Grigorovich I-Z
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| I-Z | |
|---|---|
| Type | Fighter |
| National origin | Soviet Union |
| Manufacturer | Grigorovich |
| Maiden flight | 1931 |
| Primary user | Soviet Air Force |
| Number built | 73 |
The Grigorovich I-Z was a fighter aircraft developed in the Soviet Union during the 1930s, designed specifically for the anti-bomber role. In the late 1920s, the Soviet Army was exploring large-bore, rifled, recoilless cannon as a means of cheaply producing weapons of high accuracy and great effectiveness. Several applications for this type of weapon were identified; amongst them as a weapon against the new generation of metal bombers that were being produced and which the traditional machine-gun armament of contemporary fighters was increasingly ineffective. In a secret programme code-named "З" ("Z"), Leonid Kurchevski, the developer of one of the systems under consideration, was tasked with producing a variant for this specific application, and the Grigorovich design bureau with developing an aircraft that would carry it.
The resulting design was a low-wing cantilever monoplane of conventional configuration with fixed tailskid undercarriage and an open cockpit. The forward fuselage was copied from the Polikarpov I-5, which Dmitri Grigorovich had collaborated with Nikolai Polikarpov on, but the rest of the design was new. The fuselage was of all-metal construction, while the wings had a metal structure but were covered in fabric. The only unorthodox feature of the design was that the horizontal stabiliser was placed quite high on the tail fin; this done in order to avoid the possibility of aerodynamic interference by gasses from the cannon armament that was installed under the wings. Apart from the main guns, the I-Z was also equipped with a machine gun in the forward fuselage that would allow the pilot to confirm his aim at the enemy bomber before firing the single-shot main weapons.
Two prototypes were built, the first flying in mid-1931, the second, strengthened aircraft at the beginning of the following year. These were followed by 21 examples ordered as evaluation aircraft and 50 production machines. By the time this last batch was being delivered, however, it was already apparent that the concept of a "single-shot" fighter was flawed, and the I-Zs that had been built were relegated to various testing roles. One such role was as a parasite fighter in the Zveno project.
[edit] Operators
[edit] Specifications
General characteristics
- Crew: One pilot
- Length: 7.65 m (25 ft 1 in)
- Wingspan: 11.50 m (37 ft 9 in)
- Wing area: 19.5 m² (210 ft²)
- Empty weight: 1,180 kg (2,600 lb)
- Gross weight: 1,648 kg (3.633 lb)
- Powerplant: 1 × M-22, 360 kW (480 hp)
Performance
- Maximum speed: 300 km/h (186 mph)
- Range: 600 km (373 miles)
- Service ceiling: 7,000 m (23,000 ft)
- Rate of climb: 6.0 m/s (1,170 ft/min)
Armament
- 2 × fixed, forward-firing, single-shot 76 mm Kurchevski DRP cannon
- 1 × 7.62 mm PV-1 machine gun
[edit] References
- Taylor, Michael J. H. (1989). Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation. London: Studio Editions, 441.
- World Aircraft Information Files. London: Bright Star Publishing, File 895 Sheet 12.
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