Saturday 11 May 2019

Tomashevich I-110

Dimitrii L. Tomashevich was Polikarpov's deputy and he was imprisoned for the failure of the Polikarpov I-180 design. Later, he was transferred from the special prison KB-29 to Kulomzino, a suburb in the city of Omsk, in October 1941. He was allowed to establish his own project bureau and designed a single-seat fighter named simply as "samolet 110" (the word "samolet" in Russian means aircraft).
He emphasized the suitability for dispersed manufacture, mainly by semi-skilled and un-skilled labour and easeness of repair in primitive field conditions. The I-110 was of mixed construction, with a two-spar wooden wing and welded steel tube fuselage. Wings, fixed tail surfaces and aft fuselage had bakelite ply, or shpon, skinning. The rest of the fuselage was covered by a light alloy.
Only one prototype was built, clearly influenced by the Curtiss P-40, and was powered by a single Klimov M-107P 12-cylinder Vee-type rated at 1400hp. It was well armed for the time as it was armed with a single 20mm ShVAK cannon firing through the propeller hub, two 12,7mm UB on the nose plus two additional 7,62mm ShKAS placed in the wings which were later eliminated. Theoretically it could carry also 500kg of bombs in external hardpoints.
The prototype was accepted for state trials in 1942 and in 1943 it was accepted. During that period it was flown by pilots P.Stefanovsky and engineer V. Bolotnikov. During tests it reached a speed of 508km/h (316mph) on sea level and 610km/h (379mph) at 6000m (19685ft). However, during trials, the Klimov engine showed many flaws due to its experimental state. It suffered from frequent overheating and there were already another combat-proven fighters being manufactured on Soviet factories like the Yakovlev Yak-1, the LaGG-3 or the Lavochkin La-5, plus American and British aircraft sold on the lend-lease program, so the project was discontinued.










Sources:
1. http://www.aviastar.org/air/russia/tomashevich-110.php
2. https://www.ecured.cu/Tomashevich_110 (translated)
3. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

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