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Rockets and People
A day later there was a ceremonial reception and meeting in the assembly
shop of our factory in Bilimbay.A banner hung over the presidium table:“Greetings
Captain Bakhchivandzhi, a pilot who has made a flight into the future!”
Fedorov and Pyshnov sent an optimistic report to the Air Force Command and
People’s Commissar Shakhurin. A GKO decision followed calling for the
construction of a series of twenty BI aircraft, with the correction of all known
defects and full armament.
Our team was elated, even more so because of summer’s arrival.According to
the signs observed by the locals, it would be a warm one. But I was not destined
to spend the summer in the Urals. Having basically solved the liquid-propellant
rocket engine’s ignition and control problems, Bolkhovitinov returned to the
idea of radio-controlled guidance for the interceptor. He wanted to solve that
problem for the next series, and I was ordered to return to Moscow.The People’s
Commissariats and scientific organizations were gradually reassembling after
their evacuation.
My family, orphaned after the death of Mama, remained in Bilimbay. It took me
two days to get to Moscow flying on military airplanes with stopovers. I did not
return to Bilimbay and did not take part in the subsequent BI flight tests. But this
is how the events developed there.
Bolkhovitinov freed Isayev from his involvement with the engineering
follow-up on the interceptor and made him responsible for the entire propulsion
system.Taking advantage of his consultations with Glushko, who worked in
the special prison in Kazan, Isayev was to try to make a complete break from the
Dushkin-Kostikov engines. Our patron considered this all the more important
because Kostikov was preparing proposals for his own aircraft with a liquidpropellant
rocket engine and was not interested in transferring a series of reliable
engines to us.
Bakhchivandzhi’s second flight was not executed until 10 January 1943 in the
second model of the BI aircraft. It was winter and the wheels had been replaced
with skis.The liquid-propellant rocket engine had been regulated for a thrust of
800 kilograms.The aircraft reached an altitude of 1,100 meters in 63 seconds at a
speed of 400 kilometers/hour. The landing on skis went well. Suddenly
Bakhchivandzhi was summoned to Moscow to review our rivals’ design and
mockup—an experimental interceptor with the designation “302.” It had been
proposed that this interceptor contain two Dushkin engines, plus a ramjet engine
to increase range. 1
The BI’s third flight was assigned to Lieutenant Colonel Konstantin
Afanasyevich Gruzdev. During this flight the engine had a maximum thrust of
1,100 kilograms and the aircraft reached an altitude of 2,190 meters in 58
1. Unlike the BI, the ‘302’ experimental rocket-aircraft was never successfully flown.The project was eventually
cancelled in 1944.
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