The Mikulin AM-38 was a 1940s

Soviet 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 nation ...

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engine ...

piston engine. It was a further development of the

Mikulin AM-35 The Mikulin AM-35 was a 1930s Soviet piston aircraft engine. Derived from the AM-34FRN, the AM-35 entered production in 1940 and was used on the MiG-1 and MiG-3 World War II fighters as well as the Petlyakov Pe-8 heavy bomber. Description ...

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-3 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-3) was a Soviet fighter-interceptor used during World War II. It was a development of the MiG-1 by the OKO (opytno-konstruktorskij otdel — Experimental Design Departme ...

and tested during August 1941. A slight performance improvement was seen at low-altitude but the engine experienced overheating problems due to the cooling and oil systems remaining unchanged from the AM-35A.

Description

The AM-38 was a low-altitude engine for

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 ...

that evolved from the earlier AM-35A. Compared to the AM-35A it had a reduced compression ratio, strengthened crankshaft, a single-speed geared centrifugal supercharger optimized for low-altitude performance, revised cooling system and revised oil system. The AM-38 was developed by the design bureau of Factory No. 24 now called the Salyut factory in Moscow. The first examples were produced in October 1939 and passed its Factory tests in November 1939. The AM-38 was placed in production at the start of 1941 despite not passing its State tests until July 1941. The majority of engines were produced at Factory No. 24 which was evacuated to Kuybyshev at the end of 1941. In June 1942 production also began at Factory No. 45 which used the former workshops of Factory No. 24 in Moscow. The AM-38 was the most produced Mikulin engine with 43,191 built by the time it was phased out of production in 1946.Kotelnikov 2005, p. 111.

Variants

* AM-38F: A version with higher RPM for takeoff and a 10-minute forsazh (war emergency power) mode. It also had an oil centrifuge, strengthened camshafts, strengthened cylinder block, strengthened inlet valves and cylinder heads made from a new alloy. The diameter of the GCS impeller was also reduced and its compression ration was lowered to accommodate lower quality fuel. Series production began in at Factory No. 24 in October 1942 and Factory No. 45 in 1943. The engine did not pass State test until May 1943. * GAM-38F: A proposed marine version of the AM-38F.

Specifications (AM-38F)

Applications

Ilyushin Il-2 The Ilyushin Il-2 ( Russian: Илью́шин Ил-2) is a ground-attack plane that was produced by the Soviet Union in large numbers during the Second World War. The word ''shturmovík'' (Cyrillic: штурмовик), the generic Russian term ...

Ilyushin Il-10 The Ilyushin Il-10 (Cyrillic Илью́шин Ил-10, NATO reporting name: "Beast"Gunston 1995, p.108.) was a Soviet ground attack aircraft developed at the end of World War II by the Ilyushin construction bureau. It was also license-built in C ...

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Gunston, Bill. ''World Encyclopedia of Aero Engines''. Cambridge, England. Patrick Stephens Limited, 1989. * Kotelnikov, Vladimir. ''Russian Piston Aero Engines''. Marlborough, Wiltshire. The Crowood Press Ltd. 2005. . {{Mikulin aeroengines Mikulin aircraft engines 1940s aircraft piston engines