THE FIRST ROCKET PLANES The RP-1

Tsander did more than just generate fancy ideas. He set about turning his ideas into practice in the late 1920s with the development of an experimental rocket engine called the OR-1. In the autumn of 1931 Tsander took the initiative to establish an amateur group to study the practical aspects of rocketry and space exploration. Called the Group for the Investigation of Reactive Motion (GIRD), one of its four sections aimed to install rocket engines on gliders and thereby create a high-altitude aircraft, an idea promoted by the young engineer Sergey P. Korolyov. The engine to be used initially would be Tsander’s OR-2. Generating 50 kg of thrust, it used gasoline and liquid oxygen as propellants and had sophisticated features such as regenerative cooling of the combustion chamber using gaseous oxygen, a nozzle­cooling system using water, and a pressure feed system using nitrogen.

In early 1932 a decision was made to put the OR-2 on the BICH-11 flying wing glider. The resulting rocket plane, called RP-1, would be a modest machine, capable of developing a speed of 140 km/h, reaching an altitude of 1.5 km, and staying in the air for just about 7 minutes. However, GIRD had plans for more sophisticated rocket planes, including the RP-3, a two-man plane using a combination of piston and rocket engines to reach altitudes of 10-12 km [1].

While development of the engine got underway, Korolyov himself made several unpowered test flights of the BICH-11 to test its flying characteristics. Before tests of the engine got underway, the overworked and frail Tsander was sent to a sanatorium in the Caucasus, but contracted typhoid fever on the way and passed away on 28 March 1933 at the age of 45. His infectious enthusiasm was surely missed by the GIRD team. Korolyov’s daughter would later describe Tsander as an “adult child’’ in everyday affairs, but the “highest authority’’ in rocket matters [2]. One cannot even begin to imagine what further contributions this man could have made to Soviet rocketry had he not died such an untimely death.

Tests of the OR-2 engine in 1933 proved unsatisfactory and attempts to replace the gasoline by ethanol to facilitate cooling did not produce the expected results either. Modifying the glider to carry a rocket engine also turned out to be more difficult than expected, with one of the requirements being to drop the fuel tanks in flight to increase safety. Before the RP-1 ever had a chance to make a powered flight, GIRD was forced to change direction.