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Rockets and People
rigorous and hotly contested sport. In August during competitions, Katya’s crew
won first place in Moscow in their class, while my crew only managed to hold out
for third place.
In order to move up from a training quad to a racing shell, we had to train every
other day and, in October, again enter the All-Moscow competitions. But I had
already given Katya my word a year before that we would make a trip to the mountains.
In spite of our coaches’ protests, we both announced that we were dropping
off our teams until the following year and set off for the mountain camp. From the
standpoint of tourism and mountain climbing adventures, there was nothing particularly
outstanding about the trip that we made to the Caucasus in autumn 1936.The
trip left me with truly beautiful memories of nature, “the only thing better than a
mountain is more mountains,” as well as wounded masculine pride. Katya, the owner
of a “Mountaineer of the USSR”pin,felt considerably more confident in the mountains
than I. We traversed from Kabardino-Balkariya to Svanetiya together with a
group of Austrian mountain climbers.They had hired a guide who loaded all of their
backpacks onto his donkey.When we had climbed to an altitude of around 3,000
meters, it felt like our backpacks had doubled in weight. A gallant Austrian
approached Katya and suggested that she place her backpack on the donkey.
“In our mountains only fops use donkeys,” she announced, but no one could
translate the word “fop” into German. In the pass, a Svan carrying an antediluvian
Berdan rifle met us, and under his protection, we safely made our way to Mestiya,
the capital of mountainous Svanetiya. In 1996, if anyone had tried to retrace that
route, passing through Kabardino-Balkariya, Svanetiya, Georgia, and Abkhaziya,
the chances of returning safe and sound would have been slim due to the international
armed conflicts in that region.
For the Bolkhovitinov KB, 1936 ended with the tortuous work on the series
production of the DB-A in Kazan.The mood in the collective was pessimistic.
The series was limited to six aircraft, justified by the need for preliminary troop
trials. Glavaviaprom was trying to buy time in order to begin the ANT-42 flight
tests (this was the TB-7, later renamed the Pe-8). This aircraft surpassed the
DB-A on all parameters.At an altitude of 8,000 meters, it could reach speeds in
excess of 400 kilometers per hour. The new four-engine bomber actually had
five engines—an engine with a compressor that supercharged the four engines
for altitude performance and could supply air to the pressurized crew cabins was
installed on the center wing section. Subsequently they did away with this fifth
engine, having installed Mikulin AM-34FRNV self-supercharging engines.The
TB-7 had powerful defensive weaponry. Based on all tactical flight parameters,
the ANT-42 surpassed the Boeing Flying Fortress which appeared a year later.
The creation of such an aircraft was a very great achievement for Tupolev’s
collective and the Soviet aircraft industry.
Bolkhovitinov understood that the DB-A could not compete with the TB-7.
He began work on two new unusual designs: the “I” fighter and the “S” highspeed
fighter-bomber. Isayev designed the “I” as a twin-fuselage, twin-fin
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