The Ilyushin Il-8 was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
ground-attack aircraft
An attack aircraft, strike aircraft, or attack bomber is a tactical military aircraft that has a primary role of carrying out airstrikes with greater precision than bombers, and is prepared to encounter strong low-level air defenses while pres ...
developed by
Ilyushin
The public joint stock company Ilyushin Aviation Complex, operating as Ilyushin (russian: Илью́шин) or as Ilyushin Design Bureau, is a former Soviet and now a Russian aircraft manufacturer and design bureau, founded in 1933 by Sergey Vl ...
to replace the
Ilyushin Il-2. The first two prototypes were significantly faster than the older aircraft, but proved to be less maneuverable. It was redesigned, incorporating many features of what would become the
Ilyushin Il-10, but proved to be inferior to that aircraft in testing. It was not ordered into production.
Development
In summer 1942
Sergey Ilyushin
Sergey Vladimirovich Ilyushin (russian: Серге́й Владимирович Илью́шин; – 9 February 1977) was a Soviet aircraft designer who founded the Ilyushin aircraft design bureau. He designed the Il-2 Shturmovik, which mad ...
was requested to design a heavy attack aircraft with a bombload of up to . He chose to scale up the single-engined Il-2 to use the new and more powerful Mikulin AM-42 engine, which was essentially a scaled-up version of the Il-2's
Mikulin AM-38
The Mikulin AM-38 was a 1940s Soviet aircraft piston engine. It was a further development of the Mikulin AM-35 design. The AM-38 was used on the Il-2 Shturmovik and Il-10 ground attack aircraft. The AM-38 was installed experimentally in a MiG ...
engine. The design was initially designated the Il-AM-42, but it was soon allocated the factory designation Il-8. While the design of the Il-8 was based on that of the Il-2, it was a completely new aircraft.
[Gordon, pp. 59–60]
The oil cooler was housed with the coolant radiator in a big airscoop on top of the engine cowling, closer to the cockpit than was the case on the Il-2. The gunner's position was enclosed in the armored shell, unlike that in the Il-2, and was equipped with a
Berezin UBK
machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...
on a VU-8 flexible mount. Otherwise the gun armament was identical to the older aircraft with a pair of
VYa cannon with a total 300 rounds and a pair of
ShKAS machine gun
The ShKAS (Shpitalny-Komaritski Aviatsionny Skorostrelny, Shpitalny-Komaritski rapid fire for aircraft; Russian: ШКАС - Шпитального-Комарицкого Авиационный Скорострельный) is a 7.62 mm calibre ...
s with 1500 rounds in the wings. Optionally two
Nudelman-Suranov NS-37s could be installed instead of the VYa-23 cannon. The rear fuselage was lengthened by to improve airflow and the landing gear was lengthened to accommodate the larger
propeller
A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...
. The landing gear nacelles were modified accordingly.
[Gordon, p. 60]
Two prototypes were built of the Il-8. The first had VYa-23 cannon and a wooden rear fuselage. The second had NS-37 cannon installed and a metal rear fuselage. The first flight was on 10 May 1943 and the prototypes were tested both as attack aircraft and as an artillery spotter variant with less range and better radios. Flight tests were reasonably successful with the Il-8 proving to be almost faster at low altitudes than the Il-2. It climbed 15% faster and had nearly twice the range of the older aircraft. Flight testing was prolonged by problems with the AM-42 engines. They were unreliable, smoky and vibration-prone. But the Il-8 proved to be less maneuverable than the Il-2 in both the horizontal and vertical planes. State acceptance trials lasted from 26 February to 30 March 1944 and it was provisionally accepted for production, provided that these issues were fixed.
[
However, Ilyushin thought that the best features of the two-seat Il-1 prototype could be incorporated into the Il-8 design and approval for another prototype was granted on 1 July 1944. The new prototype, confusingly referred to in the records with the same Il-8-2 designation used for the second prototype of the original design, greatly resembled what would become the Il-10, except for a longer fuselage and the four-bladed propeller. The armament was changed as Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 cannon replaced the YVa-23 guns and the UBK was upgraded with a ]Berezin B-20
The Berezin B-20 (Березин Б-20) was a 20 mm caliber autocannon used by Soviet aircraft in World War II.
Development
The B-20 was created by Mikhail Yevgenyevich Berezin in 1944 by converting his 12.7 mm Berezin UB machine gun to u ...
cannon in a VU-9 mount. A cassette of ten AG-2 aerial grenades was fitted to enhance rear defense.[ The bombload was upgraded to a total of 1000 kg compared to the of the first prototypes. The Il-8-2 made its first flight on 13 October 1944 and flight testing was once again delayed with engine problems and state acceptance trials were not completed until 7 July 1945. While it proved to be an improvement over the first design, it was inferior in performance to the Il-10 which was already in service and was not placed into production.][Gordon, p. 61]
Il-8 specifications
See also
References
Notes
Bibliography
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{{Ilyushin aircraft
1940s Soviet attack aircraft
Il-008
Abandoned military aircraft projects of the Soviet Union
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1943