TheYakovlev AIR-9 / AIR-9bis was a 2-seat sport aircraft designed and built in 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 ...

during the early 1930s.

Design and development

From 1933 Yakovlev and his design team developed a 2-seat low-wing monoplane sport aircraft with open cockpits, wooden wings, welded steel tube fuselage, powered by a

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 ...

engine. Fitted with landing flaps and automatic leading-edge slats, the AIR-9 design was submitted to a safe aircraft design competition, but was not proceeded with. The original AIR-9 design was re-worked in 1934 to include enclosed cockpits, but dispensing with the automatic slats. The tandem cockpits were fitted with sliding canopies; the forward canopy slid rearwards over the fixed centre canopy section and the rear canopy slid forwards under the centre-section. The structure of the AIR-9 followed Yavovlev's previous designs with wooden plywood and fabric covered wings, welded steel tube fabric-covered fuselage and

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'' ...

fabric covered tail surfaces. The fixed spatted main undercarriage was supported by struts, later fitted with trousers as well as spats, with a fixed tail-skid or tailwheel (as exhibited at the 1935 Milan airshow). The AIR-9 was powered by a single Shvetsov M-11 five-cylinder air-cooled radial driving a fixed pitch 2-bladed wooden propeller, variously fitted with individual exhaust stacks, collector ring and

Townend ring A Townend ring is a narrow-chord (aircraft), chord cowling ring fitted around the cylinders of an aircraft radial engine to reduce drag and improve cooling. It was patented in 1929, and found use on various aircraft of the 1930s and into the 1940s ...

cowling.

AIR-9bis

In 1935 the AIR-9 was modified, or a second aircraft built, with a forward sloping windshield and re-designated AIR-9bis. The large number of variations in configuration suggest that there were more than one aircraft, but this cannot be confirmed.

Operational history

The AIR-9bis was displayed at the 1935 Paris and Milan airshows, and in 1937, was flown by I.N. Vishnevskaya and Ye.M. Mednikova to set a women's altitude record in the FAI Class C category.

Variants

;AIR-9: The original open cockpit 2-seat low-wing monoplane sport aircraft design, with split flaps and automatic leading edge slats; not proceeded with. ;AIR-9:The original design reworked with closed cockpits and other refinements but without automatic slats. At least one built, at some stage seen with racing number ''31''. ;AIR-9bis: Further modifications prompted re-designation to AIR-9bis, introducing a forward sloping windshield and undercarriage trousers. One converted from the AIR-9 or possibly several new built aircraft, seen wearing racing number ''32''.

Specifications (AIR-9bis)

References

{{Yakovlev aircraft 1930s Soviet sport aircraft AIR-9 Single-engined tractor aircraft Low-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1934 Aircraft with fixed conventional landing gear Single-engined piston aircraft