Category An Illustrated History of the World’s Largest Airline

On 15 March 1913 (Julian calendar — add 13 days to convert to the modern, Gregorian, calendar — same as western calen­dar from 1 January 1918) the Sikorsky Le Grand made its maiden flight at the Komendantsky airfield. Built of wood and fabric by skilled carpenters, it would eventually weigh 4,200kg (9,2401b) and carry a load of 700kg (1,6001b) at 80km/h (50mph). Because of its — for the time — awesome size, and with two extra engines fitted in tandem, it was soon called the Bolshoi Baltiskiy (Great Baltic). During that summer, the extra engines were moved to line abreast along the wing, and it was again renamed the Russkiy vityaz (Russian Knight). First flown in that form on 23 July (Julian), it was inspected by Tsar Nicholas II. Re-designed, the Il’ya Muromets, with four tractor engines mounted in line along the wings, first flew in October 1913 (Julian).

By February 1914, the four-engined giant was able to carry 11 tons — at that time more than any other aircraft’s total weight; in June, it stayed aloft for 61 hours, with six passen-

The cabin of the Il’ya Muromets was as comfortable as those of many a post-World War I passenger aircraft. It was adequately furnished, and featured electric lighting and a toilet in the rear, (photo: United Technologies)

gers aboard. The Il’ya Muromets was named after a legendary Russian folk hero, but it deserves an heroic place in the reality of aviation’s Hall of Fame.

The Myth

While reports of these events were published, so that the Il’ya Muromets was well known in Russia, the western European countries seemed not to believe the bulletins. The aircraft was even regarded as something of a freak, only one or two were thought to have been built, and that they were unsuccessful. While the French, German, and British aircraft manufacturers, engulfed in the demands of the Great War, paid little atten­tion to the obvious potential of the multi-engined aircraft so ably demonstrated in St Petersburg, Sikorsky forged ahead, and continuously improved the breed. Far from being a tran­sitory experiment, as many liked to think, the Il’ya Muromets was the greatest advance in aircraft technology since the Wrights; records indicate that at least 80 aircraft, and possibly more, came off the ‘production line’.

Growth of an Aircraft Industry

The Polikarpov U-2 (or the Po-2 after the death of Polikarpov in 1944) made its first flight on 8 January 1928. A two-seat biplane, it was to become a maid-of-all-work, and particularly an elementary trainer. Thousands of them were built, used even for bombing in the Great Patriotic War, and Nikolai Nikolayevich Polikarpov’s design was an essen­tial factor in the development of Soviet aviation, akin to the role played by Britain’s Tiger Moth and America’s Piper Cub. Production of the PO-2 continued until 1944, and was built in Poland from 1948 until 1953. Produced for 35 years, it was the most popular light aircraft in the Soviet Union.

Of aircraft in the transport category, the ANT (Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev) series, prefaced by the Models 3 and 4 (see page 19) led to the ANT-9, which first flew on 1 May 1929, and is more fully reviewed on the page opposite. The Kalinin series, already described on page 21, was estab­lishing itself, especially the Model K-5. On 22 December 1930, Andrei Tupolev watched the first flight of his four – engined bomber, the ANT-6, which was put to good use as a transport airplane in 1937 in support of the Polar expeditions (see pages 30-31). Often overlooked, or even ignored by west­ern observers, this was a big aircraft, and no freak, in its time.

Then in 1931, the little Shavrov Sh-2 amphibian and the Stal’2, designed by A. I. Putilov, made their appearance. Of steel construction (Stal is Russian for steel) it could carry four passengers. It first flew on 11 October 1931 from Frunze air­field (Khodinka) in Moscow.

Reorganization

On 29 October 1930, as a feature of the First Five Year Plan of 1928, Dobrolet was replaced by as an all-state airline, a joint- stock company, Grazdansiy Vozduzhniy Flot (G. V.F.). It acquired Ukrvozdukhput (page 16) and developed a domestic hub at Moscow, with passenger services to all important cities, as far east as Irkutsk.

Air Pravda

On 3 June 1930, the first experimental delivery was made of type matrices of the official Pravda newspaper, and on 4 June

The twin-engined PS-9 was the main production version of the ANT-9, (photo: Boris Vdovienko)

1931, it appeared in Kharkov only eleven hours after being type-set in Moscow. On 16 June, a special aviation section was created to ensure matrix delivery to Leningrad, Kharkov, Sevastopol, Pyatagorsk, Grozniy, Odessa, Kazan, Rostov-on- Don, Tiflis, and Sverdlovsk.

A five-engined airliner, the ANT-14, first flew on 14 August 1931. With 36 seats, it was too large for the traffic on airline routes but was used extensively by Pravda for sightsee­ing and propaganda flights, mainly around Moscow. Only one was built, and its only long-distance foray was to Bucharest; but it carried 40,000 passengers during its ten-year service life, quite an achievement for the time.

Maturity of an Airline

During the 17th Congress of the All-Soviet Communist Party, held in Moscow from 30 January to 4 February 1932, a resolu­tion was passed that "air travel should expand in all direc­tions, as it is one of the important communication links with remote rural regions, and with major industrial centers." On

25 February, Grazdansiy Vozduzhniy Flot (G. V.F.) was reorga­nized as the Main Directorate of the Civil Aviation Fleet. On

26 March 1932 it was given the trading name of Aeroflot. Aeroflot continued the good work of its predecessors. On

15 December 1933, the final link to the east was completed, by an extension from Irkutsk to Vladivostok (see page 24). Moving up the learning curve, an Aeroflot PS-9 (version of the ANT-9) opened up the first all-Soviet westward route on 31 August 1935, to Prague, Czechoslovakia. The joint Soviet – German airline Deruluft was wound up on 31 March 1937, and in the same year Aeroflot service began from Leningrad to Stockholm, Sweden, in cooperation with A. B.A. The expan­sion of the Soviet airline was gathering momentum.

Wright J6 Whirlwind (3 x 300hp) ■ MTOW 6,000kg (13,2001b) ■ Normal Range 1,000km (620mi) ■ Length 17m (56ft) ■ Span 24m (79ft)

Tupolev Makes His Mark

Andrei Tupolev produced his first multi-engined type, the ANT-9 nine-seat passenger trans­port, which first flew on 7 May 1929, and was publicly presented in Red Square. It had a metal corrugated fuselage and wing, fixed landing gear, and air-cooled engines, initially Gnome – Rhone Titans. Compared with previous Tupolev designs, it not only looked more elegant and aerodynamically efficient, its performance matched its looks.

Wings of the Soviets

On 10 July 1929, the same day when a common flag was adopted for the civil aviation fleet of the U. S.S. R., Mikhail Gromov took off in the prototype ANT-9, named Krylya Sovyetov (Soviet Wings), on a tour of Europe that included five foreign capital cities. He returned in triumph on 8 August. For the first time, the Soviet Union had an airliner that was possibly the best in Europe. Indeed, there is a report that, calling as it did twice in Berlin, it influenced the Junkers firm to convert the Ju 52 from a single-engined aircraft into a tri-motor. The ANT-9 went into service with Deruluft and Dobrolet early in 1931, initially as a tri-motor with M-26, later U. S. engines. Production of the ANT-9 totaled 75, of which 60 were М-17-powered twins, known as PS-9s, and the type remained in the fleet of Aeroflot until the end of the Second World War.

The tri-motor ANT-9 prototype URSS-309 Krylya Sovyetov (Soviet Wings) at Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport in July 1929, during Mikhail Gromov’s second European tour. Note the three waiters in the fore­ground preparing champagne for the dignitaries, (photo: Lufthansa)

Izotov (2x 400shp) Ш MTOW 3,500kg (7,7001b) Ш Normal Range 240km (148mi) Ш Length 12m(39ft) Ш Rotor Diameter 15m(48ft)

First of the Mils

The Mil Mi-1, of orthodox helicopter design, with a single main rotor and anti-torque rotor mounted on a tail boom, was the first Soviet helicopter to go into series production. As the first of the long line, making its first flight in 1948, it went through the teething troubles of all infants, and its early years were almost in the nature of experimental research. Most Mi-ls had three-bladed rotors, and during the development period, the life of both the blades and the rotor head were considerably improved, while the overhaul of the Ivchenko engines went from TBOs of about 150 up to more than 1,000. They were used mainly by the Soviet Air Force, but Aeroflot began to take delivery in May 1954, using them for agriculture, forest patrol, ambu­lance, and other aerial work, and occasionally for carrying passengers in mountainous areas.

The Mil Mi-4

Carrying only three passengers besides the pilot, the Mil Mi-l’s work load was limited. By 1952, in response to a specification, directly from the Kremlin, for a larger machine, Mil produced the Mi-4 (there was no Mi-3; and the Mi-2, curiously, came later), in competition with Yakovlev’s Yak-24 design. It too had early problems, but necessity was the mother of invention. Four-blad – ed rotors made from a steel tube/wooden rib/plywood-and-fabric combination gave way to all­metal construction, including honeycomb sections. Magnesium corrosion led to replacement by aluminum parts. But when all was done, a good aircraft emerged and, as noted on the opposite page, the Mi-4 had the honor to open the first regularly scheduled helicopter airline service in the Soviet Union, carrying between eight and eleven passengers on each flight.

The Mil Mi-2

Mikhail Mil had already taken advantage of the light weight of turbine engines when he pro­duced the Mil Mi-6, world’s largest helicopter at the time, in the autumn of 1957. He then turned his attention to sharpening the performance of the smaller craft. In essence, he used two smaller and lighter turbine engines to make a new version of the Mi-1. By placing the engines above the fuselage, there was room enough for eight passengers. This was almost as much as the larger Mil Mi-4 could carry, so that essentially the Mil Mi-2 was able to replace both of the older types.

True, the passenger cabin was a little more cramped. The Mi-2’s 4.47m (14ft 8in) length was a foot longer than the Mi-4’s; but its 1.2m (4ft) width and 1.4m (4ft 7in) height were almost two feet narrower and more than a foot shorter, respectively. But this did not seem to matter, as helicopter journeys are invariably of short duration, and the clientele does not need either to stand up or to move about.

Equally, the Mi-2’s range was inferior to that of both predecessors; but this could be improved by supplementary tanks, if necessary. In compensation, the Mi-2’s speed was 25 per­cent more than the Mi-4’s and 50 percent more than the Mi-l’s.

Rotor-blade technology was impressive. Of bonded construction entirely, the three-bladed main rotor was equipped with leading-edge electro-thermal de-icing, with a 2,000-hour or more life. The anti-torque tail rotor had only two blades. Altogether, the Mil Mi-2 emerged as a thor­oughly reliable, modern aircraft of advanced construction, and it took its place in Aeroflot’s inventory from 1967 onwards as a standard type which has stood the acid test of time and strin­gent operational conditions.

The Beginning

Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, the extension of the railroad system has always been a constant economic objec­tive, to provide the logistics connection between the sources of wealth, particularly mineral wealth, and especially in the far reaches of the Asian territories. Gradually, branches of line sprouted from the Trans-Siberian Railway, often linking it with northerly ports on the great rivers, the Ob, the Yenesei, and the Lena. Of these, the most remote was the Lena, whose source is close to Lake Baikal, but which flows northeast through what was, until recently, largely uncharted territory.

By 1950, a line had reached Bratsk, site of a huge hydro­electric station under construction, and during the next decade, this was extended to Ust’ Kut, on the Lena. For the first time, albeit only during the May-October summer sea­son, when the Lena was ice-free, the historic trading center of Yakutsk, surrounded by newly-established satellite mining sites of great wealth, was linked with Moscow by a modem surface transport system.

Birth of the BAM

On 8 July 1974, the Supreme Soviet officially declared the cre­ation of a railroad construction program of great magnitude. The Baikal-Amur Magistral (Main Line, or Artery), or the BAM, was to parallel the Trans-Siberian Railway over about 3,500km (2,200mi) of its eastern length. This action took place at a time when relations between the Soviet Union and China were cool, and the BAM was widely perceived as a defensive measure against the possible cutting of the Trans­Sib by an attacking force. But the BAM also opened up vast possibilities for improving the access to the riches of Siberian mineral wealth.

Preliminary surveys had started on 30 April 1974, using Mil Mi-2 and Mi-8 helicopters. But progress at first was handicapped by the onset of an early winter — in August! Housing for the workers was incomplete, and one of the first tasks for the growing armada of supporting aircraft was to bring 2,500 tons of heating equipment to the first construc­tion sites. The first workers arrived on the Ulkan River on 28

October 1974, and in the following year, in a Soviet equiva­lent of “Go West Young Man," teams of Komsomol (Young Communist Workers League) headed east in their thousands.

Rail-Air Cooperation

Aviation, including the resources of Aeroflot, supported BAM during the entire period of its construction, with main­line connections to cities on the trans-Siberian Railway, and countless sorties by feeder aircraft, fixed wing and rotary wing. Other than the 3,500km (2,175mi) of track, the mainly Komsomol teams built 2,237 bridges, established 60 cities, some of them now large centers, as well as many villages. Hundreds of thousands of passenger flights were made, and supplies for the 22 special construction trains and 37 mecha­nized columns, and the hundreds of bridging and tunneling units, were carried largely by air, until the BAM line was pro­gressively completed.

Industrial Giant

In the early 1990s, the world witnessed the dissolution of a political and industrial empire. In the production of many min­eral and agricultural resources, it was among the world’s lead­ers. Though marked by a uniformity of design, Soviet manufac­turing continuously revealed impressive statistics of volume production. This demanded concentrated labor and equipment, concentrated into big cities. In this respect, the Soviet Union was no different from the United States, Europe, or Japan.

Urban Concentrations

By 1990, the U. S.S. R. had 52 cities with more than half a mil­lion inhabitants each. About half of these had populations of more than a million. Leningrad had five million, and Moscow’s eleven ranked it among the top half dozen conurba­tions in the world. Thirty of the 52 are in Russia, a reminder that the new regime is still a powerful force in the industrial world. Nine are in Ukraine, which, of the breakaway republics, alone has a balanced economy of world stature.

Of great significance to Aeroflot is the geographi­cal distribution of the urban concentrations. Of the 52 big cities, only 15 are more than 2,000km (l,250mi) and only three are more than 4,000km (2,500mi) from Moscow.

The domestic market for a long-range Ilyushin 11-86 is thus very small.

Conversely, only three major cities are within 400km (250mi) of Moscow, and only Gorki (Nizhni Novgorod) has more than one million people. It was the destination for Dobrolet’s first service in 1923, but is hardly a natu­ral air route in the jet age.

St Petersburg (Leningrad), is connected to Moscow by a good railway service, with future high-speed rail potential.

The pictures taken of the Il’ya Muromets in 1914 necessarily show the aircraft at low altitude, because few other aircraft could position themselves to match the Sikorsky giant at 1,800m (6,000ft), an altitude already achieved by the summer. Any doubts about its performance, however, were quickly dis­pelled. On 30 June of that year, the Il’ya Muromets, with a crew of three as well as Sikorsky in command, flew from St

The famous picture of the Il’ya Muromets —probably the Russian Knight prototype — flying low over the airfield at St Petersburg in 1913 or 1914. (photo: United Technologies)

Petersburg to Kiev, with only one stop, to refuel, at Orsha. Taking off at 1.00 a. m. from Korpusnoi airfield, the crew arrived triumphantly at Kiev in the early afternoon of the next day. On 12 July, they returned to St Petersburg, this time covering the 1,060km (660mi) in only 13 hours.

But a month later, the Lights Went Out in Europe, and Russia was swept into the Great War. The Sikorsky aircraft were put into production, to be used for reconnaissance and for bombing, and gave a good account of themselves.

ІГуа Muromets

6 SEATS ■ 80km/h (50mph)

Argus (4 x lOOhp) ■ MTOW 4,200kg (9,2601b) ■ Normal Range 170km (105mi)

MARTIN 156 50 SEATS ■ 225km/h (140mph)

Wright Cyclone GR-1820-G2 (4 x 850hp) ■ MTOW 28,100kg (62,0001b) ■ Normal Range 2,000km (l,200mi) ■ Length 28m (92ft) ■ Span 48m (157ft)

The Savoia-Marchetti S.55P

Local services began to develop In the Far East area. A circular route was established to some small communities to the north and east of Blagoveschensk, with Polikarpov Po-2 and Shavrov Sh-2 amphibians, and the Junkers Ju 13s were replaced with larger aircraft. Aeroflot negotiated for five Savoia-Marchetti S.55P twin-boom flying boats, the same type that had been used by Marshal Balbo in the famous trans-Atlantic squadron flight from Italy to Brazil in 1930. The S.55P inaugurated Aeroflot service to Petropavlovsk in 1933, by the circuitous route around the Sea of Okhotsk (see map opposite), the aircraft having been delivered from Italy by a circuitous route via the Black Sea, the great Russian rivers, as well as Lake Baikal.

The Russian Clipper

Flying to Sakhalin, and especially to Kamchatka, was an adventure, and the journey by S.55P to Petropavlovsk usually took about five or six days in the summer. Accordingly, Aeroflot upgraded to larger equipment, the Martin 156, the so-called ‘Russian Clipper’, an improved version of the famous China Clipper Martin 130 delivered to Pan American Airways in 1935.

The Far East Region of Aeroflot needed an aircraft that could combine a good payload with a good range, enough to traverse the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk, preferably non­stop from Khabarovsk to Petropavlovsk. The Glenn Martin (as it was always referred to in Russia) could normally carry 50 passengers, and on shorter trips, for example, Khabarovsk to Nikolayevsk-na-Amure, it could carry 70. The Martin 156 — designated SP-30 by Aeroflot — was delivered in 1940 and operated successfully during the summer months until 1944, when it had to be retired because of the difficulty in obtaining spare parts.

The Clipper was replaced by the Consolidated Catalina in 1943 or 1944. Three Consolidated Model 28-ls had been imported from the U. S. in 1938 and, from 1940, license pro­duction of the type was undertaken at Taganrov, on the Sea of Azov, as the GST (Gidro Samolyet Transportnyi, or hydro aircraft transport) for the Soviet Navy. A few civil examples, designated MP-7, were delivered to Aeroflot. Some Lisunov Li-2s are believed to have been used also.

Catching Up

The Soviet Union had had the honor of starting the world’s first sustained jet airline service, with the Tupolev Tu-104 in 1956 (see pages 44-45) but this success had to be qualified with the reservation that such service was only short-haul. When the British Comet 4 and the American Boeing 707 launched the North Atlantic jet services in 1958, this marked the true begin­ning of the global jet age, and almost a decade was to pass before Aeroflot was able to start jet service across the ocean.

Casting its eyes around for inspiration, the Soviet industry undoubtedly reviewed it options, and selected the British Vickers VC10, possibly the best of all the narrow-bodied long – range jets of the west; although its specific operating costs — less important in the Soviet-style economic environment — were marginally worse than those of the Boeing 707s and DC-8s. Much has been said about the apparent Soviet custom of copying western designs; but there was no point in trying to re-invent the wheel. Critics on this design aspect often choose to forgdt the similarity to the Caravelle of the DC-9 and the ВАС One-Eleven, or between the Boeing 727 and the Trident. The Ilyushin 11-62, the so-called copy of the VC10, had its problems, but far more have been built, and it has lasted far longer in front-line service than has its British look-alike.

The Ilyushin 11-62

It first flew on 3 January 1963, yet the first recorded proving flight, from Moscow to Khabarovsk, was not made until 2 February 1966. This was apparently after problems with the

Kuznetsov turbofan engines and with the line of the leading edge of the swept-back-wing had been overcome. The rear – engined configuration was apparently satisfactory. But anoth­er year passed before a regular freight service began, on the same route, on 1 March 1967. Aeroflot put the Ilyushin 11-62 into full passenger service, from Moscow to Khabarovsk and to Novosibirsk, on 10 March, and a third non-stop direct route was added, to Tashkent, of 14 July.

Service to the United States

The Tupolev Tu-114 had already established trans-Atlantic service for Aeroflot, both to friendly Cuba and to fairly friend­ly Canada (see pages 52-53). With the 11-62, the time now seemed appropriate to start a commercial airline connection directly to the U. S.A., even though the Cold War still raged in a political atmosphere that was, if not actively hostile, cloud­ed with deep suspicion on both sides. Moving methodically towards its goal, Aeroflot first introduced the 11-62 on the Montreal route, on a proving flight on 11 July 1967, then in full scheduled service two months later, on 15 September. The journey time of the jet airliner, 9hr 50min, compared favorably with the superseded turboprop’s 12hr 5min.

Preparations were made for one of the most important inaugurals of Aeroflot’s history. On 15 July 1968, the Ilyushin 11-62 began scheduled service from Moscow to New York, via Shannon, Ireland, and Gander, Newfoundland. As yet, the aircraft could not make the journey in either direction with­out making these two intermediate stops.

A Taste of the Sixth Freedom

During the introductory period of 1967, the 11-62 had also entered service on some of the more prestigious routes into western Europe, notably to Rome, on 9 October, and to Paris five days later, as well as replacing the 11-18 and the Tu-104 on the route to Delhi. The time-saving on these routes was not significant, but on the longer ones, to the Far East, it was enough to give Aeroflot an unprecedented opportunity to exploit the geography of its sovereign airspace, by providing a swift connection from the European capitals to Japan. Accordingly, on 29 March 1970, the Soviet airline began a through service with Il-62s from Paris to Tokyo, via Moscow, and by flying a great circle route across Siberia. This saved time, by as much as six hours, over the so-called Polar route flown by Air France, northwestwards across Greenland, and stopping at Anchorage, Alaska.

This device of circumventing the familiar Fifth Freedom traffic rights (to serve two countries by an airline foreign to both) by a convenient technical stop at an intermediate domestic point had been tried before, but had been frowned upon by international agencies such as 1ATA and ICAO. Possibly because the nations of Europe and else­where cherished the prospect of over-flying the U. S.S. R. themselves, Aeroflot’s Sixth Freedom activity did not cause too much international concern. London received the Aeroflot privilege on 3 June 1970, Copenhagen on 31 March 1971, Rome on 11 June 1973, and Frankfurt on 31 July 1973.

28 SEATS ■ 200km/h (125mph)

The Thoroughbred

Rather as the Mil Design Bureau had developed the Mi-1 into the far superior Mi-2 by conversion to turbine power, so, in 1960, it turned its attention to doing the same with the Mi-4. The Mil Mi-8 first flew in 1961, and by the following year had been further improved with a five-blade rotor. It could carry 28 passengers — about the same as a DC-3/Li-2 — and for freight use, its rear fuselage was fitted with clam-shell doors.

Such a combination of characteristics made the Mi-8 into a thoroughbred aircraft, reliable and versatile. For example, during the construction of the BAM Railroad during a typi­cal year, 1976, seventeen construction organizations together employed helicopters for almost 22,000 flying hours. Almost exactly half of these were with Mil Mi-8s.

Helicopter Capital of the World

The Tyumen region of Russia, with its world’s largest deposits of natural gas, and one of the world’s largest producers of crude oil, has been remarkable for its extensive use of heavy – lift helicopters for pipe-laying and as flying cranes for build­ing tall towers for electricity transmission lines. Thus, the Mi-8 was quickly found to be an essential maid-of-all-work. The Tyumen sub-division of Aeroflot (or Tyumen Aviatrans, T. A.T. under the new reorganization) lists 450 helicopters in its fleet inventory of 660 aircraft. No less than 360 of the rotorcraft are Mil Mi-8s. Other regions of Aeroflot do not boast such numbers, but more than 1,000 Mi-8s are to be found east of the Urals alone.

Holiday-makers disembark from a Mil Mi-8 at the helicopter pad at Yalta. (Boris Vdovienko)

A Mil Mi-8 on an improvised ‘pad’ of oil pipes on the Yamal Peninsula, in northwest Siberia.

The good ship Inniy, stuck in the Arctic ice, but with a Mil Mi-8 available to prove that all is not lost. (Photos: Vasily Каїру)

In 1838, in Riga under Tsarist Russia, in the area known as Courland, but now the capital of Latvia — the Russko-Baltiski Vagoni Zavod (R-BVZ), the Russo-Baltic Wagon Works, was founded. It became the largest builder of railroad cars in Russia which, during the nineteenth century, built up an extensive rail network, mainly in Europe, but extending, from 1891 to 1904, to the Pacific Ocean via the Trans-Siberian Railway. In 1905, the R-BVZ started to build motor cars, producing the Russobalts, some of which were purchased by the Tsar. The Riga works also turned out farm machinery and tramcars. It was a company of considerable stature in the Russian industrial world.

In 1910, it widened its horizons further by forming an aeronautical division, building French aircraft, mainly those designed by Roger Sommer. Such progressive flexibility was inspired by the remarkable general director of R-BVZ, Mikhail V. Shidlovsky, who decided to move the aeronautical division to St Petersburg in 1912, to occupy some old factory buildings on the north bank of the Neva River. His attention was drawn to the creative talents of a young man from Kiev, and on the advice of Baron General Kaulbars, Igor Sikorsky became the chief designer of R-BVZ’s aircraft works in St Petersburg. He was not yet 23 years old.

Le Grand

Early in 1912, Sikorsky had, with the help of friends from the Kiev Polytechnic, built, after earli­er experimental types, the S-6B biplane, powered by a lOOhp German Argus engine, a type favored by Sikorsky until the Great War cut off supplies. On 14 March he established a record by carrying four passengers at a speed of 106km/(65mph). The S-6B then won a competition against seven other aircraft, including foreign entries; but Sikorsky decided to eliminate the ever-present danger of disaster through engine failure, simply by having more than one. On 17 September 1912, he persuaded Shidlovsky (who, in turn, persuaded the R-BVZ board and the Russian Army) to allow him to build a twin-engined version of the S-6B.

This aircraft, which was to become Le Grand, was built by master carpenters. Its fuselage was
made of four main ash longerons, framed by transverse and vertical members of pinewood, braced with piano wire and additional pine tie-rods, covered with a skin of 4mm (0.15in) Kostovich Arborit, a Russian patented plywood. The doped fabric-covered wings had the high aspect ration of 12-1. Sixteen Nieuport IV wheels, in eight pairs were used for the landing gear. The most remark­able feature was the cabin, which featured wicker armchairs, a table, electric lights, curtained win­dows, glass paneled doors between the cabin and thecockpit, and even a toilet in the rear.