Soviet Transport Aircraft since 1945

162 Pages·1968·78.86 MB·English

by  John Stroud

SOyJET
TRANSPORT AIR RAFT
SINCE 1945
SOVIET
TR.ANSPORT AIRCRAFT
SINCE 1945
JOHN STROUD
The Polar Aviation f1-14 SSSR-04179 at the SP-12 ( orlh Pole 12) tation on the
drifting Polar ice, in 1964.
F K&WAG ALLS
ew York
CONTENTS
Introduction vii
cknowledgements IX
Soviet Air Transport II
ntonov An-2 4l
Antonov An-8, An-JO and n-12 50
ntonov An-14 Pchelka (Bee) 65
ntonov An-22 71
ntonov An-24 7
Beriev Be-6 and Be-IO 89
Beriev Be-30 93
Ilyushin 11-12 and JI-14 96
Ilyushin 11-18 (piston engines) III
Jlyushin 11-18 (airscrew-turbines) 113
Ilyu hin ]1-20/28 J26
Ilyushin ]1-62 128
Kamov Ka-15 J36
Kamov Ka-18 139
Kamo Ka-25K 140
Kamov Ka-26 143
Mil ~i-I 150
Mil Mi-2 (V-2) 154
Mil MiA 160
Mil Mi-6 168
Mil Mi-8 (V-8) 178
Mil Mi-IO (V-IO) and Mi-IOK 183
Tupolev Tu-70 J95
Tupolev Tu-I04 198
© 1968 John Stroud
Tupolev u-IIO 212
All rights reserved
Library orCongress CatalogCard umber: 68-21860 Tupolev Tu-114 215
Published by Funk & Wagnalls Tupolev Tu-124 225
A Division orReader's Digest Books, [nc.,
Tupolev Tu-134 233
by arrangement with Putnam & Co., Ltd.
Printed in England Tupolev Tu-144 240
v
TupolevTu-154 246
Yakovlev Yak-12 252
Yakovlev Yak-16 257 INTRODUCTION
Yakovlev Yak-18T 259
Yakovle Yak-24 262 Although the Soviet' nion built it AK-J ingle-engine tran port mono
Yakovlev Yak-40 269 plane a far back as 1923 and followed it with a variety ofother transport
types, it was not until after the 1939-45 war thatthe SSR becamea major
AppendixI-Aeroflot. Directorate, Main Bases, Area of Responsi-
constructor oftransport aeroplane.
bility, and Equipment-Summer 1967 277
It ha always been considered extremely difficult to acquire information
AppendixH-Aeroflot. EquipmentUsed on International Services- concerning Soviet aircraft and to some extent this is true, but much ha
Summer 1967 and Winter 1967-68 280 been publi hed in the SovietUnion, particularly about the tran port type.
Appendix III-Aeroflot. EquipmentU ed onSoviet Federal Service and in recentyears very full information ha become available oon aftera
-Summer 1966 282 new type hasappeared. ]n somecases very detailed de cription ofdesign,
construction and performance have been published for aircraft which were
Appendix IV-Routes Operated by Soviet-de igned Aircraft in the
by no means ready for their trial, the Tu-l54 being a ca e in point.
Service ofNon-Soviet Airline -Summer 1967 290
Many a pects of Soviet air transport are certainly regarded as State
Appendix V-World Records held by Soviet Transport Aircraft-
secrets and it i true that little information on airline operation i released
1967 293
abroad, but considerable detail can be discovered by research in Soviet
Appendix VI-Airline Fleets 296 Ru sian-language publications.
Index 315 Air tran port in the Soviet Union operate on a very large scale and is
rapidly growing, and Aeroflot is teadily extending its international
operations. Apart from Li-2s and ome Czecho lovak taxi aircraft, the
eroflot fleet con ist of Soviet-designed aircraft. Many type have been
builtin very large number, and it mu t be agreed thatin the overall world
transport picture Soviet tran port aircraft are ofgreat importance.
It j for this reason that I decided to write thi book co ering all the
Soviet tran port aeroplane and helicopters which have been produced
ince J945. The earlier type have been de cribed in my pre iou work
European Transport Aircraft since 1910, and many of the later type al 0
appear therein, but here I have been able to de cribe de ign feature con
struction and operational history at much greater length.
Mo t ofthe information ha come from Soviet urce alth ugh I have
been fortunate enough to tudy many of the aircraft at fir t hand and, in
the case of the Il-12B, Tu-l04A and Mi-l0, I have flown in them.
]n an introductory chapter I have set the scene by pre enting the basic
fact about the Soviet Union, in term ofgeography, climate, p pulation,
industry and tran port, and have al 0 given a brief urvey of So iet air
tran port, its history and present cope. One till cannot imply a k ero
not for a timetable showing all its routes and chedule, and in fact it is
possible that all its scheduled operations do notappear between the covers
ofany singlepublication. For thi rea on I have hown, in the appendice ,
the extent of Soviet Federal air services and, to underline the amount of
work done by the major aircraft types, have listed these operations under
the type ofaircraft respon iblef I' them. AI 0 included are the heduled
operation by non-Soviet airline operating Soviet equipment.
vi vii
The Airera./f
As far as possible I have detailed for each type the design history,
structural layout and features, accommodation and operational hi tory. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The technical data covers dimensions, weights and performance for as
many variants as possible ofeach type. Unfortunately, the data presented
is not con i tent, and some aircraft are more fully covered than others. For help in the preparation of thi work I record my appreciation of the
For ease of reference aircraft have been arranged alphabetically by kindne s of the following individual and organizations: Aeroplane Air
design bureaux, and within these ections the aircraft are hown in Canada, Air France, Jean Alexander, Aviaexport, Aviation Magazine
numerical sequence by type numbers. To some extent thi method of International, Aviation Week & Space Technology, Bristol SiddeleyEngines
presentation disturb the strict chronological equence but on balance the Ltd, HoI' t W. Burg mUller, Charles Cain, R. . Cole, C A-Ce ko
system cho en appear to be the mo t ati factory. slovenskeAerolinie,Cubana, Flight International, Ghana Airways, William
All measurements are given in metric with English equivalents, but Green, Heliswiss AG, M. J. Hooks, Indian Air Force, Japan Air Line,
metric should be regarded a the most authoritative. The JournalofCommerceandShipping Telegraph, W. B. Klepacki, Misrair,
Speeds are shown in the data sections in km/h, knot and statute miles orco Aviation & Industrial quipment Ltd, Malcolm Pa singham,
per hour and range figures are given in km and nautical miles, but the Polskie Linie Lotnicze (LOT), Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation, SAS,
system has not been followed too rigidly in the text and in the case ofFAl E. Sekigawa and John W. R. Taylor.
records peeds are shown in km/h and tatute mph. Because of their 1must give special thank to my wife, Patricia, for all her help.
similarity no attempt has been made to distinguish between cheval vapeur The response to requests for information for any project i normally
(cv) and horse power (hp). The term hp has been used throughout. 1,000 di appointing. Of all the airlines which operate or have operated Soviet
cvequal 986·32 hp. equipmentonlyCSA, Cubana,Ghana Airways,LOT, Misrair,Royal epal
Airlines and Yemen Airlines re ponded to request for facts.
Production The three-view drawings are by L. . Bradford.
In mo t cases the exact number ofSoviet transport aircraft produced is J..
not known; neverthele s, as far as pos ible details of the civil fleets of
Soviet-de igned transports are listed in Appendix Yl.
Cyrillic Alphabet
The Soviet Union u e the cyrillic alphabet, which has led to ome con
fusion in identifying Soviet aircraft designations and registration. The
alphabet i shown here with the neare t Roman equivalent.
A A !If I C S ~ shch
:0 B lit y T T b ilent
B Y K K y U bl a
r G 11 L <I> F billt ay
,
)J, 0 M M X kh b
E E or ye H N U. ts
l;
t yo or 0 0 0 4 ch fO yoo
)I( zh 11 P W sh 51 ya
3 Z P R
JOliN STRO D
London, 1968
VIII IX
SOVIET AIR TRANSPORT
In order to under tand the development of Soviet tran port aircraft it j
necessary to know certain basic facts about the Soviet nion it elf-it
vast ize, varied terrain, climate, distribution ofre ources and population,
and surface tran port. It i only in relation to thi background that the
reasons can befound for the design and production of ome ofthe aircraft
and for certain feature ofothers.
The USSR
Including E tonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the USSR ha an area of
22,402,000 sq km (8,649,172 sq mile) and a population of nearly 240 mn;
by comparison, the United States of America, including Ala ka and
Hawaii, has an area of9,363,3 9sq km (3,615,207 q miles) and a popula
tion of200 mn.
The Soviet nion stretches from 20deg through 180deg to 170d g W
and from beyond 0 deg to nearly 35 deg S. It uropean fr ntier
meet orway, Finland, Poland, zecho lovakia, Hungary and Rumania;
The Deruluft FokkerF.IITRR6(360hp Roll -Royce agleVIII) being righted after
a 1111 hap at Kowno (Kauna )on 19June, J924. Deruluft ·okkerFJII had opened
a Konig berg-Kown Smolensk-Mo cow erviceon J May, J922. ( o/lrtesy florsl
W. B/lrgs/1/iiller.)
II
Azerbaydzhan SSR (Baku), Byelorussian or White Ru ian S R (Min k),
Estonian SSR (Tallinn), Georgian SSR (Tbili i), Kazakh SSR ( Ima
ta), Kirgiz S R (Frunze), Latvian SSR (Riga), Lithuanian SSR (Vil'
nyu ), Moldavian SSR (Ki hine ), Tadzhik SSR (Ou hanbe), Turkmen
S R ( shkhabad), Ukrainian R (Kiev) and zbek SSR (Tashkent).
Ofthe 20A SRs, tho e that concern this work are bkhaz and dzhar
in Georgian SSR, Kara-Kalpak in Uzbek SR, akhichevan in zer
baydzhan SSR,and the followingall in RSFSR: Ba hkir, Buryat Mongol,
Chuva h Dage tan, Karelo-Finni h, Komi, ari, Mordovinian, Tatar,
Deruluft's T-9 RSS-D310 Orel(three 365hp WrightWhirlwinds)at Riga, acall Udmurt and Yakut.
on the Konigsberg-Leningrad route overwhich service began in the summerofj934.
(Derulujl.)
to the outh are Turkey, Iran, fghanistan, China and Korea; the eastern
edge is washed by the Pacific,and thedistance between theSovietmainland
and Alaska, acro s the Bering Strait, is only about 90 km (56 mile ); the
entire northern coastj bounded bythe ArcticOcean. Mostofthe northern
port are blocked by ice for nine month ofthe year, and offthe northern
coast are numerous i lands, ome never clear of the Arctic pack-ice, and
these include ovaya Zemlya, Severnaya Zemlya, Zemlya Frant a-.losifa
(Franz Josef Land), ovo ibirskiya Ostrova (New Siberian Islands) and
Ostrov Vrangelya (Wrangel Island).
Administrative Areas
The USSR has a very large number ofadministrative region, although
for the purpose of this book it is only necessary to consider the J5
Soviet Socialist Republic (SSRs) and the 20 Autonomous Soviet Sociali t
n eroflotStal-3(480 hp M-22) with flagman. Before thewar ermany, too, u ed
Republic (ASSRs), although the next levels include eight utonomou
to follow railway practicc in handlingaircraft del arture .
Oblast ( 0), 1J2 Kray or Oblasts and about 2,000 Rayons. Still further
down the cale are about 40,000 rural Soviets.
The SSR , with their capital in parentheses, are: RSFSR-Ru ian
Inaddition totheadmini trative region, therearea numberofeconomic
Soviet Federated Sociali t Republic (Moscow), Armenian SSR (Yerevan),
region, orne sharing Republic boundarie and other plitting the
Republic. The e economic region are: Baltic, Byelorussia, entral ia,
Central Blackearth, entre, Donet -Dnepr, Ea tern Siberia, Far Ea t,
Kazakh, Moldavia, orth-we t, orthern Cauca us, South, South-~e t,
Tran caucasia, Ural, Volga, Volga-Vyatka and Western Siberia. It will be
found when tudying the tructure of eroflot thatit admini trativearea
are, in general, based on the b un larie ofSSR, S R and the con mic
region.
By far the biggest of the Republic i the RSFSR which tr tch right
aero s the SovietUnion and embrace the whole ofthe n rthern and ea t
ern coasts, econd Jarge t i Kazakh SSR and then come Ukrainian SR.
Oftheeconomic regions the biggestare FarEa t, Ea tern iberia, Kazakh,
Ural and orth-west. The ASSRs are for the mo t part administrative
Kalinin K5 (Pratt & WhitneyHornet), probably operated byDobrolet area containing ethnic group.
and photographed somewhere in Central sia.
J3
J2
Terraill
To a large extent the Soviet Union can be considered in two ectiotls,
that which lies west of the Ural and that to the ea t of the range. The
Ural run approximately north to outh at 60 deg E. Except in the south,
the area west ofthe Ural i generally flat and in the we t and north ha
extensive marshland. The area between the Urals and 90 deg E is also
largely flat and swampy; but mo t of the terrain further ea t, right up to
the north-eastern tip, i mountainou. In the outhern region there are
large desert and very high mountains. The country po sesse three large
areas ofwater, tbe Caspian Sea, tbeAral Seaand, eparating the main east
coastfrom Kamchatka, theSea ofOkhotsk, and each ofthese has itseffect
on transport. The Ural mountains are not of great height; but in the
outhern areas of the Soviet Union the mountain are of Himalayan
An aircraft whi~h played an important role in providing air transport in remote areas proportions.
was the U-2 biplane (100 hp M-ll) which fir t appeared in 1927. The -2, later
rede Ignated Po-2, was produced In numerous versions and total production was Climate
reported a 20,000. Theexampleshown is the U-2S2 ambulance.
very large part of the country has a mean temperature of below
freezing for halftheyear, and eastof85 degE veryfewparts have Ie than
Population 180 day a year with an average temperature above zero. At the other
extreme there are areas in thesouth where temperatures average 20 deg C.
The RSF R contains more than halfthe total population ofthe oviet
(68 deg F.) or higher for lip to 120 days a year, while in some areas very
Union, more than 124 mn in 1964, and the Ukrainian SSR follows with
more than one-sixth, at over 44 mn. Kazakh SSR had a population of highday temperatures occur. InVerkhoyansk,inYakut,January tempera
II mn, Uzbek SSRjust under 10 mn, Byeloru ian S R 8 mn, Georgian turesgodownto amean ofminu 50degC. (-58degF.), and inTa hkent,
S Rand Azerbaydzhan SSR 4-4 mn each, and the other Republic had at an altitude of490 m (1,610 ft), the July mean temperature i 27 deg C.
(80 deg F.).
population varying between 1·3 mn (Estonian SSR) and 3·2 mn (Molda
Rainfall i heaviestin the we t, part ofthe outh, the ral and far east.
vlan SSR). In order of population den ity Moldavian SR came first,
96·2 per q km. Then came krainianSSR with 74·3 rmenian SSR69-4
Lith~anian
Georgian SSR 63·3, zerbaydzhan SSR 50·6, S R 44·6 and
Byeloru ian SSR 40·7. The RSFSR had a population den ity ofonly 7·3
per sq km and Turkmen SSR wa even Ie with 3·7. By far the greate t
concentration ofpopulation is in the western part ofthe country between
20 and 50 deg E. ast of this area there are population scattered along
the Trans-Siberian Railway, but the entirearea to the north ha a very low
population density, with number of mall remote settlements mo tly
along the rivers.
The largestSovietcities, by populations officiallyestimated in 1962, are:
Mo cow (6,296,000), Leningrad (3,498,000), Kiev (1,208,000), Baku and
suburbs (1,067,000), Gor'kiy (1,025,000), Ta hkent (1,002,000), Khar'kov
(990,000), ovosibir k (985,000), Kuybyshev (881,000), Sverdlov k
(853,000), Donetsk (760,000), Chelyabinsk (751,000), Tbili i (743,000),
Dnepropetrov k (722,000), Kazan' (71 1,000), Odessa (704,000), Perm
(701,000), Rostov (661,000), Om k (650,000), Volgograd (649,000),
Saratov (631,000), Riga (620,000), Ufa (610,000), Minsk (599,000),
Yerevan (583,000), Alma Ata (534,000) and Voronezh (516,000). At least Beforethewar mall flying-boats servedareas inacce sibleeven to the U-2. TheS h-2,
145 other have population exceeding 100,000. or more correctly Shch-2, amphibian (100 hp M-II) i een here on the lake at the
Tik-Guba settlement near Apatity in Soviet Lapland outh ofMurman k.
14
l5
.VY.RNAYA ZEMLYA
NOVOSIBIRSKIYE OSTROVA
NOVAYA ZEMLYA
Thi mapgivessomeimpressionoftheextentofAeroflot'sdomesticroute ystemwhich and it has only been po sible to show less lhal1 100ofthe place erved. ven in lhi
in 1967exceeded 500,000 km (310,690 miles) and served more than 3,500cities, towns simplified form, the density of operation to re ort uch as Min ral'nyye Vody and
and settlements. The impo sibility of howing the sy tem in detail can be understood Sochi is obvious. The concentration of routes in some area combined with the va t
when it is realized that in J966 there were more than J84,000 km (114,330 miles) of extent ofthe Soviet Union makes it doubtful whether all ofAeroflot' routesc uld be
intra-Republicroutes. Thesmall cale ofthismap has madeitnecessaryto omitmany shown on one map, unless it was truly enormous. A moredetailed survey ofAeroflot
importantcities,particularlyinthewestern regions,andmo tofthelocalserviceroutes, operationsappears in Appendix rrL (© J968John frouc/.)
16 17