The Grigorovich I-Z was a fighter aircraft developed in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. Advances in aircraft survivability thanks to all-metal construction and self-sealing and
inert gas-filled fuel tanks led to experimentation with large-caliber weapons to shoot them down. In Soviet Union,
Leonid Kurchevsky
Leonid Vasilyevich Kurchevsky () (September 22, 1890, Pereslavl-Zalessky – November 26, 1937 (January 12, 1939?)) was a Russian/Soviet weapons designer.
Kurchevsky was born into a family of a drawing teacher in Pereslavl-Zalessky. He was a stu ...
developed a series of
recoilless rifle
A Recoilless rifle (rifled), recoilless launcher (smoothbore), or simply recoilless gun, sometimes abbreviated to "rr" or "RCL" (for ReCoilLess) is a type of lightweight artillery system or man-portable launcher that is designed to eject some fo ...
s in various calibers and in 1930 was decided to adapt the 76.2 mm (3 in) weapons for aircraft use.
Design and development
The Grigorovich I-Z was a conventional strut-braced
monoplane
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple wings.
A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...
with fixed landing gear. A pair of
Kurchevsky APK (APK - ''Aviatsionnaya Pushka Kurchevsky'' - aircraft cannon Kurchevsky) rifles were mounted under the wings outside the propeller arc and the rear fuselage and tail assembly were of reinforced metal construction to withstand the blast. A single small-caliber synchronized machine gun in the left fuselage was added to aid the pilot in aiming.
Two prototypes were built, the first flying in mid-1931. The second strengthened I-Zbis flew at the beginning of the following year. These were followed by 21 examples ordered as evaluation aircraft and 50 production machines. By the time this last batch was being delivered, however, it was already apparent that the concept of a "single-shot" fighter was flawed and the I-Zs that had been built were relegated to various testing roles. One such role was as a
parasite fighter
A parasite aircraft is a component of a composite aircraft which is carried aloft and air launched by a larger carrier aircraft or mother ship to support the primary mission of the carrier. The carrier craft may or may not be able to later recove ...
in the
Zveno project
Zveno (Russian: Звено, a military unit "Flight") was a parasite aircraft developed in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. It was the brainchild of the aviation engineer Vladimir Vakhmistrov. It consisted of a Tupolev TB-1 or a Tupolev TB-3 hea ...
.
Operators
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Soviet Air Force
The Soviet Air Forces (, VVS SSSR; literally "Military Air Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"; initialism VVS, sometimes referred to as the "Red Air Force") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Sovie ...
Specifications (I-Z)
See also
References
Bibliography
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Further reading
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{{Soviet fighter designations
Grigorovich aircraft
1930s Soviet fighter aircraft
Aircraft with fixed conventional landing gear
Low-wing aircraft
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Single-engined piston aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1931