After world War II

After World War II and by 1947 all the basic technology needed for aviation had been developed: jet propulsion, aerodynamics, radar, etc. Civilian aircraft orders drastically increased from 6,844 in 1941 to 40,000 by the end of 1945. One of the minor military contractors was the Boeing Company who later became the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world. With all the new technologies developed by this time, airliners were larger, faster, and featured pressurized cabins. New aerodynamic designs, metals, and power plants would result in high-speed turbojet airplanes. These planes would later be able to fly supersonically and make transoceanic flights regularly.

One of the more famous record-breaking flights around this time was the Voyager, developed by Burt Rutan. The aircraft held 1,200 gallons (4500 liters) of fuel in its 17 fuel tanks. It weighed about 9,750 lb (4420 kg) at takeoff and only 1,858 lb (840kg) upon landing. The flight, maintaining an average speed of 115.8 mph (186.3 km/h), lasted 9 days, 3 minutes, 44 seconds and covered 25,012 miles (40254 km) and was completed in December 1986.

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A Brief History of Soviet Civil Aviation

On April 12, 1961, the world's first manned satel­lite spaceship Vostok was put into an orbital flight about the Earth. After circling the globe for 108 minutes, the spaceship piloted by Yu. A. Gagarin, a citizen of the USSR, made a safe landing in a predetermined area of the Soviet Union. This flight confirmed the prediction of the Russian scientist К. Е. Tsiolkovsky who said that mankind would not stay forever on the Earth but would first cautiously move beyond the atmosphere and subse­quently explore the entire near-solar space.

The cherished dream of mankind — the conquest of airspace — has come true owing to the effort of the scien­tists of many countries. Among Russian scientists, we can mention D.I. Mendeleev (1834-1907), N. E. Zhukovsky (1847-1921), К. Е. Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), and S. A. Chaplygin (1869-1942), whose theoretical works formed the basis for the development of aircraft industry in Rus­sia. As far back as 1754, at a conference of the Russian Academy of Sciences, M. V. Lomonosov pointed toward the possibility of the flight of a model by means of two coaxial spring-driven rotors. The pioneer in aviation A. F. Mozhaisky conducted a great deal of research on services completely turned to the use of Soviet-made air­planes which compared well with foreign counterparts in flight performance. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Soviet airplanes PO-2 (Fig. 1.2.), ANT-9, P-5, ANT-14 and others came into service. In 1934, an eight-engine air­craft ANT-20 accomplished the first flight. It could carry 80 passengers aboard.

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In the early 1930s, a fast passenger airplane was put into service. It was a monoplane with a retractable land­ing gear and could fly at more than 300 km/h. Before the Second World War, civil aviation included a number of airplanes on scheduled services, such as the ANT-40, ANT-35, PS-89, and ANT-6. A fast progress in aircraft industry enabled civil aviation to increase the passenger and cargo traffic from year to year. In 1940, the total length of airways reached 146.3 thousand kilometers, on which airplanes carried a total of 409.6 thousand pas­sengers and 62 thousand tons of cargo.

During World War II, civil aviation served the needs of the front. Civil pilots made regular flights to partisans, delivering ammunition, foodstuffs, and medicines, and maintained communication with towns blockaded by the enemy. Over the war period, civil airplanes carried about 2.5 million people and 300 thousand tons of cargo.

After the Second World War, the design association managed by S.V. Ilyushin developed a new passenger plane IL-12 and then an IL-14 a few years later. The IL-14 could fly at a cruise speed of 300 to 320 km/h and carry 24 to 36 people depending on its modification.

In 1948, the design office headed by О. К. Antonov evolved a short-haul airplane AN-2 (Fig. 1.4) to handle passengers and cargo on local airways. The airplane came in a few modifications: passenger, cargo, ambulance, ge­ological survey, forest fire suppression, and agricultural versions. The most popular version was the agricultural one designed to control forest and crop pests, top-dress plants, kill weeds, and remove top foliage in cotton.

In 1949, the design office headed by M. L. Mil created a helicopter MI-1. A few years later, the MI-4 came into service. In 1957-1958, aircraft industry began to turn out helicopters KA-15 and KA-18 developed by a group of designers under the direction of N.I. Kamov.

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Helicopters MI-6, MI-8 (Fig. 1.5), and MI-10K deve­loped in the following years found wide uses for freight and passenger carriage, particularly in hard-to-reach areas of the Siberia and Arctic. They were much in de­mand on the world market.

A tremendous growth in the field of civil aviation be­gan with the advent of multiseat high-speed jet-engined airplanes.

In September 1956, a turbojet airplane TU-104 deve­loped by the design office under the direction of A. N. Tupolev made its first flight with passengers on board by the Moscow-Irkutsk route. The TU-104 (Fig. 1.6.) was the world's first passenger jet. About two years later similar airplanes appeared in Great Britain, the USA, and France. Subsequently, beginning with April 1959, a four-engine turboprop airplane IL-18 (Fig. 1.7) set out on regular trips. In the same year, the TU-114 (Fig. 1.8.) began to handle air transportation. It had the capacity to carry 170 passengers over a flying distance of 8000 km at a speed of 800 km/h. The specimens of these planes have taken the places of honour on pedestals at Vnukovo, Sheremetevo, and Domodedovo airports of Moscow.

The AN-10, the four-engine shoulder-wing turboprop airplane, was in service for over 13 years. In 1962, the TU-124 with a capacity of 56 passengers began to carry regular service. In the same period, airlines used the AN-24 (Fig. 1.9.) designed to carry 48 to 52 passengers and operate on unpaved runways.

In 1964, turbine-engine airplanes handled over 70% of the entire air carriage, with piston-engined aviation ac­counting for less than 30% of all air traffic. The airlift tonnage also increased sharply. In 1965, civil air trans­ports carried 40 million passengers and 1 205 000 tons of cargo. Over the five-year period, from 1966 to 1970, the total air traffic rose to 302.2 million passengers and 8.1 million tons of cargo.

The volume of work done by civil aviation in various branches of national economy grew vary rapidly. For example, in 1940 the aerial chemical treatment of agricul­tural lands and forests was performed on 903.8 thousand hectares. In 1950 the figure rose to 3.4 million ha, in 1965 it topped 55 million, and over the period from 1966 to 1970 the total area amounted to 368 million ha.

Still more rapid strides forward were in 1971-1980. Over the five-year period from 1976 to 1980 civil aviation carried 500 million passengers and 14 million tons of car­go, treated 460 million hectares of lands, and outstripped the targets involved in other applications of airplanes in national economy.

Certainly, to achieve a sharp increase in air traffic, it is necessary to solve a number of problems: furnish civil aviation with present-day aircraft equipment, build new airports, reconstruct the ones that are now in opera­tion, equip them with automatic radio aids, carry out comprehensive mechanization of cargo handling, and automate the processes of fuelling.

In the 1960s and 1970s several new second-generation planes of different classes and purposes came into being. The YAK-40 (Fig. 1.10) is a three-turbojet engine airplane that has 27 passenger seats and is meant for operation on domestic air routes. The L-410 aircraft of the Czechos­lovaks design that takes 17 passengers on board is also in operation on the same routes. Its modification, the L-410OVP short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft, will replace the AN-2 airplane. It will offer more than two times the efficiency of the AN-2.

In February 1972, the TU-154 (Fig. 1.11) made the first scheduled flight between Moscow and Min. Vody, which carried 160 passengers on board and covered the distance in less than two hours. Its modification, the TU-154M, is designed to carry 180 passengers at a cruise speed of 900 km/h on medium-range routes. The TU-134 that is in regular service on the same routes can take 68 to 80 people on board depending on its layout.

The four-engine airplane IL-62 (Fig. 1.12) carries ser­vice on many long-range domestic and international routes. It makes non-stop flights from Moscow airports to Montreal, Pekin, and other cities, carrying 138 to 162 people at a cruise speed of 850-900 km/h.

The transport airplane IL-76T (Fig. 1.13) primarily handles bulky cargo and has the capacity to carry a com­mercial load of 40 tons. It can operate on unpaved air­fields and makes trips to the Antarctic continent at a speed of 750-800 km/h. In December 1980, the third-generation airplanes IL-86 and YAK-42 made their appearance on domestic airways. The IL-86 is a wide-body airliner designed under the direction of Academician G. V. Novozhilov. The pressurized fuselage has two decks, the lower cargo deck and the upper deck intended to accommodate the crew and 300 to 350 passengers. The plane has four turbofan engines mounted on underwing pylons, de­velops a speed of 900 km/h, and covers a distance of 3000 km at a maximum commercial load. It is 60.2 m long and 15.2 m high, with the wing span reaching 48.1 m. The plane is in service on the busiest domestic and international air routes.

The three-turbofan engine airplane YAK-42 (Fig. 1.15) designed for medium-range flights takes 100 to 120 peo­ple on board and develops a cruise speed of 820 km/h. The maximum payload range is 1000 km. The plane is 36.4 m long and has a wing span of 34.2 m. It will replace in the near future the TU-134 and AN-24. The flight- control and navigation equipment of third-generation airplanes ensures a high degree of flight safety and ena­bles the planes to fly in complex weather conditions and to make category 2 landing, i.e. to land at a horizontal visibility of 400 m and cloud base height of 30 m.

In 1981-1985, new airplanes and helicopters were put intoservice. Those years saw the introduction of auto­mated air traffic control systems and various automated facilities such as secondary radar aids, communication means, and means intended to monitor and control the movement of airplanes and special vehicles in airport zones. New airports equipped with appropriate facilities were built and much work was done to provide better service and greater comforts to air passengers both aboard the planes and at air terminals. In 1981-1985, Soviet Airlines (Aeroflot) carried 551 million passengers and 15.6 million tons of cargo. During the same years agricultural airplanes treated 520 million hectares of lands.

The long-term plan developed for the next period up to the year 2000 envisages a still greater progress of civil aviation. Aeroflot will receive new aircraft of the fourth generation and new means of mechanization. In the regions of the North, Siberia, and Far East, a large amount of work will be done to expand the existing run­ways and airports and to construct new airports capable of receiving heavy transport airplanes. Every effort will be made to promote the latest methods of aircraft main­tenance and repair using advanced diagnostic aids.

Module II