The Yakovlev AIR-12 was a long-range sport aircraft designed and built in the

Soviet Union 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 ...

during the late 1930s.

Design and development

In 1936 Yakovlev designed a long-range sport aircraft, intended to perform record-breaking long-distance flights. Adhering to his established design methods, the AIR-12 had a welded steel tube covered by removable aluminium panels at the nose, plywood skinning back to the wing trailing edge and fabric fabric-covered rear fuselage. The plywood skinned wooden wings had a high aspect ratio and were sharply tapered with leading-edge sweep and straight trailing-edges. Control surfaces and tail unit were built up with D1 (

duralumin Duralumin (also called duraluminum, duraluminium, duralum, dural(l)ium, or dural) is a trade name for one of the earliest types of age hardening, age-hardenable aluminium–copper alloys. The term is a combination of ''Düren'' and ''aluminium'' ...

) and covered with fabric. Accommodation was provided for pilot and passenger/navigator in two closed cockpits. The pilot sat in the rear cockpit aft of the wing trailing-edges under a small forward-sliding canopy and flip-open side panels. The passenger/navigator's cockpit had a flush glazed roof and was situated over the centre-section. Power was supplied by the ubiquitous

Shvetsov M-11 The Shvetsov M-11 is a five-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, radial aircraft engine produced in the Soviet Union between 1923 and 1952.Gunston 1989, p.158. Design and development The Shvetsov M-11 was designed under a 1923 competition in the S ...

5-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, driving a two-bladed wooden fixed pitch propeller. Fuel was carried in a single large tank in the fuselage forward of the front cockpit and an auxiliary tank could also be fitted in the front cockpit. The AIR-12 was fitted with a retractable tail-wheel undercarriage with the main-wheels retracting inwards, operated by cables, torque shaft and hand crank in the pilots cockpit. After initial flight testing and Piontovskiy's long distance flight in September 1936, the AIR-12 was re-engined with a M-11Ye.

Operational history

Flight testing of the AIR-12 commenced in August 1936, including a long-distance non-stop flight, flown by Yulian I. Piontkovskiy on 21 September 1936, from Moscow to

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

Sevastopol Sevastopol ( ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbours, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base th ...

, returning to Kharkiv, in a time of 10 hours 45 minutes, covering . On 24 October 1937 the AIR-12, flown by Valentina Grizodoobova (pilot) and Marina Roskova (navigator), flew from Moscow to Akhtoobinsk but the flight was not recognised by the FAI due to no official observer being present.

Specifications (AIR-12, M-11)

References

{{Yakovlev aircraft 1930s Soviet sport aircraft AIR-12 Single-engined tractor aircraft Low-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1936 Aircraft with retractable conventional landing gear Single-engined piston aircraft