The Tupolev I-12 (also known as the ANT-23) was a prototype

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 ...

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft (early on also ''pursuit aircraft'') are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air supremacy, air superiority of the battlespace. Domina ...

that never reached production. The I-12 was of unconventional design with twin booms made of water pipes containing

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 and two engines in a

push-pull configuration An aircraft constructed with a push-pull configuration has a combination of forward-mounted Tractor configuration, tractor (pull) Propeller (aircraft), propellers, and backward-mounted (pusher configuration, pusher) propellers. Historical The e ...

. The aircraft first flew in 1931 but did not enter production due to disappointing performance and operational difficulties such as the inability for the pilot to escape the aircraft without hitting the propeller arc behind him. The second prototype from

Tupolev Tupolev ( rus, Туполев, , ˈtupəlʲɪf), officially United Aircraft Company Tupolev - Public Joint Stock Company, is a Russian aerospace and Arms industry, defence company headquartered in Basmanny District, Moscow. UAC Tupolev is succes ...

(designated ANT-23bis) was never completed.

Specifications

References

External links

Airwar (in Russian)Tupolev
{{Soviet fighter designations 1930s Soviet fighter aircraft I-12 Twin-engined push-pull aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1931