The Tupolev DB-1 (ANT-36) 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, ...
long-range bomber developed in the 1930s. It was developed from the
Tupolev ANT-25
The Tupolev ANT-25 was a Soviet long-range experimental aircraft which was also tried as a bomber. First constructed in 1933, it was used by the Soviet Union for a number of record-breaking flights.
Development
The ANT-25 was designed as the ...
distance record-breaking aircraft. Development was prolonged and it was recognized as obsolete by the time it was in production. Only eighteen were built and all were withdrawn from service in 1937.
Development
The possibilities of exchanging some of the fuel of the ANT-25 for bombs and/or cameras was recognized early in its development, and the
Soviet Air Forces
The Soviet Air Forces ( rus, Военно-воздушные силы, r=Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily, VVS; literally "Military Air Forces") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces ...
(VVS) issued a requirement for an aircraft to carry over an operational radius of at a speed of . The
Tupolev Design Bureau
Tupolev (russian: Ту́полев, ), officially Joint Stock Company Tupolev, is a Russian aerospace and defence company headquartered in Basmanny District, Moscow.
Tupolev is successor to the Soviet Tupolev Design Bureau (OKB-156, design off ...
had prepared a design and built a
mockup
In manufacturing and design, a mockup, or mock-up, is a scale or full-size model of a design or device, used for teaching, demonstration, design evaluation, promotion, and other purposes. A mockup may be a ''prototype'' if it provides at leas ...
by August 1933, using the internal designation of ANT-36, and the VVS approved both. Series production of a first batch of 24, out of a planned total of 50, was initiated in the new Factory No. 18 at
Voronezh
Voronezh ( rus, links=no, Воро́неж, p=vɐˈronʲɪʂ}) is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on the ...
in 1934, but only 18 were built before the program was canceled.
[
The airframe, engine and crew compartments were retained from the ANT-25 almost unchanged, although the ]co-pilot
In aviation, the first officer (FO), also called co-pilot, is the pilot who is second-in-command of the aircraft to the captain, who is the legal commander. In the event of incapacitation of the captain, the first officer will assume command o ...
's and navigator
A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's primar ...
's positions were each given one DA 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 ...
for defense. The DB-1 (long-range bomber model 1), as it was designated in VVS service, was given a smooth skin and a bomb bay was built in the wing center section that carried ten FAB-100 bombs nose-up. An AFA-14 camera was mounted in the rear cockpit, but other cameras could be carried instead of the bombs.[Gunston, p. 86]
Operational history
The DB-1's first flight was in 1934,[ but the first production aircraft was not tested until late 1935. It was rejected by the VVS because of poor manufacturing quality. Only ten aircraft were placed into service which equipped one ]regiment
A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, service and/or a specialisation.
In Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of front-line soldiers, recruited or conscripted ...
based near the factory at Voronezh. All of these were retired in 1937.[
The remainder of these aircraft were used for a variety of tasks. One was fitted with the first flight-cleared Charomskii AN-1 ]diesel engine
The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...
for evaluation. The change in the center of gravity
In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weight function, weighted relative position (vector), position of the distributed mass sums to zero. Thi ...
caused many problems and the undercarriage
Undercarriage is the part of a moving vehicle that is underneath the main body of the vehicle. The term originally applied to this part of a horse-drawn carriage, and usage has since broadened to include:
*The landing gear of an aircraft.
*The ch ...
had to be made non-retractable. Two others were selected in 1938 for distance record attempts with all-female crews, but an Ilyushin DB-3
The Ilyushin DB-3, where "DB" stands for ''Dalniy Bombardirovschik'' (Russian: Дальний бомбардировщик) meaning "long-range bomber", was a Soviet bomber aircraft of World War II. It was a twin-engined, low-wing monoplane that f ...
was ultimately chosen instead.[Gunston, pp. 86–87]
Specifications (ANT-36 / DB-1)
See also
References
Bibliography
*
*
{{Soviet bomber-attack designations
1930s Soviet bomber aircraft
DB-1
The DB-1 is a West German sailboat that was designed by E. G. van de Stadt and Cees van Tongeren as an International Offshore Rule Three-Quarter Ton class racer and first built in 1980.Sherwood, Richard M.: ''A Field Guide to Sailboats of No ...
Abandoned military aircraft projects of the Soviet Union
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1934