The Lavochkin La-160, known as ''Strelka'' (Arrow), was the first Soviet swept-winged jet fighter research prototype. It was designed and manufactured by the Lavochkin Design Bureau from 1946. USAF reporting name - Type 6
Design and development
Aircraft 160 was an all-metal pod and boom style aircraft with tri-cycle undercarriage like the
Lavochkin La-152
The Lavochkin La-152,All Lavochkin's jet aircraft were referred to in-house, and at government level, as "''Izdeliye'' (Item or Product) 152", etc. (USAF reporting name - Type 4),Parsch, Andreas and Aleksey V. Martynov"Designations of Soviet and ...
but its mid-set wings incorporated 35° sweep at 1/4 chord. The afterburning engine was underslung in the nose with the air intake at the extreme nose, and exhaust under the rear fuselage. The tricycle undercarriage was housed entirely within the fuselage, (almost all Lavochkin jet aircraft had a similar undercarriage arrangement) when retracted allowing the wing to be built thinner and lighter. A conventional tail layout with 35
o swept tailplane was located at the end of the tail boom. The swept wings were of very low taper (almost constant
chord
Chord may refer to:
* Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously
** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning
* Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve
* Chord ( ...
) with 1/2 span flaps/ailerons and two wing fences each side.
Although designed as a fighter, Aircraft 160 was intended for research into high-speed swept-wing flight, of which little was known in the mid-1940s - only the 1945-era light, piston-engined
MiG-8 canard had used even a moderate degree of wing sweep before this. Following closely the layout of his previous jet-fighter prototypes Lavochkin was able to produce an aircraft capable of providing useful data and experience of high-speed flight near the
speed of sound
The speed of sound is the distance travelled per unit of time by a sound wave as it propagates through an elastic medium. At , the speed of sound in air is about , or one kilometre in or one mile in . It depends strongly on temperature as w ...
.
The first flight was on 24 June 1947. Successful flight trials were quickly followed by public display at the 1947 Aviation Day airshow at Tushino. Trials continued until Aircraft 160 broke up in flight, due to wing flutter, during tests to establish the maximum attainable speed. The experience gained with Aircraft 160 spurred on Soviet aircraft designers to design swept winged fighters, albeit cautiously.
The title 'Aircraft 160' was used previously by Lavochkin for a 'Heavy' twin engined fighter to be produced concurrently with
Aircraft 150. This project was still-born, but led to the
Alekseyev twin-engined I-21 series of fighters, after Alekseyev left Lavochkin's design bureau to head
OKB-21 at
Gor'kiy.
Specifications (Aircraft 160)
See also
References
*
Gunston, Bill. ''The Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft 1875–1995''. London:Osprey, 1995. .
*Gordon,Yefim. ''Early Soviet Jet Fighters''. Midland Publishing. Hinkley. 2002.
*Gordon,Yefim. ''Lavochkin's Last Jets''. Midland Publishing. Hinkley. 2007.
{{Lavochkin aircraft
La-160
1940s Soviet experimental aircraft
Single-engined jet aircraft
Mid-wing aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1947