links