The OKB-1/Junkers EF 131 was a jet bomber produced in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
and the
USSR
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
from 1944. It was cancelled in August 23, 1948, after further work was stopped on the aircraft.
Development
The EF-131 was developed based on fragments of project documentation for the Ju 287 after the Red Army captured the Junkers factory in Dessau. The first prototype was built from components of the
Junkers Ju 287
The Junkers Ju 287 was a multi-engine tactical jet engine, jet bomber built in Nazi Germany in 1944. It featured a novel forward-swept wing, and the first two prototypes (which were aerodynamic testbeds for the production Ju 287) were among the ...
V2 and V3, the second and third prototypes (V – Versuchs – test/research/prototype) of the
Luftwaffe
The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...
's radical forward-swept-wing jet bomber. The V2 was nearly complete before the end of World War 2, but was hidden in the forest at Brandis along with Ju 287 V1 and eventually blown up by the Germans to avoid capture by US forces, and remnants of it, including wing sections, were taken into Red Air Force hands under military intelligence supervision along with the skeletal airframe of the unfinished V3.
[Lommel, Horst, 2004. ''Junkers Ju 287: The World's First Swept-Wing Jet Aircraft.'' Atglen, PA: Shiffer Publishing, Ltd.] The V3 was to have been the first 287 to be made to pre-production model specifications, and the eventual EF-131 was almost identical to it in terms of overall design, except in having a slightly longer fuselage. The airplane was completed in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, but was dismantled and transported to
GOZ-1, (''Gosudarstvenny Optniy Zavod'' – state experimental plant), at
Dubna
Dubna ( rus, Дубна́, p=dʊbˈna) is a town in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It has a status of '' naukograd'' (i.e. town of science), being home to the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, an international nuclear physics research center and o ...
near
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
, because the victorious Allies forbade the construction and testing of aircraft in occupied Germany.
OKB-1
S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation "Energia" () is a Russian manufacturer of spacecraft and space station components. Its name is derived from the Russian word for energy and is also named for Sergei Korolev, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, th ...
at GOZ-1 was formed with Dr.
Brunolf Baade as the chief designer, and a very talented team of German engineers seconded by the
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
government. Extreme pressure was applied to get the aircraft ready to appear in the 1947
Aviation Day fly-past at
Tushino airfield, but several factors combined to prevent the EF-131 from appearing.
[
Flight testing in the USSR began on 23 May 1947, at the LII airfield, after the airframe had been strengthened to meet the requirements of a ]TsAGI
The Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (also (Zhukovsky) Central Institute of Aerodynamics, , TsAGI) is a Russian national research centre for aviation. It was founded in Moscow by Russian aviation pioneer Nikolai Yegorovich Zhukovsky on Decemb ...
(''Tsentralniy Aerodinamicheskiy i Gidrodinamicheskiy Institut''- central aerodynamics and hydrodynamics institute) structural survey, which revealed major weaknesses of the airframe. The first flight resulted in the port undercarriage collapsing due to a bolt failure, subsequent flight tests revealed major deficiencies such as nosewheel shimmy and tail surface vibration. Rectification of the defects caused many delays but the worst delays were caused by bureaucracy when it was decreed that foreign workers could not work at the LII airfield.[
The aircraft sat at LII over the winter but the harsh conditions caused the deterioration of rubber components and wiring, which required lengthy repairs. Preparations for resuming flight tests were almost complete in June 1948 when Ministry of Aircraft Industry Order No. 440 ordered that further work on the EF-131 be discontinued, termination of the programme being confirmed by resolution No.3206-1301 issued on 23 August 1948.][
The EF-131 had become obsolete as newer Soviet-built engines with better performance became available. The airframe of the second prototype was used for the 140 programme.][
]
Specifications (EF 131)
See also
References
Bibliography
* Gunston, Bill. "The Osprey Encyclopaedia of Russian Aircraft 1875–1995". London, Osprey. 1995.
* Gordon, Yefim. "Early Soviet Jet Bombers". Hinkley, Midland. 2004.
External links
* https://www.webcitation.org/5knuWmxmR?url=http://www.geocities.com/hjunkers/ju_ef131_a1.htm
{{Authority control
1940s German bomber aircraft
Germany–Soviet Union relations
Forward-swept-wing aircraft
Six-engined jet aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1947
Junkers aircraft
EF131
Aircraft with retractable tricycle landing gear