Knapsack Guardian Angel
Glebov-Kotelnikov - stage name for the artillery reserve lieutenant Gleb Kotelnikov (1872–1944). The son of a professor of mechanics and higher mathematics at the St. Petersburg Forest Institute, he chose the career of an officer by graduating from Kiev Military School, but she did not work out. After serving three years, Kotelnikov resigned from the army and became a provincial excise official. But even in childhood, the love for the theater instilled in my father made itself felt, and Kotelnikov combined the hateful service with amateur dramatic activities, as well as with the construction of various crafts. The craving for technology also manifested itself in the gymnasium. And in the 39th year of his life, Gleb Evgenievich Kotelnikov decided to become a professional actor, joining the theater troupe of the People’s House in St. Petersburg. This did not stop to continue to be keenly interested in becoming winged domestic aviation, the flights of the pioneers of which could be observed at the Commandant airfield.
It was here that Kotelnikov witnessed the death of Captain Lev Macievich, whose “Farman” simply collapsed in the air because of the burst brace. Shocked by the tragedy, the actor decided to focus his engineering skills on developing a reliable means of saving the pilots. He studied attempts to create devices from ancient times that would allow people to safely descend through the air from a height. In 1495, Leonardo da Vinci came up with the “flying machine”, which he described as follows: “If you take a canvas stretched dome, in which each side has 12 elbows and the same height, then a person can fold from any great height without fear of death.” And in 1783, French physicist Louis-Sebastian Lenormand made a successful parachute jump of his own design from the tower of the Montpelier Observatory. Actually, he came up with the name of the invention, crossing the Greek παρα (against) and the French chute (fall). Lenormand directly indicated by the appointment of his parachute the rescue of aeronautists flying on hot air balloons. Then there were similar developments of other constructors-enthusiasts - in the early twentieth century, intended already for pilots of the first airplanes. These bulky systems should have opened up under the pressure of air, pulling the pilot with a cable from a dying machine. The parachute itself was in the tail box, and the cable was fixed on the aviator's belt.
But as noted in his book "History one invention "Kotelnikov," the best parachutes were too heavy and bulky. Even folded, they could not fit on the airplane. And the mechanisms that opened the canopy parachute? Both complex and unreliable were explosive charge and compressed air. If the parachute opens up, gets tangled, or gets caught in the tail or wing of an airplane? I realized that you need to create a strong and lightweight parachute for an airplane. Folded, it should be small. And most importantly - the aviation parachute should always be with the pilot. Then the pilot will be able to jump from the wing, and from any side of the airplane. " Such a guardian angel thought.
Kotelnikov’s priority in creating the means of rescuing the crews of airplanes is that he invented a compact silk parachute fitted in a satchel, which was fastened with the help of a harness on a pilot. The dome was driven by an exhaust ring. The inventor called his brainchild a parachute knapsack PK-1 (Russian, Kotelnikova, the first). 6 June 1912, the RC-1 was successfully tested by dropping the dummy from the balloon, and the inventor already had a patent. Alas, not registered in Russia (the 1911 of the fall, which was dated in the fall, was futile in his Fatherland), but in France. And in 1913, in Rouen, a student of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Vladek Ossovsky, made a parachute jump from Kotelnikov with a bridge 53 meters in height. RK-1 received recognition abroad, where they immediately began to copy the Russian product.
With the beginning of the First World War, Lieutenant Kotelnikov was drafted into the army, appointing him head of car repair shops. At the front, he became an eyewitness, as observers of a kite-ball balloon, set on fire by an Austro-Hungarian plane, escaped on a PK-1. The party of 70 parachutes on the initiative of the famous test pilot Gleb Alekhnovich entered the disposal of the crews of heavy bombers "Ilya Muromets."
It is curious that the chief of the Imperial Air Force opposed the introduction of parachutes. fleet Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich. On the report of the generals who defended the need to take the invention into service, the representative of the Romanov dynasty inscribed: “A parachute in aviation is a harmful thing, since pilots will be parachuted with the slightest danger from the enemy, providing death aircraft.”
In 20, Kotelnikov developed improved models for the pilots RK-2 and RK-3, the cargo parachute Aviation Postman and the so-called basket-based RK-4, intended for the rescue of crews and property of observation balloons. The latter was a balloon basket detachable from the balloon, landing on the parachute dome. The PK-4 system was adopted to supply the aeronautic units of the Red Army.
The historical and technical significance of Kotelnikov’s invention is not limited to the rescue of aircraft crews. The creation of human and cargo parachutes led to the appearance in the USSR of a qualitatively new kind of military - Airborne. As is known, the date of their birth is 2 of August 1930 of the year, when, near Voronezh, the first ever parachute landing of fighters with personal flight was carried out from the board of the French-made Farman F-62 Goliath aircraft. weapons. Then used for the Red Army Air Force American products of the company Irvin. In the same year, mass production of parachutes PL-1 for pilots and MO-1 for aeronautical observers was launched in the USSR, and Irvins began to produce under license PT-1 (training). Later, human (PD-1, PD-2) and cargo (G-2, G-3) landing parachutes were mastered and they refused to import. In 1936, the Airborne Forces received advanced PD-6. Their modification of the 1941 model of the year - PD-41 with a cheaper dome made of percale instead of silk - served the entire war.
In the post-war period, the parachute and rescue and landing techniques evolved along with aviation, and from the second half of the 50-x - and with space systems. Parachutes have been used in the ships "Vostok", "Sunrise" and "Soyuz", the landing modules of the interplanetary "Venus". The USSR Airborne Forces possessed a human paratrooper D-6 parachute system, which allowed them to make single and group jumps of fighters with full tabular armament from aircraft from An-2 to Il-76 and helicopters with an emission height of hundreds to several thousand meters. For military vehicles (BMD, BTR-D, multiple launch rocket launchers BM-21B, etc.), vehicles (GAZ-66B, fuel tankers TZ-2-66D), ammunition and other special cargo were created multi-dome (MKS-5- 128) and parachute-reactive (PRSM-915) systems that ensure the enemy’s full vertical armament of all airborne divisions are used in the vertical coverage of the enemy.
It was here that Kotelnikov witnessed the death of Captain Lev Macievich, whose “Farman” simply collapsed in the air because of the burst brace. Shocked by the tragedy, the actor decided to focus his engineering skills on developing a reliable means of saving the pilots. He studied attempts to create devices from ancient times that would allow people to safely descend through the air from a height. In 1495, Leonardo da Vinci came up with the “flying machine”, which he described as follows: “If you take a canvas stretched dome, in which each side has 12 elbows and the same height, then a person can fold from any great height without fear of death.” And in 1783, French physicist Louis-Sebastian Lenormand made a successful parachute jump of his own design from the tower of the Montpelier Observatory. Actually, he came up with the name of the invention, crossing the Greek παρα (against) and the French chute (fall). Lenormand directly indicated by the appointment of his parachute the rescue of aeronautists flying on hot air balloons. Then there were similar developments of other constructors-enthusiasts - in the early twentieth century, intended already for pilots of the first airplanes. These bulky systems should have opened up under the pressure of air, pulling the pilot with a cable from a dying machine. The parachute itself was in the tail box, and the cable was fixed on the aviator's belt.
But as noted in his book "History one invention "Kotelnikov," the best parachutes were too heavy and bulky. Even folded, they could not fit on the airplane. And the mechanisms that opened the canopy parachute? Both complex and unreliable were explosive charge and compressed air. If the parachute opens up, gets tangled, or gets caught in the tail or wing of an airplane? I realized that you need to create a strong and lightweight parachute for an airplane. Folded, it should be small. And most importantly - the aviation parachute should always be with the pilot. Then the pilot will be able to jump from the wing, and from any side of the airplane. " Such a guardian angel thought.Kotelnikov’s priority in creating the means of rescuing the crews of airplanes is that he invented a compact silk parachute fitted in a satchel, which was fastened with the help of a harness on a pilot. The dome was driven by an exhaust ring. The inventor called his brainchild a parachute knapsack PK-1 (Russian, Kotelnikova, the first). 6 June 1912, the RC-1 was successfully tested by dropping the dummy from the balloon, and the inventor already had a patent. Alas, not registered in Russia (the 1911 of the fall, which was dated in the fall, was futile in his Fatherland), but in France. And in 1913, in Rouen, a student of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Vladek Ossovsky, made a parachute jump from Kotelnikov with a bridge 53 meters in height. RK-1 received recognition abroad, where they immediately began to copy the Russian product.
With the beginning of the First World War, Lieutenant Kotelnikov was drafted into the army, appointing him head of car repair shops. At the front, he became an eyewitness, as observers of a kite-ball balloon, set on fire by an Austro-Hungarian plane, escaped on a PK-1. The party of 70 parachutes on the initiative of the famous test pilot Gleb Alekhnovich entered the disposal of the crews of heavy bombers "Ilya Muromets."
It is curious that the chief of the Imperial Air Force opposed the introduction of parachutes. fleet Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich. On the report of the generals who defended the need to take the invention into service, the representative of the Romanov dynasty inscribed: “A parachute in aviation is a harmful thing, since pilots will be parachuted with the slightest danger from the enemy, providing death aircraft.”
In 20, Kotelnikov developed improved models for the pilots RK-2 and RK-3, the cargo parachute Aviation Postman and the so-called basket-based RK-4, intended for the rescue of crews and property of observation balloons. The latter was a balloon basket detachable from the balloon, landing on the parachute dome. The PK-4 system was adopted to supply the aeronautic units of the Red Army.
The historical and technical significance of Kotelnikov’s invention is not limited to the rescue of aircraft crews. The creation of human and cargo parachutes led to the appearance in the USSR of a qualitatively new kind of military - Airborne. As is known, the date of their birth is 2 of August 1930 of the year, when, near Voronezh, the first ever parachute landing of fighters with personal flight was carried out from the board of the French-made Farman F-62 Goliath aircraft. weapons. Then used for the Red Army Air Force American products of the company Irvin. In the same year, mass production of parachutes PL-1 for pilots and MO-1 for aeronautical observers was launched in the USSR, and Irvins began to produce under license PT-1 (training). Later, human (PD-1, PD-2) and cargo (G-2, G-3) landing parachutes were mastered and they refused to import. In 1936, the Airborne Forces received advanced PD-6. Their modification of the 1941 model of the year - PD-41 with a cheaper dome made of percale instead of silk - served the entire war.
In the post-war period, the parachute and rescue and landing techniques evolved along with aviation, and from the second half of the 50-x - and with space systems. Parachutes have been used in the ships "Vostok", "Sunrise" and "Soyuz", the landing modules of the interplanetary "Venus". The USSR Airborne Forces possessed a human paratrooper D-6 parachute system, which allowed them to make single and group jumps of fighters with full tabular armament from aircraft from An-2 to Il-76 and helicopters with an emission height of hundreds to several thousand meters. For military vehicles (BMD, BTR-D, multiple launch rocket launchers BM-21B, etc.), vehicles (GAZ-66B, fuel tankers TZ-2-66D), ammunition and other special cargo were created multi-dome (MKS-5- 128) and parachute-reactive (PRSM-915) systems that ensure the enemy’s full vertical armament of all airborne divisions are used in the vertical coverage of the enemy.
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