BICh-17

Purpose: Single-seat fighter.

Design bureau: USP (Control of Special Work) organised by I B Kurchevskii, to which Cheranovskii was invited.

Kurchevskii was the designer of a family of APK and DRP recoilless guns of large calibre (45, 76.2, 80 and 100mm). These operated by firing a projectile down the barrel and a near­ly equal mass plus gun gas from a rear nozzle. Fighters fitted with such guns included the

Grigorovich I-Z and Tupolev ANT-29 and ANT – 46. Cheranovskii completed the design of the BICh-17 in 1935, but in February 1936 Kurchevskii was arrested and his design bu­reau ‘liquidated’. By this time the BICh-17 was ’60 per cent complete’.

No detailed documentation on this fighter survives, but the drawing shows that it was a typical Cheranovskii ‘parabola’ design. The structure was wood, with skins of birch shpon (multi-ply veneer), the wing having detachable outer panels. The engine was a 480hp M-22 (imported or licence-made Bristol Jupiter) driving a two-blade propeller. The main landing gears retracted, probably inwards, and the elevators were divided into inner and outer sections by the two 80mm APK guns. The pilot sat under a typical Cheranovskii upward-hinged canopy which formed the front part of the fin. Aircraft left incomplete.