The Tomashevich Pegas was a

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 ...

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 prototype aircraft built before the

Battle of Kursk The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front engagement between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in the southwestern USSR during late summer 1943; it ultimately became the largest tank battle in history. ...

(1943), designed to destroy tanks and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

vehicles.

Development and design

Dmitri Lyudvigovich Tomashevich Dmitri Lyudvigovich Tomashevich (, ) (1899–1974) was a pioneering Soviet aircraft and rocket designer, somewhat infamous as the chief designer of the Polikarpov I-180 fighter - the prototype of which crashed, killing its test pilot Valery Chkalo ...

was the chief designer on the

Polikarpov I-180 The Polikarpov I-180 (russian: И-180) was a 1938 Soviet fighter prototype. It was the last attempt to extract performance from the basic Polikarpov I-16 design.Green 1973, p. 165. The development cycle was plagued with problems, especially with ...

fighter before the crash of the prototype, killing test pilot

Valery Chkalov Valery Pavlovich Chkalov ( rus, Валерий Павлович Чкалов, p=vɐˈlʲerʲɪj ˈpavləvʲɪtɕ ˈtɕkaləf; – 15 December 1938) was a test pilot awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union (1936). Early life Chkalov was bo ...

, led to Tomashevich being arrested and sent to a

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

-run Special Prison in January 1939, where he assisted

Andrei Tupolev Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev (russian: Андрей Николаевич Туполев; – 23 December 1972) was a Russian Empire, Russian and later Soviet Union, Soviet aeronautical engineer known for his pioneering aircraft designs as Di ...

in the design of the

Tupolev Tu-2 The Tupolev Tu-2 (development names ANT-58 and 103; NATO reporting name Bat) was a twin-engine Soviet high-speed daylight and frontline (SDB and FB) bomber aircraft of World War II vintage. The Tu-2 was tailored to meet a requirement for a high ...

. In August 1941, Tomashevich was evacuated to

Omsk Omsk (; rus, Омск, p=omsk) is the administrative center and largest city of Omsk Oblast, Russia. It is situated in southwestern Siberia, and has a population of over 1.1 million. Omsk is the third largest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

where he was put in charge of his own design bureau. In 1942, inspired by the success of the simple

Polikarpov Po-2 The Polikarpov Po-2 (also U-2, for its initial ''uchebnyy'', 'training', role as a flight instruction aircraft) served as an all-weather multirole Soviet biplane, nicknamed ''Kukuruznik'' (russian: Кукурузник,Gunston 1995, p. 292. NAT ...

biplane as a night ground-attack aircraft, Tomashyevich was authorised to design and build a simple ground-attack aircraft that would be much more capable than the Po-2 but could be built at the same price. The resulting design was a low-wing

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

with a fixed

tail-wheel undercarriage Conventional landing gear, or tailwheel-type landing gear, is an aircraft undercarriage consisting of two main wheels forward of the center of gravity and a small wheel or skid to support the tail.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms ...

, of wooden construction, with

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...

frames and

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 30 ...

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

skins. The pilot sat in an open

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...

which was protected by mild-steel armour plating designed to withstand bullets. It was powered by two

Shvetsov M-11F The Shvetsov M-11 is a five-cylinder air-cooled radial aircraft engine produced in the Soviet Union between 1923 and 1952.Gunston 1989, p.158. Design and development The Shvetsov M-11 was designed under a 1923 competition in the Soviet Union fo ...

engines (the same powerplant used by the Po-2) and was armed with two cannon and a heavy

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 ...

in the nose, with the option of replacing the cannon with up to of bombs. An optional jettisonable upper wing was tested on the Pegas-01 prototype. The first prototype, Pegas-01, made its maiden flight in late 1942, proving to be overweight and underpowered, although the aircraft's handling was acceptable. It was hoped to test one of the prototypes at the

Kursk Kursk ( rus, Курск, p=ˈkursk) is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym rivers. The area around Kursk was the site of a turning point in the Soviet–German stru ...

front, but the distance from Omsk to the front line made that impractical, and development of the type was abandoned after four prototypes had been built.

Specifications

References

{{reflist

External links

Pegas
1940s Soviet attack aircraft World War II Soviet ground attack aircraft Low-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1942 Twin piston-engined tractor aircraft