Soviet flying submarine. flying submarine

The aircraft detects the enemy from the air and delivers a disorienting blow. Then, having retired from the line of sight, the car sits on the water and plunges to a depth of several meters in a minute and a half. The target is destroyed by an unexpected torpedo strike. In case of a miss, the device rises to the surface in two minutes and takes off to repeat the air attack. A bunch of three similar machines creates an impenetrable barrier for any enemy ship. Designer Boris Petrovich Ushakov saw his flying submarine like this

Edition PM

Flight tactical characteristics LPL Crew: 3 pers. // Takeoff weight: 15,000 kg // Flight speed: 100 (~200) knots. (km/h) // Flight range: 800 km // Ceiling: 2500 m // Number and type of aircraft engines: 3 x AM-34 // Takeoff power: 3 x 1200 hp // Max. add. takeoff/landing and dive roughness: 4-5 points // Underwater speed: 4-5 knots // Diving depth: 45 m // Submerged range: 45 miles // Underwater autonomy: 48 h // Propeller power: 10 hp // Dive time: 1.5 min // Ascent time: 1.8 min // Armament: 18-in. torpedo: 2 pcs. coaxial machine gun: 2 pcs.

Winged submarine Donald Reid Commander-2 Developed with the participation of the US Navy in 1964, this submarine, in the form in which it is depicted in the diagram and drawing, never existed in reality

Submarine Conveir, 1964: this project could have become one of the most successful in the development of winged submarines, if not for the resistance of US Senator Allen Elender, who unexpectedly closed funding

The Cormorant unmanned submarine developed by Skunk Works (USA) and tested as a full-size model in 2006. All details about this project are hidden under the heading "top secret"

Of course, such a project could not fail to appear. If you have an amphibious vehicle, why not teach a plane to dive underwater? It all started in the 30s. Second-year cadet of the Higher Naval Engineering School. F.E. Dzerzhinsky (Leningrad) Boris Petrovich Ushakov embodied on paper the idea of ​​a flying submarine (LPL), or rather, an underwater aircraft.

In 1934, he provided a voluminous folder of drawings along with a report to the department of his university. The project for a long time "walked" through the corridors, departments and offices of the school, received the stamp "secret"; Ushakov more than once finalized the scheme of the submarine in accordance with the comments received. In 1935, he received three copyright certificates for various components of his design, and in April 1936 the project was sent for consideration by the Scientific Research Military Committee (NIVK, later TsNIIVK) and at the same time to the Naval Academy. A large role was played by a detailed and generally positive report on the work of Ushakov, prepared by Captain 1st Rank A.P. Surin.

It was only in 1937 that the project was endorsed by the NIVK professor, the head of the department of tactics of combat weapons, Leonid Egorovich Goncharov: “It is desirable to continue the development of the project in order to reveal the reality of its implementation,” the professor wrote. The document was also studied and approved by the head of the NIVK, a military engineer of the 1st rank, Karl Leopoldovich Grigaitis. In 1937-1938, however, the project continued to "walk" along the corridors. Nobody believed in its reality. At first, he was included in the work plan of department "B" of the NIVK, where, after graduating from college, Ushakov entered as a military technician of the 1st rank, then he was excluded again, and the young inventor continued to work on his own.

plane aquarium

The submarine aircraft gradually acquired the final appearance and "stuffing". Outwardly, the device looked much more like an airplane than a submarine. An all-metal machine weighing 15 tons with a crew of three was theoretically supposed to reach speeds of up to 200 km / h and have a flight range of 800 km. The speed under water is 3-4 knots, the diving depth is 45 m, the range of the "swim" is 5-6 km. The aircraft was supposed to be driven by three 1000-horsepower AM-34 engines designed by Alexander Mikulin. Superchargers allowed the engines to carry out short-term forcing with an increase in power up to 1200 hp.

It is worth noting that at that time AM-34s were the most promising aircraft engines manufactured in the USSR. The design of the 12-cylinder piston power unit in many respects anticipated the development of aircraft engines of the well-known companies Rolls-Royce, Daimler-Benz and Packard - only the technical "closedness" of the USSR prevented Mikulin from gaining worldwide fame.

Inside, the aircraft had six sealed compartments: three for engines, one residential, one for a battery, and one for a 10 hp propeller motor. The living compartment was not the cockpit, but was used only for scuba diving. The cockpit was flooded during the dive, as was a number of leaky compartments. This made it possible to make part of the fuselage from lightweight materials that were not designed for high pressure. The wings were completely filled with water by gravity through the scuppers on the flaps - to equalize the internal and external pressure.

The fuel and oil supply systems were turned off shortly before full immersion. At the same time, the pipelines were sealed. The aircraft was covered with anti-corrosion coatings (lacquer and paint). The dive took place in four stages: first, the engine compartments were battened down, then the radiator and battery compartments, then the control was switched to underwater, and finally, the crew moved into a sealed compartment. The aircraft was armed with two 18-inch torpedoes and two machine guns.

On January 10, 1938, the project was re-examined by the second department of the NIVK. Nevertheless, everyone understood that the project was "raw" and huge funds would be spent on its implementation, and the result could be zero. The years were very dangerous, there were mass repressions, and it was possible to get under a hot hand even for an inadvertently dropped word or a “wrong” surname. The Committee put forward a number of serious comments, expressing doubts about the ability of Ushakov's plane to take to the skies, catch up with the departing ship under water, etc. To divert attention, it was proposed to make a model and test it in the pool. There is no more mention of the Soviet submarine aircraft. Ushakov worked for many years in shipbuilding on ekranoplans and air-winged ships. And from the flying boat, only diagrams and drawings remained.

Engine under the hood

A project similar to Ushakov's in the United States appeared many years later. As in the USSR, its author was an enthusiast whose work was considered insane and unrealizable. A fanatical designer and inventor, electronics engineer Donald Reid has been developing submarines and creating models of them since 1954. At some point, he came up with the idea to build the world's first flying submarine.

Raid collected a number of models of flying submarines, and when he was convinced of their performance, he proceeded to assemble a full-fledged apparatus. To do this, he used mainly parts from a decommissioned aviation technology. Reid assembled the first copy of the Reid RFS-1 submarine by 1961. The aircraft was registered as an aircraft under the number N1740 and was powered by a 65-horsepower 4-cylinder Lycoming aircraft engine. In 1962, an RFS-1 aircraft piloted by Donald Bruce's son flew 23 meters over the surface of the Shrewsbury River in New Jersey. Immersion experiments could not be carried out: serious design flaws affected.

To turn the aircraft into a submarine, the pilot had to remove the propeller and close the engine with a rubber cap, working on the principle of a diving bell. An electric motor with a power of 1 hp was located in the tail. (for movement under water). The cockpit was not airtight - the pilot was forced to use scuba gear.

Reid wrote a series about the project popular science magazines, and in 1964 the US Navy became interested in him. In the same year, the second instance of the boat, Commander-2, was built (the first one received the “military” name Commander-1). On July 9, 1964, the aircraft reached a speed of 100 km/h and made its first dive. In the first model of the aircraft, when immersed, the remaining fuel from the tanks was pumped out into the reservoir, and water was pumped into the tanks to make the structure heavier. Thus, the RFS-1 could no longer take off again. The second modification was supposed to get rid of this drawback, but it didn’t come to that, since the entire structure would have to be reworked. After all, fuel tanks were also used as diving tanks.

However, the design turned out to be too thin and light to be used for military purposes. Soon, the leadership of the Navy lost interest in the project and curtailed funding. Until his death in 1991, Reid tried to "advance" his project, but did not achieve success.

In 2004, his son Bruce wrote and published the book The Flying Submarine: The History of the Invention of the Raid Flying Submarine RFS-1. The RFS-1 aircraft itself is kept at the Pennsylvania Aviation Museum.

However, some sources claim that Reid's project has been developed. The US Navy decided to build the "Airship" (Aeroship) - a twin-body aircraft capable of diving under water. Allegedly in 1968 at the World Industrial Exhibition, this aircraft made a spectacular landing on the water, and then diving and surfacing. However, the official program of the exhibition that year (held in San Antonio) did not include a demonstration of a submarine aircraft. Further traces of this design are lost under the heading "secret".

Underwater rock of the 1960s

In April 1945, a man named Houston Harrington suddenly appeared on the horizon, applying for a patent for "Combining an Aircraft and a Submarine." The patent was received on December 25, but things did not go further. Harrington's submarine looked very beautiful, but nothing is known about its flight data or underwater qualities. Subsequently, Harrington became famous in the United States as the owner of the record label Atomic-H.

Another patent for a similar design was obtained in the US in 1956. It was created by the American Donald Doolittle (together with Reid). This design was repelled rather than from an aircraft, but from a submarine. Movement under water was traditionally provided by an electric motor, but the flight was carried out using two jet engines.

In 1964, Conveir offered the US Air Force the development of a small submarine aircraft. Documents were presented - drawings, diagrams and even some fantastic "photos". Conveir received from the Bureau of Naval Weapons technical task, which included a speed of 280-420 km / h, a diving depth of 460 m, a flight range of 555-955 km, etc. Despite the clearly overstated requirements, the contract was concluded.

The project implemented Reid's idea of ​​using fuel tanks as diving tanks, but the fuel was not drained, but entered into other special tanks - to better distribute the load under water. The living compartment and the engine compartment were sealed, the rest of the submarine was filled with water. In the manufacture of the submarine, it was planned to use ultra-light and heavy-duty materials, including titanium. The team consisted of two people. Several models were made and successfully tested.

The denouement came unexpectedly: in 1966, the well-known Senator Allen Elender, head of the Senate Arms Committee, frankly ridiculed the project and ordered the development to be stopped. A full-size sample was never made.

Locked down border

Inventors are in no hurry to create Vehicle for two environments. The main problem is the high density difference between air and water. While an aircraft should be as light as possible, a submarine, on the contrary, tends to be heavier in order to achieve maximum efficiency. It is necessary to create completely different aerodynamic and hydrodynamic concepts for water and for air. For example, the wings that support the aircraft in the air only get in the way underwater. Structural strength also plays an important role and leads to the weight of the boat-aircraft, since such a unit must withstand very high water pressure.

Developed by Skunk Works, the Cormorant (“Cormorant”) project is an unmanned aerial vehicle driven by two jet engines. "Baklan" can be launched from special underwater carriers - Ohio-class submarines. The reserve of the underwater course of the "Cormorant" is very small - only to get to the surface, and then, after completing the surface task, return to the carrier. Under water, the wings of the drone are folded and do not interfere with movement.

The body of the aircraft is made of titanium, there are no voids in it (they are filled with a material similar to foam), and the geometry of the body resembles a cross between a seagull and Stealth.

Tests of individual Baklan systems were carried out, its reduced model was tested, as well as a full-scale model, devoid of part of the structural elements. But since 2007, there has been practically no information about the developments of the Cormorant, probably falling under the classic heading "top secret".

Hangar on I-400

Seaplane Seiran M6A1, based on Japanese submarine aircraft carriers of the I-400 type

The Japanese navy of World War II had large submarines capable of transporting up to several light seaplanes (similar submarines were also built in France). The aircraft were stored folded in a special hangar inside the submarine. The takeoff was carried out in the surface position of the boat, after the aircraft was taken out of the hangar and assembled. On the deck in the bow of the submarine there were special short-launch catapult skids, from which the aircraft rose into the sky. After the flight was completed, the aircraft splashed down and retracted back into the boat hangar.

In September of the year, a Yokosuka E14Y aircraft, taking off from an I-25 boat, raided Oregon (USA), dropping two 76-kilogram firebombs, which, as expected, were supposed to cause extensive fires in forest areas, which, however, did not occur and the effect was negligible. But the attack had a great psychological effect, since the method of attack was not known [ ] . This was the only bombing of the continental United States during the entire war.

Japan

1. Project J-1M - "I-5" (1 reconnaissance seaplane, water launch)
2. Project J-2 - "I-6" (1 reconnaissance seaplane, catapult launch)
3. Project J-3 - "I-7", "I-8" (-//-)
4. project 29 type "B" - 20 pieces (-//-)
5. … type "B-2" - 6 pcs (-//-)
6. ... type "B-3" - 3 pcs (boats had hangars, but they never carried aircraft - they were converted to "Kaiten")
7. Project A-1 - 3 pcs (1 reconnaissance seaplane, launched from a catapult)
8. Type I-400 - 3 pcs (3 seaplanes Aichi M6A Seiran)
9. Type "AM" - 4 pcs (2 seaplane bombers "Seiran" ("Seiran")), 2 not completed.

The last two types were intended for strikes against the Panama Locks, but there is no information about their combat use as aircraft carriers.

Great Britain

After the loss of the heavily armed boat HMS M1 (English) and restrictions on submarine weapons introduced by the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922, the remaining M-class submarines were converted for other purposes. The boat HMS M2 It was equipped with a waterproof hangar and a steam catapult and was adapted for taking off and landing small seaplanes. The submarine and its aircraft could be used for reconnaissance purposes in the vanguard of the fleet. The M2 sank near Portland and the British Navy abandoned its submarine carriers.

France

Submarine Surkuf built in 1930 - was lost in 1942. She was equipped with a light seaplane in the hangar for reconnaissance and fire control of the main caliber of the submarine - 203-millimeter guns.

USSR

In 1937, TsKB-18, under the leadership of B. M. Malinin, developed submarines of the XIV bis series (project 41a), which were planned to be equipped with the Hydro-1 seaplane (SPL, Aircraft for a Submarine), developed in OKB N. V . Chetverikov in 1935 . The boat hangar was designed to be 2.5 meters in diameter and 7.5 meters long. The aircraft had a flight weight of 800 kg and a speed of up to 183 km/h. Preparing the aircraft for flight was supposed to take about 5 minutes, folding after the flight - about 4 minutes. The project was not implemented.

present tense

Submarine aviation is not used in modern submarine shipbuilding. In the USSR, a project was developed for the Ka-56 Osa reconnaissance helicopter, adapted for transportation in a torpedo tube. The project did not go into series due to the lack of suitable rotary engines in the USSR.

UAVs are being developed in the United States for submarines, in particular, Ohio-class strategic missile carriers that are being decommissioned and have 24 missile silos with a diameter of 2.4 m each.

In the article brought to your attention, we will try to understand the current state and prospects naval aviation Russian Navy. Well, for starters, let's remember what the domestic naval aviation was like in the days of the USSR.

As is known, due to a number of different reasons, the USSR did not rely on aircraft carriers or carrier-based aviation in the construction of the navy. However, this does not mean that in our country they did not understand the importance of naval aviation in general - on the contrary! In the 80s of the last century, it was believed that this type of force is one of the most important components of the navy. Naval aviation (more precisely, the Air Force of the USSR Navy, but for the sake of brevity, we will use the term "naval aviation" regardless of how it was specifically called in a particular historical period) was entrusted with many important tasks, in including:

1. Search and destroy:
- enemy missile and multi-purpose submarines;
- enemy surface formations, including aircraft carrier strike groups, amphibious assault forces, convoys, naval strike and anti-submarine groups, as well as single warships;
- transports, aircraft and cruise missiles of the enemy;

2. Ensuring the deployment and actions of the forces of its fleet, including in the form of air defense of ships and fleet facilities;

3. Conducting aerial reconnaissance, guidance and issuing target designations to other branches of the Navy forces;

4. Destruction and suppression of objects of the air defense system in the flight paths of own aircraft, in the areas of problem solving;

5. Destruction of naval bases, ports and destruction of ships and transports located in them;

6. Ensuring the landing of amphibious assault forces, reconnaissance and sabotage groups and other assistance to ground forces in coastal areas;

7. Setting minefields, as well as mine action;

8. Conducting radiation and chemical reconnaissance;

9. Rescue of crews in distress;

10. Carrying out air transportation.

For this purpose, the following types of aviation were included in the composition of the naval aviation of the USSR:

1. Naval missile-carrying aviation (MRA);
2. Anti-submarine aviation (PLA);
3. Attack aviation (ShA);
4. Fighter aviation (IA);
5. Reconnaissance aviation (RA).

And besides, there are also special-purpose aircraft, including transport, electronic warfare, mine action, search and rescue, communications, etc.

The number of naval aviation of the USSR was impressive in the best sense of the word: in total, by the beginning of the 90s of the twentieth century, it included 52 air regiments and 10 separate squadrons and groups. In 1991, they included 1,702 aircraft, including 372 bombers equipped with cruise anti-ship missiles (Tu-16, Tu-22M2 and Tu-22M3), 966 tactical aircraft (Su-24, Yak-38, Su-17 , MiG-27, MiG-23 and other types of fighters), as well as 364 aircraft of other classes and 455 helicopters, for a total of 2,157 aircraft and helicopters. At the same time, naval missile-carrying divisions formed the basis of the strike power of naval aviation: their number as of 1991 is unknown to the author, but in 1980 there were five such divisions, which included 13 air regiments.

Well, then the Soviet Union was destroyed and its armed forces were divided among numerous "independent" republics, which immediately received state status. I must say that the naval aviation departed the Russian Federation almost in full force, but to maintain such numerous forces Russian Federation could not. And so, by mid-1996, its composition was reduced by more than three times - to 695 aircraft, including 66 missile carriers, 116 anti-submarine aircraft, 118 fighters and attack aircraft, and 365 helicopters and special aviation aircraft. And that was just the beginning. By 2008, naval aviation continued to decline: unfortunately, we do not have exact data on its composition, but there were:

1. Naval missile-carrying aviation- one regiment, equipped (as part of the Northern Fleet). In addition, there was another mixed air regiment (568th, in the Pacific Fleet), in which, along with two Tu-22M3 squadrons, there were also Tu-142MR and Tu-142M3;

2. Fighter aircraft- three air regiments, including 279 okiap, designed to operate from the deck of the only domestic TAVKR "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov". Naturally, the 279th Okiap was based in the Northern Fleet, while the other two regiments belonged to the Baltic Fleet and Pacific Fleet, armed with fighters and, respectively;

3. Attack aircraft- two regiments stationed at the Black Sea Fleet and the Baltic Fleet, respectively, and armed with aircraft and the Su-24R;

4. Anti-submarine aviation– here everything is somewhat more complicated. We divide it into land-based and ship-based aviation:

- the main land anti-submarine aviation is the 289th separate mixed anti-submarine aviation regiment (Il-38, Ka-27, Ka-29 and Ka-8 helicopters) and the 73rd separate anti-submarine aviation squadron (Tu-142). But besides them, the Il-38 anti-submarine aircraft are in service (along with other aircraft) in three more mixed air regiments, and one of them (917th, Black Sea Fleet) also has Be-12 amphibious aircraft;

- ship-based anti-submarine aviation includes two ship-based anti-submarine regiments, and one separate squadron equipped with Ka-27 and Ka-29 helicopters;

5. Three mixed air regiments, in which, along with the previously mentioned Il-38 and Be-12, there is also a large number of transport and other non-combat aircraft and helicopters (An-12, An-24, An-26, Tu-134, helicopters). Apparently, the only tactical justification for their existence was to bring the aviation that survived after the next round of "reforms" into a single organizational structure;

6. Transport aviation- two separate transport aviation squadrons (An-2, An-12, An-24, An-26, An-140-100, Tu-134, Il-18, Il18D-36, etc.)

7. Separate helicopter squadron- Mi-8 and .

And in total - 13 air regiments and 5 separate air squadrons. Unfortunately, there are no exact data on the number of aircraft as of 2008, and it is difficult to derive them "empirically". The fact is that the numerical strength of naval aviation formations “floats” to a certain extent: in 2008, there were no air divisions in the composition of naval aviation, but in the days of the USSR, an air division could consist of two or three regiments. In turn, the air regiment usually consists of 3 squadrons, but there may be exceptions. In turn, an air squadron consists of several air units, and an air unit may include 3 or 4 aircraft or helicopters. On average, an air squadron can have 9-12 aircraft, an air regiment - 28-32 aircraft, an air division - 70-110 aircraft.

Taking the strength of an air regiment to be 30 aircraft (helicopters), and an air squadron of 12, we get the number of naval aviation of the Russian Navy at 450 aircraft and helicopters as of 2008. There is a feeling that this figure is overestimated, but even if it is correct, then in In this case, it can be stated that the number of naval aviation has decreased in comparison with 1996 by more than one and a half times.

Someone could decide that this is the very bottom, from where there is only one way - up. Alas, this turned out not to be the case: as part of the reform of the armed forces, it was decided to transfer the aircraft of naval missile-carrying, attack and fighter aircraft (except carrier-based) to the jurisdiction of the air force, and later on the military space forces.

Thus, the fleet lost almost all of its missile carriers, fighters and attack aircraft, with the exception of the carrier-based aviation regiment, which then flew the Su-33, and the Black Sea assault aviation regiment, armed with the Su-24. In fact, the latter could also have been transferred to the Air Force, if not for a legal nuance - the air regiment was deployed in the Crimea, where, according to an agreement with Ukraine, only the navy could deploy its combat units, but the Air Force was forbidden. Thus, having transferred the air regiment of the Aerospace Forces, it would have been necessary to relocate it from Crimea to somewhere else.

Su-24 flying next to the US destroyer "Porter"

How reasonable was this decision?

In favor of the withdrawal of missile-carrying and tactical aviation to the Air Force (VKS was created in 2015), the completely disastrous situation in which domestic naval aviation found itself in the first decade of the 21st century spoke. The funds allocated for the maintenance of the fleet were completely miserable and in no way corresponded to the needs of the sailors.

In essence, it was not about saving, but about the survival of a certain number of forces out of their total number, and it is very likely that the Navy preferred to direct funds to preserve the holy of holies - strategic missile submarine forces, and in addition - to preserve in combat-ready condition of a certain number of surface and submarine ships. And it is very likely that naval aviation simply did not fit into the miserable budget that the fleet was forced to be content with - judging by some evidence, the situation there was even worse than in the domestic Air Force (although, it would seem, much worse) . In this case, the transfer of part of the naval aviation to the Air Force seemed to make sense, because it was possible to support the completely bled air forces of the fleet there, and nothing but quiet death awaited them as part of the fleet.

We said earlier that in 2008 naval aviation probably consisted of 450 aircraft and helicopters, and this seems to be an impressive force. But, apparently, for the most part, it existed only on paper: for example, the 689th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, formerly part of the Baltic Fleet, quickly “shrunken” to the size of a squadron (the regiment itself ceased to exist, now they are thinking of reviving it , well, God forbid, in a good hour ...). According to some information, from the materiel of the regiment and two squadrons of naval missile-carrying aviation, the Air Force managed to complete only two combat-ready Tu-22M3 squadrons. Thus, the number of naval aviation formally remained significant, only, apparently, no more than 25-40% of aircraft, and maybe less, retained their combat capability. Thus, as we said earlier, the transfer of missile carriers and tactical aircraft from the fleet to the Air Force seemed to make sense.

However, the key word here is "as if". The fact is that such a decision could be justified only in the context of the continuation of the budget deficit, but for him last days. It was precisely in these years that a new era was beginning for the domestic armed forces - the country finally found funds for their more or less worthy maintenance, at the same time they began to fulfill the ambitious state program weapons 2011-2020 Thus, the country's armed forces were supposed to revive, and with them, naval aviation, and it was simply not necessary to withdraw it from the fleet.

On the other hand, as we remember, it was a time of many changes, including organizational ones: for example, four military districts were formed, under whose command all the forces of the ground forces, the Air Force and the Navy, territorially located in the district, are subordinate. In theory, this is a great solution, as it greatly simplifies leadership and increases the coherence of the actions of various branches of the armed forces. But what will it be like in practice, because in the USSR and in the Russian Federation the training of officers was quite specialized and narrowly focused? After all, in theory, such a joint command will work well only if it is headed by people who perfectly understand the features and nuances of the service of military pilots, sailors, and ground forces, and where can we get such, if we even have in the Navy there was a division into "surface" and "underwater" admirals, that is, the officers spent their entire service on submarines or surface ships, but not on both in turn? How well can the commander of the district, in the past, for example, a combined arms officer, set tasks for the same fleet? Provide him with combat training?

But back to the joint commands. Theoretically, with such an organization, it makes absolutely no difference where specific aircraft and pilots are located - as part of the Air Force or the Navy, because any combat missions, including naval ones, will be solved by all the forces at the disposal of the district. Well, practically... As we said above, it is difficult to say how effective such command will be in our realities, but one thing is known for certain. History irrefutably testifies that whenever the fleet was deprived of naval aviation, and its tasks were assigned to the Air Force, the latter failed miserably in combat operations, demonstrating a complete inability to fight at least somewhat effectively over the sea.

The reason is that warfare at sea and ocean is extremely specific and requires special combat training: at the same time, the air force has its own tasks, and will always consider naval warfare as something, perhaps important, but still secondary, not related to the main functionality of the air force and will prepare for such a war, respectively. I would like to believe, of course, that in our case it will not be so, but ... perhaps the only lesson of history is that people do not remember its lessons.

Therefore, we can say that the naval aviation of the domestic fleet in 2011-2012. was, if not destroyed, then reduced to a nominal value. What has changed today? There is no information about the number of naval aviation in the open press, but using various sources, you can try to determine it "by eye".

As is known, naval missile-carrying aviation ceased to exist. Nevertheless, according to existing plans, 30 Tu-22M3 missile carriers should be upgraded to Tu-22M3 and be able to use the Kh-32 anti-ship missile, which is a deep modernization of the Kh-22.

Tu-22M3M

The new missile received an updated seeker, capable of operating in conditions of strong enemy electronic countermeasures. How effective the new GOS will be, and how effectively aircraft that are not part of the fleet will be able to use it is a big question, but after the completion of this program, we will receive a full-fledged missile-carrying aviation regiment (at least in terms of numbers). True, today, in addition to the "pre-production" aircraft, on which the modernization was "run in", there is only one aircraft of this type, which was rolled out on August 16, 2018, and although it is said that all 30 aircraft must be upgraded to 2020, such dates are highly questionable.

In addition to two Tu-22M3Ms, we have 10 more MiG-31Ks converted into carriers of Kinzhal missiles, but there are too many questions regarding this weapon system that do not allow us to unequivocally consider this missile an anti-ship weapon.

Attack aircraft. As we said earlier, the 43rd Separate Naval Assault Aviation Regiment based in Crimea has been preserved in the Russian Navy. There is no exact number of Su-24Ms in service with it, but given the fact that the first squadron formed in Crimea became part of it, and regiments usually have 3 squadrons, it can be assumed that the number of Su-24M and Su-24MR in the composition naval aviation does not exceed 24 units. - that is, the maximum number of two squadrons.

Fighter aviation(multipurpose fighters). Everything is more or less simple here - after the last reform, only the 279th Okiap remained in the Navy, which currently has 17 Su-33s in service (approximate figure), in addition, another air regiment was formed under the 100th Okiap. Today it consists of 22 aircraft - 19 MiG-29KR and 3 MiG-29KUBR. As is known, further delivery of aircraft of these types to the fleet is not planned.

However, at present, the Su-30SM is entering service with naval aviation - the author finds it difficult to name the exact number of vehicles in the army (probably within 20 vehicles), but in total, 28 aircraft of this type are expected to be delivered to the fleet under current contracts.

This, in general, is all.

reconnaissance aviation- everything is simple here. She is not there, with the possible exception of a few Su-24MR reconnaissance officers in the Black Sea 43rd omshap.

Anti-submarine aviation- its basis today is IL-38 in, alas, an unknown quantity. Military Balance claims that as of 2016 there were 54 of them, which more or less coincides with the 2014-2015 estimates known to the author. (about 50 cars). The only thing that can be said more or less accurately is that the current program provides for the modernization to the state (with the installation of the Novella complex) of 28 aircraft.

I must say that the Il-38 is already a rather old aircraft (production was completed in 1972), and, probably, the rest of the aircraft will be withdrawn from the naval aviation for disposal. It is 28 Il-38Ns that will soon form the basis of domestic anti-submarine aviation.

In addition to the Il-38, naval aviation also has two Tu-142 squadrons, which are usually also included in anti-submarine aviation. At the same time, the total number of Tu-142s is estimated as "more than 20" by domestic sources and 27 vehicles according to the Military Balance. However, according to the latter, out of this total number of 10 aircraft are the Tu-142MR, which is an aircraft for the relay complex of the reserve control system for naval nuclear forces. In order to accommodate necessary equipment communications, the search and sighting system was removed from the aircraft, and the first cargo bay was occupied by communications equipment and a special towed antenna 8600 m long. It is obvious that the Tu-142MR cannot perform anti-submarine functions.

Accordingly, apparently, the composition of naval aviation includes no more than 17 anti-submarine Tu-142. Taking into account the fact that the nominal strength of the air squadron is 8 aircraft, and we have 2 of these squadrons, there is almost complete correspondence of the size determined by us to the regular organizational structure.

In addition, the anti-submarine aviation includes a number of Be-12 amphibious aircraft - most likely there are 9 vehicles left, of which 4 are search and rescue (Be-12PS)

Special aircraft. In addition to the already mentioned ten Tu-142MR, naval aviation also has two Il-20RT and Il-22M. They are often recorded in electronic reconnaissance aircraft, but apparently this is erroneous. Yes, the IL-20 is indeed such an aircraft, but the IL-20RT is, in fact, a telemetry flying laboratory for testing rocket technology, and the IL-22M is a doomsday command post, that is, a control aircraft in case of a nuclear war.

Quantity transport and passenger aircraft cannot be accurately counted, but probably their total number is about 50 cars.

Helicopters

Radar patrol helicopters - 2 Ka-31;
Anti-submarine helicopters - 20 Mi-14, 43 Ka-27 and 20 Ka-27M, 83 vehicles in total;
Attack and transport-combat helicopters - 8 Mi-24P and 27 Ka-29, 35 vehicles in total;
Search and rescue helicopters - 40 Mi-14PS and 16 Ka-27PS, total - 56 vehicles.

In addition, it is possible that there are about 17 Mi-8s in the version of transport helicopters (according to other sources, they were transferred to other power structures).

In total, today, domestic naval aviation has 221 aircraft (of which 68 are special and non-combat) and 193 helicopters (of which 73 are non-combat). What tasks can these forces solve?

air defense. Here, the Northern Fleet is doing more or less well - it is there that all of our 39 Su-33s and MiG-29KR / KUBR are deployed. In addition, this fleet probably received several Su-30SMs.

However, it is noteworthy that the typical "budget" air wing of one American aircraft carrier has 48 F/A-18E/F "Super Hornet" and it is possible to reinforce it with one more squadron. Thus, the naval tactical aviation of the entire Northern Fleet, at best, corresponds to one US aircraft carrier, but given the presence of AWACS and EW aircraft in the US air wing, which provide much better situational awareness than our aircraft can give, we should rather talk about American superiority. One aircraft carrier. Out of ten.

As for the other fleets, the Pacific and Baltic fleets today do not have their own fighter aircraft at all, so their air defense is completely dependent on the Aerospace Forces (as we said earlier, historical experience shows that the fleet's hope for the Air Force has never justified itself ). Things are a little better for the Black Sea Fleet, which received a squadron of Su-30SMs. But here the big question arises - how are they going to use it? Of course, the Su-30SM today is not only a strike aircraft, but also a fighter capable of "counting the spars" of almost any 4th generation fighter - numerous Indian exercises, during which aircraft of this type collided with various foreign "classmates", led to quite optimistic for us results.

However, to paraphrase Henry Ford: Designers, nice guys, created multi-functional fighters, but geneticists, these loose wise guys, did not cope with the selection of multi-functional pilots». It's about about the fact that even if it is possible to create a multi-role fighter that can equally well fight both air and surface and ground targets, then prepare people who can equally well fight enemy fighters and perform strike functions, probably all - still can't.

The specifics of the work of a pilot of long-range, fighter or ground attack aircraft vary greatly. At the same time, the pilot training process itself is very lengthy: in no case should one think that the military educational establishments release pilots prepared for modern combat operations. We can say that the flight school is the first stage of training, but then, in order to become a professional, a young soldier has to go a long and difficult path. As the Commander of Naval Aviation of the Navy, Hero of Russia, Major General Igor Sergeevich Kozhin said:

« Pilot training is a complex and lengthy process that takes about eight years. This is, so to speak, the path from a cadet of a flight school to a pilot of the 1st class. Provided that he goes to study at the flight school for four years, and over the next four years the pilot will reach the 1st class. But only the most talented are capable of such rapid growth.».

But “Pilot 1st class” is a high, but not the highest level in training, there is also an “ace pilot” and a “sniper pilot” ... Thus, becoming a true professional in the chosen type of aviation is not easy, this path will require long years of hard work. And yes, no one argues that, having achieved high professionalism, for example, on the MiG-31, the pilot is able to retrain on the Su-24 in the future, that is, to change the “type of activity”. But this, again, will require great effort and time, during which the skills of a fighter pilot will gradually be lost.

And yes, there is absolutely no need to blame educational institutions for this - alas, in almost no case is a university graduate a professional with capital letter. Doctors, despite the 6-year training period, do not start independent practice, but go to an internship, where they work for another year under the supervision of experienced doctors, while they are forbidden to make independent decisions. And if a young doctor wants an in-depth study of any area, he is waiting for a residency ... But what is there, the author of this article, being a graduate of an economic university in the distant past, soon after starting work, heard an absolutely wonderful phrase addressed to him: “When a big part of the theory will fly out of your head, and practical knowledge will take its place, perhaps you will justify half of your salary ”- and this was the absolute truth.

Why are we talking about all this? Moreover, the Black Sea Su-30SMs were included in the attack aviation regiment and, apparently, the fleet is going to use them precisely as attack aircraft. This is confirmed by the words of the representative of the Black Sea Fleet Vyacheslav Trukhachev: "Su-30SM aircraft have proven themselves excellently and today they are the main strike force of the naval aviation of the Black Sea Fleet."

Interestingly, the same can be seen in the aviation of other countries. Thus, the US Air Force has F-15C air superiority aircraft and its two-seat strike "version" F-15E. At the same time, the latter is not at all devoid of fighter qualities, it remains a formidable air fighter, and it can perhaps be considered the closest American analogue of our Su-30SM. However, the F-15E in modern conflicts was almost never assigned the task of gaining / maintaining air superiority - this is done by the F-15C, while the F-15E is focused on implementing the strike function.

Thus, we can assume that in the Black Sea Fleet, despite the presence of a Su-30SM squadron (which would be hopelessly small in any case), naval aviation is unable to solve the tasks of air defense of ships and fleet facilities.

Impact features. The only fleet that can boast of the ability to somehow solve them is the Black Sea fleet, due to the presence of an attack aviation regiment in the Crimea. This connection is a serious deterrent and practically excludes the "visits" of Turkish surface forces or small detachments of NATO surface ships to our shores in wartime. However, as far as the author knows, such visits were never planned, and the US Navy intended to operate with its aircraft and cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea, where they are absolutely inaccessible to the Su-30SM and Su-24 of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

Other fleets do not have tactical attack aircraft (except perhaps a few Su-30SMs). As for our long-range aviation of the Aerospace Forces, in the future it will be able to form one regiment (30 vehicles) of modernized Tu-22M3M with Kh-32 missiles, which can act as a means of strengthening any of our four fleets (the Caspian flotilla clearly does not need this). But… what is one missile regiment? During the Cold War, the US Navy had 15 aircraft carriers, and the Soviet MPA had 13 missile-carrying aviation regiments, which included 372 vehicles, or almost 25 aircraft per aircraft carrier (this is not counting a separate instructor-research missile-carrying regiment).

Today, the Americans have only 10 aircraft carriers, and we will have (will we?) 30 modernized Tu-22M3Ms - three aircraft per enemy ship. Of course, the Tu-22M3M with the Kh-32 has much more capabilities than the Tu-22M3 with the Kh-22, but the quality of the American air groups does not stand still - their composition was replenished with Super Hornets with AFAR and improved avionics, on the way F-35C... The USSR never considered the Tu-22M3 a wunderwaffe capable of destroying all enemy aircraft carriers, and today our capabilities have been reduced not even at times, but by an order of magnitude.

True, there are ten more MiG-31Ks with Kinzhal.

But the problem is that it is completely unclear whether this missile can hit moving ships at all. There is a lot of talk about the fact that the "Dagger" is a modernized missile of the "Iskander" complex, but the aeroballistic missile of this complex is not able to hit moving targets. This, apparently, is capable of the R-500 cruise missile (in fact, it is a land-based Caliber, or, if you like, Caliber, it is a seared R-500), and it is quite possible that the Dagger complex is also , like the Iskander, is a "two-rocket" and that the defeat of naval targets is possible only when using a cruise, but not an aeroballistic missile.

This is also hinted at by the exercises, in which Tu-22M3 with Kh-32 and MiG-31K with aeroballistic "Dagger" took part - at the same time, the defeat of sea and ground targets was announced, and it is obvious that the Kh-32, being an anti-ship missile, used on the target ship. Accordingly, the "Dagger" was fired at a ground target, and who would do this with an expensive anti-ship missile? If all this is true, then the capabilities of a dozen MiG-31Ks are reduced from “an invincible hypersonic wunderwaffe that easily destroys US aircraft carriers” to a rather weak ten-missile salvo with conventional anti-ship missiles that are unlikely to be able to overcome the air defense of a modern AUG.

Intelligence and target designation. Here, the capabilities of naval aviation are minimal, since for everything we have only two specialized Ka-31 helicopters, which, in terms of their capabilities, are many times inferior to any AWACS aircraft. In addition, we have at our disposal a certain number of Il-38 and Tu-142, which theoretically can perform reconnaissance functions (for example, the modernized avionics of the Il-38N aircraft is capable, according to some reports, of detecting enemy surface ships at a distance of 320 km).

However, the capabilities of the Il-38N are still very limited in comparison with specialized aircraft (Il-20, A-50U, etc.), and most importantly, the use of these aircraft for solving reconnaissance tasks reduces the already unimaginative strength of anti-submarine aviation.

Anti-submarine aviation. Against the background of the frankly plight of other naval aviation, the state of the anti-submarine component looks relatively good - up to 50 Il-38s and 17 Tu-142s with a certain number of Be-12s (possibly 5). However, it should be understood that this aircraft has largely lost its combat value due to the obsolescence of search and sighting equipment, caused, among other things, by the replenishment of the US Navy with 4th generation nuclear submarines. All this is not a secret for the leadership of the Russian Navy, so now 28 Il-38s and all 17 Tu-142s are being modernized.

The updated Il-38N and Tu-142MZM, apparently, will fully meet the tasks of modern warfare, but ... This means that all anti-submarine aviation is being reduced to one and a half regiments. Is it a lot or a little? In the USSR, the number of anti-submarine aircraft Tu-142, Il-38 and Be-12 was 8 regiments: thus, we can say that our future one and a half regiments, taking into account the growth in aircraft capabilities, are quite sufficient for one fleet. The problem is that we have not one fleet, but four. Perhaps the same can be said about our anti-submarine helicopters. Generally speaking, 83 rotorcraft represent a significant force, but we must not forget that ship-based helicopters are also counted here.

Perhaps the only types of naval aviation that have more or less sufficient numbers to solve their tasks are transport and search and rescue aviation.

What are the prospects for domestic naval aviation? We will talk about this in the next article, but for now, summarizing its current state, note 2 points:

• Positive aspect is that the worst times for Russian naval aviation are behind us, and it has survived, despite all the troubles of the 90s and the first decade of the 2000s. The backbone of carrier-based and base aviation pilots has been preserved, so today there are all the necessary prerequisites for the revival of this type of troops;
• Negative aspect is that, taking into account the existing strength, our naval aviation has actually lost the ability to perform its inherent tasks, and in the event of a somewhat large-scale conflict, “it is unlikely that it will be able to do more than show that it knows how to die bravely” (a phrase from the memorandum Grand Admiral Raeder of September 3, 1939, dedicated to the German surface fleet).

This book is an attempt to take a glance at some of the most original and intricate facts from the field of military history and, if possible, to give their own interpretation. This material should be considered only as, albeit a fairly well-founded, but version of the reasons that made the events described possible. To what extent these versions are plausible, it is up to the readers to decide. Another focus of the book is an attempt to piece together some of the most fantastic records set in the military realm.

Submarine aviation

Submarine aviation

In military history, the assertion that no bomb has ever fallen on the territory of the United States is a kind of axiom. However, this statement is not true. To prove this, let's make a short digression into the practice of using aviation from aboard ... submarines.

The experience of the combat use of Kaiser's submarines at the beginning of the First World War revealed not only their brilliant qualities, but also a number of serious technical shortcomings. And above all - the limited view. Indeed, even when the submarine surfaced, only 10-12 miles of the water surface was visible from the height of its cabin. This, of course, is very small, especially when single submarines of very large displacement capable of staying at sea for more than 100 days act on ocean communications.

Their autonomy was limited by the supply of torpedoes, so such submarines had strong artillery armament (150 mm), which made it possible to spend torpedoes only as a last resort. For example, the world's first submarine of this class - the German U-155 - left Kiel on May 24, 1917, and returned only 105 days later. During the campaign, the boat traveled 10,220 miles, of which only 620 were under water, and sank 19 ships (10 of them with artillery), which calmly followed their path without any cover.

The result of this raid, unprecedented in duration, was the forced expansion by the Entente countries of the area of ​​application of convoys. In the report on the results of the campaign, the commander indicated that the main difficulty for the crew was the weeks of waiting for the target, even in areas with fairly busy shipping due to limited visibility.

And then the designers thought: how to raise the "eyes" of the boat? The answer suggested itself - to try to equip the boat with an airplane. He could search for enemy ships, direct a submarine at them, provide communication with a squadron or base, take out the wounded, deliver spare parts, and even protect the boat from enemy attacks. In general, the aircraft, of course, could significantly improve the combat qualities of the submarine. However, the designers faced huge technical difficulties. The fact that only a small floating, moreover, collapsible airplane was suitable for a submarine was obvious. But how to make a hangar on board, how will it affect the characteristics of the boat, especially its buoyancy, where and how to store fuel and supplies for the aircraft? In addition, a psychological barrier had to be overcome: at that time, the idea of ​​a boat plane sounded frankly fantastic, like flying to the moon. In practice, there were only isolated experiments on taking off aircraft from battleships, that is, the largest surface ships. Maybe this is another "idea fix"? Only experiment could answer these questions.

In 1916, a series of giant submarine cruisers of the U-139-U-145 type, with a displacement of 2483 tons, a length of 92 meters and a crew of 62 people, was laid down in Germany. Boat

was armed with two 150-mm guns, six 500-mm torpedo tubes, developed a speed of up to 15.3 knots and could travel 17,800 miles with an 8-knot course. In the same year, Hansa Brandenburg received an order for an aircraft for this "submarine dreadnought". This order was taken up at that time by a young, but later world-famous designer E. Heinkel. Already at the beginning of 1918, tests began on the W-20, a small collapsible biplane boat with an 80 hp Oberursel engine. However, the car was far from shining with its data: the speed was some 118 km / h, the flight radius was 40 km, the height was up to 1000 m, the wingspan was 5.8 m, the length was 5.9 m. disassembling the biplane took only 3.5 minutes, and it weighed only 586 kg.

The defeat of Kaiser's Germany stopped all work on the construction of both submarines and aircraft for them. Only U-139, which was commissioned, was returned from its first combat campaign halfway and transferred to the French fleet for reparation, where it successfully served until 1935.

The chief designer of German submarine cruisers O. Flam with a group of his engineers was invited to work in Japan, and American sailors became interested in boat planes. They contacted E. Heinkel and ordered two V-1 aircraft from the German Gaspar plant. They were supposed to be stored inside the boat, so the new aircraft was even smaller than the W-20: weighing 520 kg with a 60 hp engine that provided a speed of 140 km / h. Practical application these experimental machines were never found, and in 1923 one of them was sold to Japan.

A year later, the Americans themselves built a similar aircraft - the Martin MS-1 - for the ocean-going submarine cruiser Argonaut, which entered service in 1925. In fact, the Americans simply improved the design of the captured U-139 without changing anything in principle. An ultralight seaplane weighing 490 kg developed a speed of 166 km / h, but its assembly and preparation for flight took 4 hours, and disassembly even more. Submariners categorically refused such an assistant.

In 1926, another American "underwater" aircraft, the X-2, was ready, which could take off from the Argonaut when it was in position. Pre-launch operations on this machine were completed in 15-20 minutes, but the submariners did not like it either: they did not take the aircraft into service and stopped all experiments of this kind. The Americans were finally convinced of the futility of collapsible aircraft and concluded that winged vehicles for submarines should be folding and stored in a hangar.

The baton in the creation of "hydrofoils" was taken by the British. In 1917-1918, the Grand Fleet was replenished with three unusual underwater monitors, boats armed with 12-inch guns taken from old ironclads. As conceived by the Admiralty, these huge submarines with a displacement of 2000 tons were intended to support torpedo attacks and shelling the coast. They had a length of 90 m, a crew of 65 people and could reach speeds of up to 15 knots. The idea did not justify itself, and soon the lead boat M-1 died in an accident. M-3 decided to convert

into an underwater mine layer, and the M-2 into an underwater aircraft carrier. The twelve-inch was dismantled, and in its place, near the cabin, a light hangar 7 m long, 2.8 m high and 2.5 m wide with a large hermetic end hatch was built. When immersed in water, the hangar was filled with compressed air so that its walls could withstand the pressure.

The Admiralty offered to create an aircraft for an underwater aircraft carrier to the small firm Parnel, which built sports airplanes. And on August 19, 1926, a Peto seaplane with a 128 hp Lucifer engine took off. Despite the modest dimensions of the machine (length - 8.6 m, wingspan - 6.8 m), two people were placed in its cockpit - a pilot and an observer. After testing, a more powerful engine (185 hp) was installed on the second copy of the Peto, and the speed increased to 185 km / h. With the previous dimensions, the weight was 886 kg, and the flight altitude reached 3200 m. It was this highly commended machine that was put into service. True, the tests that began in 1927 showed a very low efficiency of the system due to the very long time spent on take-off, since the one originally removed from the Peto-2 was launched using a rotary crane, and it ran up and took off on its own. Then a pneumatic catapult was installed on the boat, which instantly threw the plane into the sky. All this made it possible to reduce the take-off time to quite acceptable 5 minutes. The experiment was considered successful and began to think about its wider implementation ...

On January 26, 1932, the M-2 submarine sank in the English Channel along with the Peto aircraft and the entire crew. When the English divers descended to the crash site, they found that the hangar hatch was open. This tragic incident dealt a mortal blow to British submarine aviation.

Decided to acquire a submarine aircraft carrier and the command of the fleet of Italy. In 1928, a hermetic hangar was built on the deck of the Ettore Fierramosca cruising boat, and by the following year, Macchi built a small single-seat collapsible seaplane M-53 with an 80 hp Citrus engine. Despite the good results of flight tests, the program was unexpectedly closed. It turned out that the modernized boat did not want to dive with an aircraft on board, since the spacious hangar had too much buoyancy.

The French were more successful. In 1929, they launched the giant submarine cruiser Surkuf with a displacement of 4,300 tons and a length of 119.6 m. The boat was intended to guard Atlantic convoys and was supposed to engage in artillery combat with any auxiliary cruiser-type raider, and attack warships with torpedoes. Therefore, the armament of the French submarine had no more analogues: armor, turret 203-mm guns, four 37-mm machine guns and 12 torpedo tubes (four internal bow and four twin external ones) were installed on it. For the timely detection of enemy raiders, the boat was equipped with a small reconnaissance hydroplane. The crew of this giant submarine consisted of 150 people. The highest speed reached 18 knots.

The aircraft hangar, 7 m long and 2 m in diameter, was located on the deck behind the wheelhouse. After the boat surfaced, the aircraft was brought to the stern, assembled, the engine was started, and the hatch to the hangar was battened down. The boat occupied a positional position (sinked), the water washed away the plane, and the pilot began to take off. First, the Besson MV-5 with a 120-horsepower engine was based on Surkuf. The plane weighed 765 kg, developed a speed of 163 km / h and could climb to a height of 4200 m. The length of the car was 7 m, the wingspan was 9.8 m. the same motor. The weight of the machine reached 1050 kg, length - 8 m, and wingspan - 11.9 m, but specifications were quite high: speed - 185 km / h; flight altitude - 1000 m, range - 650 km, and most importantly - it took less than 4 minutes to assemble and disassemble.

"Surkuf" successfully served until 1940. After the defeat of France, the boat went to England, where its crew joined the forces led by Charles de Gaulle. MV-411 flew reconnaissance several times, but in 1941 it was seriously damaged and was no longer used. And on February 18, 1942, the Surkuf itself died in the Caribbean Sea - guarding the convoy, it was rammed by the ward transport. There were no survivors...

In the Soviet Union, the well-known creator of seaplanes, I. V. Chetverikov, took up the development of hydrofoils in the early 30s. For cruising boats of the K series, he proposed an aircraft that takes up extremely little space and is called SIL. The representatives of the fleet liked the idea, and in 1933 the construction of the first version of the amphibian began, on which they checked the design and made sure of its stability on water and in the air.

At the end of 1934, the SPL was made, transported to Sevastopol, and the naval pilot A.V. Krzhizhenovsky conducted tests. According to its scheme, the SPL was a two-seat flying boat with a free-carrying wing, above which was an M-11 engine with a pulling propeller. The tail, stabilizer and two keels were mounted on a special frame. The structure was made of wood, plywood, canvas and welded steel pipes. The weight of the empty aircraft was only 590 kg, and the takeoff weight did not exceed 875 kg with two crew members. But the main advantage of the machine was the ability to quickly assemble and disassemble it. All this took less than 3 minutes. The assembly was carried out in the reverse order in 3-4 minutes. At the same time, not traditional nuts and bolts were used to dock the nodes, but quick-release pins-clamps.

After the Nazis came to power, the admirals of the Kriegsmarine remembered the exotic airplane created in 1918 by Heinkel. However, by this time the meter itself was busy with much more serious developments, so the development of the idea was entrusted to the Arado company, which by the beginning of 1940 had built a single float reconnaissance hydroplane Ar-231 with a 160 hp engine. The wingspan of this aircraft reached 10.2 m, length -

7.8 m, flight weight - 1050 kg, and it was placed in a hangar with a diameter of only 2 m. km. It seems to be not bad, but it took about 10 minutes to assemble the Ar-231, which the sailors considered unacceptable. And then the designers tried to give the submariners a different novelty.

In 1942, the Focke-Angelis specialists came up with the Fa-330A tethered kite autogyro - an outwardly fragile structure, weighing 200 kg (together with the pilot), consisting of a light frame with an observer's seat and an instrument panel topped with a three-bladed propeller-rotor. The units of the apparatus were stored in two steel canisters on the deck of the boat and after 5-7 minutes were turned into a finished product by three assemblers. The reverse procedure took only 2 minutes.

To launch this structure, the boat picked up maximum speed, the propeller-rotor was spun by compressed air, and the kite obediently took off on a 150 m long leash to a height of about 120 m. changing course, which sharply limited its maneuverability. In addition, the descent from the maximum height could take more than 10 minutes, which put the divers in a very danger position in case of detection of an enemy aircraft. And yet, despite these inconveniences, in 1943, the autogyro was adopted and built more than 100 copies, most of which were placed on boats located in the Indian Ocean.

However, the Japanese have undoubtedly advanced the farthest in the creation of submarine aviation. Methodically preparing for war in the ocean, Japanese intelligence was interested in all the latest in the field of the navy and naval aviation. And therefore, it cannot be considered accidental that it was the Japanese who bought the German V-1 from America in 1923. In the mid-20s, Japan began designing huge ocean-going boats equipped with reconnaissance aircraft. Six submarines of the Yun-sen 1M type, which entered service in 1931-1932, had a displacement of 2920 tons and a range of 14,000 miles; their armament consisted of two 150-mm guns and six torpedo tubes, and the crew consisted of 92 people. A cylindrical hangar for a seaplane and a catapult to launch it were installed in the bow.

The aircraft was stored folded, and for its maintenance in the hangar there was access in a submerged position. The first Japanese submarine to receive an airplane was the submarine cruiser I-5. These submarines were built to operate on ocean communications, and aircraft - for reconnaissance and search for targets, but events developed in such a way that these crumbs had to be used to solve completely different problems.

On April 18, 1942, several twin-engine aircraft approached Tokyo from the Pacific Ocean. Bombs rained down on the city, fires broke out.

It is clear that this raid was in more political demonstration than military action. The fact is that the long distances and the difficulties of taking off coastal aircraft from aircraft carriers did not allow them to take a significant bomb load. But Japan was then at the zenith of its power, and the raid on the capital of the empire was perceived as a slap in the face. The wounded samurai pride demanded revenge, but the technical capabilities of the country clearly lagged behind the ambitious plans of its politicians.

On August 15, 1942, the I-25 submarine left the Yokosuka naval base for the American shores, carrying an aircraft converted into an ultralight bomber. A single-engine hydroplane of the Ayagumos type was taken into the forward deck hangar of the submarine. A small and equally unreliable car was fired into the air by a catapult and could make three-hour flights at a speed of 165 km / h.

Of course, two 75-kilogram bombs that the plane could lift did not make it a formidable means of attack, and the lack of defensive weapons, the primitiveness of navigation equipment and poor flight performance turned the pilot into a close resemblance of a kamikaze. But the command was sure that there would be no shortage of volunteers. The object of the attack, given the complete defenselessness of the Ayagumos, was the deserted forests of America. One night, shortly before dawn, I-25 surfaced off the coast of Oregon and launched her plane into the sky. An hour later, the pilot, Captain Fujita, was convinced that he had reached the goal. The land of the formidable adversary, who boasted of his invulnerability, stretched under the fabric planes of his plane. Fujita pressed the bomb release button, and phosphorus bombs flew down. A few minutes later, two columns of thick smoke rose above the forest, and an hour later the Ayagumos splashed down safely at the side of the submarine. On the same day, after sunset, the flight was repeated. However, this time it did not go so well, because on the way back the pilot got lost. Paradoxically, he was saved by a bad technical condition I-25: the boat left an oil trail behind it, it was on this trail that Fujita found it. The results of the raid turned out to be even better than the Japanese themselves expected: two severe fires broke out. The fire destroyed entire villages, killing several people. However, the use of "ayagumos" had to be abandoned: the Japanese were well aware that the fact that Fujita got lost was not at all an accident. An accident is that he managed to find the boat. They decided to repeat the raid on more advanced machines.

Since 1938, new boats of the Kaidai I series began to enter the Japanese fleet - powerful submarines 102 m long, with a displacement of 2440 tons, armed in addition to one 140-mm cannon and six torpedo tubes with two reconnaissance aircraft. The hangar and the catapult stood in front of the wheelhouse. But by this time, the designers had created a two-seater Watabane-E9DCH biplane with a Hitachi Temp engine with a power of 350 hp. and ten-meter wings, folding back. Its dimensions just fit under the hangar of a new boat (however, only one aircraft fit there). The 1250-kilogram E9W1 had good flight data: maximum speed 233 km / h, ceiling 6750 m. It could stay in the air for more than 5 hours, but the service of this aircraft was short-lived: it was soon replaced by a more advanced E14W1 monoplane, created by Yokosuka. The newcomers' baptism of fire took place on December 7, 1942, when, taking off from the I-9 and I-15 submarines, they shot panoramas of the American base at Pearl Harbor,

just attacked by Japanese naval aviation. "Glen" (bully), as these machines were called, weighed 1450 kg, the Hitachi Temp engine allowed him to reach speeds of up to 270 km / h and make five-hour flights. The armament consisted of a 7.7 mm turret machine gun, three 50 kg bombs and a complete set of navigational equipment. In the absence of a second crew member, the bomb load could be increased to 300 kg.

In September 1942, the I-9 and I-15 launched their planes off the coast of Arizona. This time, the cars with red circles on the planes acted openly, causing considerable commotion among the townsfolk, who were already used to the fact that the fighting was taking place somewhere far away, in the other hemisphere. Of course, six 50-kg bombs are a purely symbolic blow, but he satisfied the samurai ambitions a little.

However, reconnaissance was still the main thing for boat planes: they made several effective reconnaissance flights over the territory of Australia and New Zealand, and the Glen with I-15 even showed its red circles over Sydney. On May 31, 1942, an I-10 aircraft carried out reconnaissance of the Diego Suarez Bay on the island of Madagascar, based on the data of which a successful attack on ships by ultra-small submarines was carried out.

But for Admiral Yamamoto, an ardent admirer of naval aviation, intelligence alone was not enough. He planned to inflict a really serious blow on America - to disable the Panama Canal by bombing its locks. Putting his plans into practice, Japanese shipyards laid down supersubmarines of the A1 series with a displacement of 4750 tons. The lead one, the I-400, was intended for two aircraft, but then the hangar was rebuilt for three bombers. The Japanese succeeded

build three such submarine aircraft carriers, but they did not have time to distinguish themselves in battle: the war ended. And two years earlier, the Aihi company brought the M6A1 to the test - quite

modern bomb carrier "Seyran" ("Mountain Fog"). The car weighed 4925 kg and was equipped with a 1250 hp engine, which allowed it to develop quite a decent speed of 480 km / h. The length of the aircraft is 11.5 m, the wingspan is 12.5 m, the crew is 2 people, the bomb load is from 350 to 850 kg (with a minimum of fuel) or one torpedo. To launch the seaplane into the sky, a 40-meter pneumatic catapult was provided. In general, it was indeed a real submarine aircraft carrier, but, fortunately for the Americans, he never managed to fight.

Preparations for the raid on Panama began in February 1945 and were carried out with exceptional care. For training, mock-ups of canal locks were even built. However, the military situation was getting worse, and the spectacular, but far from the most urgent operation was being postponed and postponed. Finally, they decided to carry it out, but along the way to solve a number of other tasks. On August 25, an attack on the Ulithi Atoll was planned, and then the submarine aircraft carriers were to head for Panama. On August 6, I-400 and I-401 went to sea, and it is difficult to predict how this voyage could end, but on August 16 the order came to surrender and return to base. The Seirans were ordered to be destroyed, and they were simply thrown overboard.

In the 1980s, proposals were also put forward in the United States to convert the Helibad nuclear submarine into a submarine aircraft carrier. For this purpose, it was supposed to install a hangar for two Harrier vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. However, so far not a single project of a modern submarine aircraft carrier has been implemented.

A flying submarine is an aircraft that combines the ability of a hydroplane to take off and land on water and the ability of a submarine to move underwater.

If you have ever watched or are going to watch the film "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", then you can see just such a submarine aircraft from the main character.

In the USSR, on the eve of the Second World War, a flying submarine project was proposed - a project that was never implemented. From 1934 to 1938 the flying submarine project (abbreviated: LPL) was led by Boris Ushakov. The LPL was a three-engine, two-float seaplane equipped with a periscope. Even while studying at the Higher Marine Engineering Institute named after F. E. Dzerzhinsky in Leningrad (now the Naval Engineering Institute), from 1934 until his graduation in 1937, student Boris Ushakov worked on a project in which the capabilities of a seaplane were supplemented submarine capabilities. The invention was based on a seaplane capable of submerging under water.

In 1934, a cadet of VMIU them. Dzerzhinsky B.P. Ushakov presented a schematic design of a flying submarine (LPL), which was subsequently revised and presented in several versions to determine the stability and loads on the structural elements of the device.

In April 1936, in the recall of Captain 1st Rank Surin, it was indicated that Ushakov's idea was interesting and deserved unconditional implementation. A few months later, in July, the LPL semi-draft project was considered by the Scientific Research Military Committee (NIVK) and received a generally positive review, containing three additional points, one of which read: “... It is desirable to continue developing the project in order to determine the reality of its implementation through making the relevant calculations and the necessary laboratory tests ... " Among the signatories of the document were the head of the NIVK, a military engineer of the 1st rank Grigaitis and the head of the department of tactics of combat weapons, the flagship of the 2nd rank, Professor Goncharov.

In 1937, the topic was included in the plan of department "B" of the NIVK, but after its revision, which was very typical for that time, it was abandoned. All further development was carried out by the engineer of department "B" military technician of the 1st rank B.P. Ushakov during off-duty hours.

On January 10, 1938, in the 2nd department of the NIVK, the sketches and main tactical and technical elements of the LPL, prepared by the author, were reviewed. What was the project? The flying submarine was designed to destroy enemy ships on the high seas and in the waters of naval bases protected by minefields and booms. The low underwater speed and limited range under water of the LPL were not an obstacle, since in the absence of targets in a given square (area), the boat itself could find the enemy. Having determined its course from the air, she sat down over the horizon, which excluded the possibility of her premature detection, and sank on the ship's path. Until the target appeared at the salvo point, the LPL remained at depth in a stabilized position, without wasting energy with unnecessary moves.

The possible repetition of approaching the target was considered as one of the significant advantages of the underwater-air torpedo bomber over traditional submarines. Particularly effective was the action of flying submarines in a group, since theoretically three such devices created an impenetrable barrier up to nine miles wide in the path of the enemy. The LPL could penetrate the harbors and ports of the enemy at night, dive, and during the day conduct surveillance, direction finding of secret fairways and, if possible, attack. The design of the LPL provided for six autonomous compartments, three of which housed AM-34 aircraft engines with a power of 1000 hp each. each. They were equipped with superchargers that allowed boosting in takeoff mode up to 1200 hp. The fourth compartment was residential, designed for a team of three people. It also controlled the ship under water. In the fifth compartment there was a battery, in the sixth - a propeller motor with a capacity of 10 l, s. The robust LPL hull was a cylindrical riveted structure with a diameter of 1.4 m made of 6 mm thick duralumin. In addition to durable compartments, the boat had a lightweight wet-type cockpit, which was filled with water when immersed. At the same time, flight instruments were battened down in a special shaft.

Sheathing of the wings and tail was supposed to be made of steel, and the floats of duralumin. These structural elements were not designed for increased external pressure, since during immersion they were flooded with sea water, which flowed by gravity through scuppers (holes for water drainage). Fuel (gasoline) and oil were stored in special rubber tanks located in the center section. When diving, the inlet and outlet lines of the water cooling system of aircraft engines were blocked, which excluded their damage under the pressure of outboard water. To protect the hull from corrosion, painting and varnishing of its skin was provided. Torpedoes were placed under the wing consoles on special holders. The design payload of the boat was 44.5% of the total flight weight of the device, which was common for heavy vehicles.

The dive process included four stages: battening down the engine compartments, shutting off the water in the radiators, transferring control to underwater, and transferring the crew from the cockpit to the living compartment (central control post).

Submerged motors were covered with metal shields. LPL was supposed to have 6 sealed compartments in the fuselage and wings. In three compartments sealed during immersion, Mikulin AM-34 motors of 1000 hp were installed. With. each (with a turbocharger in takeoff mode up to 1200 hp); in the pressurized cabin should have been located instruments, battery and electric motor. The remaining compartments should be used as tanks filled with ballast water for diving LPL. Preparation for the dive should have taken only a couple of minutes.

The fuselage was supposed to be an all-metal duralumin cylinder with a diameter of 1.4 m and a wall thickness of 6 mm. The cockpit was filled with water during the dive. Therefore, all devices were supposed to be installed in a waterproof compartment. The crew had to move to the diving control module located further in the fuselage. Bearing planes and flaps should be made of steel, and floats of duralumin. These elements were supposed to be filled with water through the valves provided for this, in order to equalize the pressure on the wings when diving. Flexible fuel and lubricant tanks should be located in the fuselage. For corrosion protection, the entire aircraft had to be covered with special varnishes and paints. Two 18-inch torpedoes were suspended under the fuselage. The planned combat load was to be 44.5% of the total mass of the aircraft. This is the typical value of heavy aircraft of that time. To fill the tanks with water, the same electric motor was used, which provided movement under water.

Specifications:

Specifications: Parameter Indicator

Crew, pers. 3

Takeoff weight, kg 15 000

Flight speed, knots 100 (~185 km/h).

Flight range, km 800

Ceiling, m 2 500

Aircraft engines 3 × AM-34.

Takeoff power, hp 3×1200

Maximum extra. excitement at

takeoff / landing and immersion, points 4-5

Underwater speed, knots 2-3

Immersion depth, m 45

Power reserve under water, miles 5-6

Underwater autonomy, hour 48

Rowing motor power, h.p. ten

Dive duration, min 1.5

Ascent duration, min 1.8

Armament 18″ torpedo, 2 pcs.

coaxial machine gun, 2 pcs

In 1938, the Research Military Committee of the Red Army decided to curtail work on the Flying Submarine project due to the lack of submerged mobility of the submarine. The decree stated that after the discovery of the LPL by the ship, the latter would undoubtedly change course. Which will reduce the combat value of the LPL and, with a high degree of probability, will lead to the failure of the mission.

It should be noted that this was not the only domestic project of a flying submarine. At the same time, in the thirties of the last century, I.V. Chetverikov presented a project for a two-seat flying submarine SPL-1 - “an aircraft for submarines”. To be more precise, it was a seaplane that was stored in a disassembled form on a submarine, and when it surfaced, it could be easily assembled. This project was a kind of flying boat, the wings of which folded along the sides. Power point leaned back, and the floats located under the wings pressed against the fuselage. The tail “empennage” was also partially folded. The dimensions of the SPL-1 when folded were minimal - 7.5x2.1x2.4 m. Dismantling the aircraft took only 3 - 4 minutes, and preparing it for flight - no more than five minutes. The container for storing the aircraft was a pipe with a diameter of 2.5 and a length of 7.5 meters.

It is noteworthy that building materials for such a boat-aircraft there were wood and plywood with a linen sheathing of the wing and “feathers”, while the weight of an empty aircraft was reduced to 590 kg. Despite such a seemingly unreliable design, during testing, the pilot A.V. Krzhizhevsky managed to reach a speed of 186 km / h on SPL-1. And two years later, on September 21, 1937, he set three international records on this machine in the class of light seaplanes: speed at a distance of 100 km - 170.2 km / h, range - 480 km and flight altitude - 5.400 m.

In 1936, the SPL-1 aircraft was successfully demonstrated at the International Aviation Exhibition in Milan.

And this project, unfortunately, never went into mass production.

German project

In 1939, large submarines were planned to be built in Germany, it was then that the project of the so-called “Submarine Eyes” of a small float aircraft was presented, which could be assembled and folded into the shortest time and placed in a limited space. At the beginning of 1940, the Germans began to produce six experimental vehicles under the designation Ar.231.

The devices were equipped with 6-cylinder Hirt HM 501 air-cooled engines and had a lightweight metal structure. To facilitate folding of the wings, a small section of the center section was braced above the fuselage at an angle so that the right console was lower than the left, allowing the wings to fold one over the other when turning around the rear spar. The two floats detached easily. When disassembled, the aircraft fit into a pipe with a diameter of 2 meters. It was assumed that Ar.231 was supposed to descend and climb aboard the submarine using a folding crane. The process of dismantling the aircraft and its cleaning in a tubular hangar took six minutes. Assembly took about the same amount of time. For a four-hour flight, a significant supply of fuel was placed on board, which expanded the possibilities when searching for a target.

The first two devices Ar.231 V1 and V2 saw the sky at the beginning of 1941, but they were not successful. The flight characteristics and behavior of the small aircraft on the water proved to be inadequate. In addition, Ar.231 could not take off at wind speeds of more than 20 knots. In addition, the prospect of being on the surface for 10 minutes during the assembly and disassembly of the aircraft did not suit the submarine commanders very much. In the meantime, the idea arose to provide aerial reconnaissance using the Focke-Angelis Fа-330 autogyro, and although all six Ar.231s were completed, the aircraft did not receive further development.

"Fa-330" was the simplest design with a three-bladed propeller, devoid of a mechanical engine. Before the flight, the propeller was spun with a special cable, and then the gyroplane was towed by a boat on a 150-meter-long leash.

In essence, the Fa-330 was a large kite, flying at the expense of the speed of the submarine itself. Through the same cable, a telephone connection was made with the pilot. At a flight altitude of 120 meters, the viewing radius was 40 kilometers, five times greater than from the boat itself.

A design flaw was the long and dangerous procedure for landing the autogyro on the deck of the boat. If she needed an urgent dive, she had to abandon the pilot along with his helpless unit. In extreme cases, the scout relied on a parachute.

Already at the end of the war, in 1944, the Fa-330, which was not very popular with German submariners, was upgraded to the Fa-336, adding a 60-horsepower engine and turning it into a full-fledged helicopter. This innovation, however, did not greatly affect the military successes of Germany.

American RFS-1 or LPL Reida

The RFS-1 was designed by Donald Reid using parts from planes that had crashed. A serious attempt to make an aircraft capable of serving as a submarine, Reid's design came to him almost by accident, when a set of model aircraft wings fell off the skin and landed on the fuselage of one of his radio-controlled submarines, which he had been developing since 1954. Then the idea was born to build the world's first flying submarine.

At first, Reid tested models of various sizes of flying submarines, then tried to build a manned vehicle. As an aircraft, it was registered N1740 and equipped with a 65 hp 4-cylinder engine. In 1965, the first flight of the RFS-1 took place, under the control of Don's son, Bruce, he flew over 23 m. Initially, the pilot's seat was in the engine pylon, then before the first flight it was moved to the fuselage.

In order to convert the aircraft into a submarine, the pilot had to remove the propeller and cover the engine with a rubber "diving bell". On auxiliary power, small 1 HP the electric motor was located in the tail, the boat moved under water, the pilot used scuba gear at a depth of 3.5 m.

Underpowered, Reid's RFS-1, also known as the Flying Submarine, actually flew, briefly, but still managed to maintain flight and was capable of submerging in water. Don Reid tried to interest the military in this device, but to no avail. He died at the age of 79 in 1991.

Japan also could not ignore such an exciting idea. There, aircraft have become almost the main weapon of submarines. The very same car from a reconnaissance aircraft turned into a full-fledged strike aircraft.

The appearance of such an aircraft for a submarine as the Seiran (Mountain Fog) turned out to be an out of the ordinary event. It was actually an element of a strategic weapon, which included a bomber aircraft and a submersible aircraft carrier. The plane was called upon to bomb targets in the United States of America that no conventional bomber could reach. The main bet was placed on complete surprise.

The idea of ​​a submarine aircraft carrier was born in the minds of the Japanese Imperial Naval Staff a few months after the start of the Pacific War. It was supposed to build submarines superior to anything previously created specifically for transporting and launching strike aircraft. A flotilla of such submarines was supposed to cross the Pacific Ocean, just before the chosen target, launch their aircraft, and then dive. After the attack, the planes were supposed to go out to meet with submarine aircraft carriers, and then, depending on the weather conditions, a way to save the crews was chosen. After that, the flotilla again sank under water. For a greater psychological effect, which was put above the physical damage, the method of delivering the aircraft to the target should not have been disclosed.

The program, of course, developed in an atmosphere of heightened secrecy, and it is not surprising that the Allies first heard about it only after the surrender of Japan. In early 1942, the Japanese High Command issued an order to shipbuilders for the largest submarines built by anyone until the beginning of the atomic age in shipbuilding. It was planned to build 18 submarines. During the design process, the displacement of such a submarine increased from 4125 to 4738 tons, the number of aircraft on board from three to four.

Now it was up to the plane. The fleet headquarters discussed the issue with the Aichi concern, which, starting from the 1920s, built aircraft exclusively for the fleet. The Navy believed that the success of the whole idea depended entirely on the high performance of the aircraft. The aircraft had to combine high speed to avoid interception, with a long range (1500 km). But since the aircraft was actually meant for one-time use, the type of landing gear was not even specified. The diameter of the hangar of an underwater aircraft carrier was set at 3.5 m, but the fleet demanded that the aircraft be placed in it without disassembly - the planes could only be folded.

The designers of Aichi, led by Tokuichiro Goake, considered such high demands a challenge to their talent and accepted them without objection. As a result, on May 15, 1942, 17-Ci requirements for an experimental bomber for special missions appeared. Norio Ozaki became the chief designer of the aircraft.

The development of the aircraft, which received the corporate designation AM-24 and the short M6A1, proceeded surprisingly smoothly. The aircraft was created under the Atsuta engine, a licensed version of the 12-cylinder liquid-cooled Daimler-Benz DB 601 engine. From the very beginning, the use of detachable floats was the only dismantled part of the Seiran. Since the floats significantly reduced the flight performance of the aircraft, it was possible to drop them in the air if necessary. In the submarine hangar, accordingly, mounts for two floats were provided.

In the summer of 1942, a wooden model was ready, on which the folding of the wings and plumage of the aircraft was mainly practiced. The wings hydraulically turned leading edge down and folded back along the fuselage. The stabilizer was manually folded down, and the keel to the right. To work at night, all folding nodes were covered with a luminous compound. As a result, the overall width of the aircraft was reduced to 2.46 m, and the height on the ejection truck to 2.1 m. Since the oil in the aircraft systems could be heated even while the submarine was under water, the aircraft could ideally be launched without a landing gear 4.5 minutes after ascent. It took 2.5 minutes to attach the floats. All preparations for takeoff could be performed by only four people.

The structure of the aircraft was all-metal, with the exception of the plywood sheathing of the wingtips and the fabric sheathing of the control surfaces. Double-slotted all-metal flaps could be used as air brakes. The crew of two people was placed under a single lamp. In the rear of the cockpit, from January 1943, it was decided to install a 13 mm Type 2 machine gun. Offensive armament consisted of 850 kg torpedoes or one 800 kg or two 250 kg bombs.

At the beginning of 1943, six M6A1s were laid down at the Aichi plant in Nagoya, two of which were made in the training version of the M6A1-K on a wheeled chassis (the aircraft was called Nanzan (South Mountain)). The aircraft, with the exception of the keel tip, did not differ much from the main version, even retained the attachment points to the catapult.

At the same time, in January 1943, the keel of the first I-400 submarine aircraft carrier was laid. Soon two more submarines I-401 and I-402 were laid down. Production of two more I-404s and I-405s was being prepared. At the same time, it was decided to build ten smaller submarine aircraft carriers for two Seirans. Their displacement was 3300 tons. The first of them, I-13, was laid down in February 1943 (according to the original plan, these boats were supposed to have only one scout on board).

At the end of October 1943, the first experimental Seiran was ready, which flew the following month. In February 1944, the second aircraft was also ready. The Seiran was a very elegant seaplane, with clean aerodynamic lines. Outwardly, it was very reminiscent of the D4Y deck dive bomber. Initially, the D4Y was indeed considered a prototype for a new aircraft, but even at the beginning design work this option was rejected. The unavailability of the AE1P Atsuta-32 engine determined the installation of the 1400-horsepower Atsuta-21. The test results have not been preserved, but they, apparently, were successful, since preparations for mass production soon began.

The first serial M6A1 Seyran was ready in October 1944, seven more were ready by December 7, when an earthquake seriously damaged equipment and stocks at the plant. Production was almost restored when an American air raid on the Nagoya area followed on March 12. Soon it was decided to stop the mass production of Seyran. This was directly related to the problems of building such large submarines. Although I-400 was ready on December 30, 1944, and I-401 a week later, it was decided to convert I-402 into submarine transport, and production of I-404 was stopped in March 1945 at 90% readiness. At the same time, the production of submarines of the AM type was also stopped; only I-13 and I-14 were brought to readiness. The small number of submarine aircraft carriers has consequently limited the production of submarine aircraft. Instead of the original plans to produce 44 Seirans, only 14 were produced by the end of March 1945. They still managed to produce six Seirans before the end of the war, although many machines were at various stages of readiness.

At the end of the autumn of 1944, the Imperial Navy began to train pilots of the Seirans, the flight and maintenance personnel were carefully selected. On December 15, 631 Air Corps was created under the command of Captain Totsunoke Ariizumi. The corps was part of the 1st submarine flotilla, which consisted of only two submarines I-400 and I-401. The flotilla included 10 Seirans. In May, the submarines I-13 and I-14 joined the flotilla, participating in the training of the crews of the Seirans. During six weeks of training, the release time of three Seirans from a submarine was reduced to 30 minutes, including the installation of floats, although in battle it was planned to launch aircraft without floats from a catapult, which took 14.5 minutes.

The initial target of the 1st flotilla was the locks of the Panama Canal. Six aircraft were to carry torpedoes and the remaining four bombs. Two aircraft were assigned to attack each target. The flotilla was to follow the same route as Nagumo's squadron during the attack on Pearl Harbor three and a half years earlier. But it soon became clear that even if successful, such a raid was absolutely pointless in order to influence the strategic situation in the war. As a result, on June 25, an order was issued to send the 1st Submarine Flotilla to attack American aircraft carriers on Ulithi Atoll. On August 6, I-400 and I-401 left Ominato, but shortly after, a fire broke out on the flagship due to a short circuit. This forced the start of the operation to be postponed until August 17, two days before which Japan capitulated. But even after that, the headquarters of the Japanese fleet planned to launch an attack on August 25th. However, on August 16, the flotilla was ordered to return to Japan, and four days later to destroy all offensive weapons. On I-401, the planes ejected without starting their engines and without crews, and on I-400 they were simply pushed into the water. Thus ended the history of the most unusual scheme for the use of naval aviation during the Second World War, interrupting the history of the underwater aircraft for many years.

length - 11.64 m

height - 4.58 m

wing area - 27 sq.m

Our days

The US is currently working on the Cormorant aircraft.

American engineer L. Rail created the Cormorant project - a silent jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicle based on a submarine, which can be equipped with both a melee weapon system and reconnaissance equipment.

Skunk Works, owned by Lockheed Martin, is developing an unmanned aircraft that will launch from a submarine from a submerged position. Skunk Works is famous for developing the U-2 Dragon Lady and SR-71 Black Bird reconnaissance aircraft in the 60s of the last century.

The new development is called Cormorant (cormorant). The aircraft will be able to launch from the Ohio-class submarine's Trident ballistic missile silo. These strategic missile carriers were no longer in demand with the end of the Cold War, and now some of them are being converted into special operations submarines.

The aircraft will be launched using a manipulator that will bring it to the surface. After that, the drone will open its folded wings and be able to fly. He will land on the water, after which the same manipulator will return the plane to the submarine.

However, to create an aircraft that can withstand pressure at a depth of 150 feet, and at the same time light enough to fly, is not simple task. Another complication is that submarines survive by being silent, and the plane returning back to the boat can give away its location. The Skunk Works answer is a four-ton aircraft with gull-wings that can be folded along the body of the aircraft so that it can fit into the shaft.

The design of the aircraft is durable - the body, made of titanium, is designed for overloads that can occur at a depth of 45 meters, and all voids are filled with foam, which increases strength. The rest of the body is compressed by an inert gas. Inflatable rubber seals protect weapon bays, engine inlets, and other aircraft components. The hull geometry is made according to a complex scheme, which reduces its radio visibility. The aircraft will be capable of performing reconnaissance or strike missions, depending on the equipment with which it will be equipped.

And back in 2008, according to www.flightglobal.com, “The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US Department of Defense (DARPA) formulated the tactical and technical requirements for an aircraft of a fundamentally new type that can not only fly, but also swim in the surface and submerged position. According to Flight Global, the flying submarine concepts and proposals for their experimental evaluation must be submitted by interested companies by December 1, 2009.

The requirements, in particular, provide for a flight range of at least 1850 kilometers, as well as the possibility of overcoming 185 kilometers on water and 22 kilometers under water in no more than 8 hours. The carrying capacity of the aircraft should be 910 kilograms, the cabin capacity is 8 people.

Snorkeling will be performed at shallow depths. Air supply and exhaust gases are planned to be carried out by means of a snorkel - a retractable twin pipe.

The aircraft is planned to be used for covert delivery of special forces groups to coastal areas. The concept of its use also implies the possibility of being near the landing site for three days until the mission is completed. In standby mode, the aircraft will most likely be on the surface.

Previous attempts by the Pentagon to create a flying submarine ended in vain. A feature of the new project should be the transformability of the apparatus, depending on the density of the external environment.”

I won’t tell you in detail how things are now with these developments, maybe like this:

And I will remind you the reverse option, remember we discussedWell, another interesting hybrid project -
The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -