Hate two constructors
Until the end of his days, the designer of the LRE (liquid-jet (rocket) engine) for the first interceptor fighter Valentin Glushko could not forgive Leonid Dushkin for his crime. About this man nothing is written in the "Red" Encyclopedia of Cosmonautics edited by Academician Valentin Glushko. His name is not even in the articles on BI-1 and Gird-X. And the names of all the other designers were listed. Why Valentine Glushko tried to delete from the lists of one of the developers of rocket engine?
The creators of the rocket engine should be considered Leningrad scientists: the first experienced rocket engine was built in Leningrad. In May, the 1929 of the year, on the basis of the gas-dynamic laboratory at the Research Institute of the USSR Revolutionary Military Council, under the leadership of Valentina Glushko, began an experimental design unit for the development of missiles and rocket propulsion systems for them. In 30-x, a whole family of experienced rocket engines with a load from 60 to 300 kgf is created. The fuels used were nitrogen tetroxide and toluene or liquid oxygen and gasoline. The most powerful LRE worked on nitric acid and gasoline, developing cravings to 250-300 kgf. It was in Leningrad that many problematic issues of creating new engines were solved. In 1930, Valentin Glushko proposed and in 1931 he introduced a profiled nozzle, a universal joint for the flight control of the rocket (1931), a turbopump assembly with centrifugal fuel pumps (1933). Also in 1933, introduced chemical ignition and self-igniting fuel.
Bench fire tests of LRE were carried out in Leningrad already in 1931-1932.
In the meantime, rocket movement study groups are being formed on a voluntary basis in Moscow and other cities. Particularly succeeded in Moscow, where the Moscow State Architectural Directorate was opened, which conducted extensive lecture propaganda, even courses on the theory of rocket movement were organized. In 1932, an experimental design organization also called the GIRD was created on the basis of MosGIRD: its work was controlled by the Central Council of Osoaviahima (the predecessor of DOSAAF).
As Lev Kolodny describes, the corridor from the production workshops led to the rooms of design teams. Six windows of the basement brigade walls were divided among themselves. The sun never looked in the windows not only because they were on the north side. From the eyes of curious, they shut up tightly. In the most deaf and secluded place of the GIRD there were no windows at all. It was possible to get here through a massive door with a viewing slot. In the compartment between the thick stone walls there was a test room where they installed a two-cylinder aircraft engine, an aerohydrodynamic pipe, and a compressor. Here it was decided whether to be or not to be new constructions.
Leonid Dushkin got here. Born as the fourth child in the family of philistine Stepan Vasilyevich and Elizaveta Stepanovna Dushkins in the railway village Spirovo near Tver, having graduated from the physics and technology department of the Tver Pedagogical Institute, then a one-year short-term postgraduate course at the Research Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics at Moscow State University, he was sent by the People's Commissariat to teach to a far Siberian city Irkutsk. But the twenty-two-year-old boy didn't want to go there.
From his friends, he learned that in the basement of the house №19 or №10 on Sadovo-Spasskaya Street on a voluntary basis, you can find some kind of income. He began to earn money while still studying in Tver: his scholarship was only 16 rubles per month.
Since October 1932, he began working at the GIRD as an inconspicuous assistant to Friedrich Zander on settlement and theoretical issues.
At that time, the main task, over which both Leningrad and Moscow developers fought, was to create a rocket motor. In Moscow, they were in a hurry because in Leningrad Valentin Glushko had already launched its first LPRE. The first LRE, created by Moscow specialists, was tested in 1933 year. Unlike Leningrad scientists, Moscow experts decided to use liquid oxygen as an oxidizer, and gasoline and ethyl alcohol as fuel.
In 1933, the decision was made to merge Leningrad and Moscow scientists. The world's first State Rocket Research Institute (RNII) was created, which included representatives from both Leningrad and Moscow schools for the creation of LRE, each of which offered its own options for creating engines.
Scientific disputes have escalated into violent controversy. RNII divided into two irreconcilable camps. Valentin Glushko and Leonid Dushkin were on both sides of the barricades.
In the new institute, Valentin Glushko still played a key role, while Leonid Dushkin was still an imperceptible engineer of the second department, whose head, Andrei Kostikov, wrote an application to the party committee of the CPSU (B) around mid-March, which began: "The disclosure of a counter-revolutionary Trotskyist sabotage and sabotage gang persistently demands that we again look more deeply at our work ... Specifically, I cannot point out people and cite facts that would give a sufficient amount of direct evidence, but about my opinion, we have a number of symptoms that arouse suspicion and obsessively instill the idea that everything is not well with us. ”
The six typewritten sheets consistently set out the wines of Ivan Kleimenov, Georgy Langemak and Valentina Glushko, who went the wrong way in the development of the rocket engine. Kostikov demanded a reduction of work on powder rockets and nitrogen-oxygen rocket engines and to strengthen work on the oxygen sector.
This statement did not go unnoticed by the NKVD. Events developed rapidly. Arrests, checks, denunciations, executions, beheaded the institute.
The head of the second department Andrei Kostikov, who became acting. Chief Engineer, collects the "public" for the analysis of "sabotage activities V.P. Glushko ", then to deliver to the NKVD the results of this analysis.
The archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences contains a unique document - the minutes of the meeting of the engineering bureau that took place on February 20. 1938. Leonid Dushkin most of all stood out in his statements: “... Glushko did not speak at meetings about the attitude to the enemies of the people of Langemac (this Chief Engineer - author.) and Kleimenova ... If Glushko does not admit his mistakes, does not restructure, then we must raise the question of Glushko with all the Bolshevik directness. "
Leonid Dushkin also said the phrase: “Glushko was under the great patronage of the enemy of the people of Langemak ... Being detached from public life also makes us alert ...”
The Bureau of ITS stated:
1. V.P. Glushko, working at the Institute on on nitrogen fuels from 1931 and up to now, along with the existing achievements of this problem, has not given any design suitable for practical use.
2. During the entire period of work at V.P. Glushko was divorced from the public life of the Institute. In 1937-38, 7 did not pay membership dues for months, delayed the return of the 1000 loan. at the mutual assistance fund, which indicates the disregard of V.P. Glushko to the trade union bodies.
3. Working for a long time in close connection with the now-exposed enemy of the people Langemakom, as well as receiving support from the former. Director of the Scientific Research Institute №3 - the enemy of the people KLEYMENOVA, V.P. Since the moment of exposure and arrest of Langemak and Kleimenov, Glushko and up to this time, i.e. more than 3 months, did not reveal anything about his attitude to LANGEMAK and KLEYMENOV - neither orally at meetings, nor in print.
4. V.P. GLUSHKO participated together with LANGEMAK in the book: “ROCKETS, their device and application”, containing a lot of information declassifying the work of scientific research institute No. XXUMX.
5. Attitude V.P. LOUD to the subordinates was wrong, not comradely, V.P. DEAF has not created a school, a shift, or even a group of permanent employees. There were unreasonable statements by V.P. BIGGER on tech. Institute councils against Ing. ANDRIANOVA.
6. There was no collective work on the problem of e. on nitrogen fuels, in fact, work on this problem was carried out by a HUlishko single-handedly.
Opponents tried to destroy morally Valentina Glushko: he was forced to admit his mistakes. His works were also destroyed: Andrei Kostikov personally threw the book “Missiles, their device and use” into the fire. The fire slowly devoured the pages. But the drawings left intact! Apparently, they realized that without them the matter would not progress. So it was.
Archives store another document - an act, in the preparation of which participated and Leonid Dushkin. The act expressed a very negative attitude to the work of Valentina Glushko, arguing that his work was unsuccessful, unprofessional, while the signatories, including Leonid Dushkin, argued that he could not understand the nature of his actions.
That was enough for the bodies of the Moscow NKVD to arrest Valentina Glushko. 15 August 1939 by Protocol No. 26 of the Special Meeting at the USSR People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs Valentin Glushko for imprisonment in a counterrevolutionary organization was imprisoned for eight years in a labor camp and determined to be sent to Ukhtjemlag, but someone put the inscription “Ost. for slave in technical bureau »11. They simply transferred me to a sharashka, to an aircraft factory in Tushino: his drawings and documents were delivered from RNII, several people were given to help.
But it was incredibly difficult to continue work on the LRE practically from scratch, and even in prison conditions. While Leonid Dushkin remained a solid base, which he did not fail to use. However, success, according to Valentina Glushko, was not achieved. As he later recalls, “since 1938 was due to the repression in the RNII, the leader of the development of rocket engine using nitric acid oxidants, Leonid Dushkin, who had previously actively shown a negative attitude towards the nitric acid direction, switched to the development of a liquid rocket engine of this class and subsequently almost exclusively dealt with them . Dushkin began this stage of his activity by removing the RP-318 from the rocket-glider and without need reworking the ORM-65 nitric acid engine that underwent final, official bench tests, assigned its cipher to the engine, and flight tests were conducted with it in 1940. tests this rocket glider. The fact that the replacement of the engine was not necessitated also follows from the fact that as early as the beginning of 1939, the ORM-65 successfully passed double flight tests on the 212 cruise missile. Moreover, the engine, delivered to the rocket-glider instead of ORM-65, was worse in terms of the main characteristics of the LRE - specific thrust (194 instead of 210 s at nominal thrust 150 kg). ”
However, experts believe that Leonid Dushkin has achieved some success.
The specialists compared two engines - ORM-65 Valentina Glushko and RDA-1-150 Leonid Dushkina - and concluded that “Glushko used acid for regenerative cooling, and then only for the CS part. The COP from the head to the nozzle was without external cooling. Dushkin used both components for external cooling. The nozzle with the critical part was cooled with fuel (there are the greatest heat flows), and the cooling capacity of kerosene is better than that of the acid. The COP from the nozzle head to the nozzle was cooled with an oxidizing agent. This scheme has become classical and is partially used up to our time. Glushko’s external cooling was only an oxidizing agent. Dushkin used a stepped launch, when a small amount of fuel is first ignited, and then the main consumption of components flows into the resulting torch. ”
In fairness, we note that this scheme has become classic, it was used on most LREs, including the engines of Valentin Glushko, which he created in OKB-456.
In the process of creating engines Leonid Dushkin lurked failures much larger than imputed to Valentin Glushko. The Dushkin design engine had the designation “D-1-А-1100” (“the first nitrate engine with nominal thrust 1100 kg”), designed specifically for the BI-1 aircraft. According to the Russian State Archives of Scientific and Technical Documentation, the components were supplied using compressed air stored on board in cylinders under pressure 150 atm., Therefore very heavy. The projected duration of the flight of the BI-1 with a speed of 800 km / h - 2 min, with a speed of 550-360 km / h near 4-5 min. The weight of the aircraft is about the 1,5 t, the altitude of the flight is up to 3,5 km, it is equipped with cannon armament. This type of aircraft required the creation of a powerful reusable engine with adjustable thrust in 400-1400 kg. Xnumx
In his diary, Leonid Dushkin writes that step by step, overcoming difficulties, the team of developers of the new machine went forward to the goal. "In February, 1943, we already entered the mainstream of work that had to be left in Moscow, the main design work on the aircraft and the engine were completed."
After completing the bench test and pilot training for engine management in April 1942, the first instance of the aircraft, called the "BI-1", was delivered for flight tests at a military airfield in Koltsovo near Sverdlovsk, which was conducted by the combat pilot Captain Gregory Bakhchivandzhi.
The identity of the captain of the Air Force does not give Leonid Dushkin peace of mind, in his diary entries he tells about every word of the pilot. “Finally, the work on the aircraft was successfully completed and the commission gave permission for the first flight. 15 May 1942, the situation at the airfield was unusual. The runway was cleared from the parking of other aircraft. Their flights were suspended. Many representatives of civil and military organizations arrived. The weather was overcast. We had to wait a long time for the appearance of a clear sky over the airport, which was necessary for visual observation of the flight of the BI plane. There were no other means to control the flight: neither radio nor telemetry. Test pilot G.Ya. Bahchivandzhi was in a cheerful good mood. I only confined to the cloudy sky and the long wait for the crew to take off. Finally, at 18, the sky was clear of clouds. The takeoff of the aircraft was allowed. The plane was towed to the start of the aircraft. "
Dushkin describes in detail even such detail as dressing up a pilot: “Bakhchivandzhi came to the airfield in a new coat and new chrome boots. And before the team to take off, he got on a plane in an old jacket and old boots. When asked why he changed his clothes, Bakhchivandzhi replied that his new coat and boots could be useful to his wife, and a worn robe would not prevent him from completing the assignment. ”
During the seventh flight on the 2 Bi-27 in March, 1943 crashed. At an altitude of 3,5 km, the engine automatically turned off, the plane entered a sharp peak and crashed. Test pilot Gregory Bakhchivandzhi died.
Leonid Dushkin writes about the catastrophe very modestly in his diary - “the reason for this was not possible”. Only after a new wind tunnel was built at TsAGI, it was found that on planes with a straight wing at transonic speeds, a huge dive moment arises, which is almost impossible to cope with.
The State Commission suspended Dushkina from work on the engine. The NKVD authorities did not make any claims to him. Above the further development of the engine team worked Alexei Isaev, who achieved the best results. If we compare the specific impulses of the Isaev and Dushkin engines for BI-1, then Isaev has a thrust of 1200 kg, an expenditure of 5.7, an impulse of 210 seconds. Dushkin has kg - 1500, consumption - 7.7, impulse - 194 seconds.
Subsequently, Leonid Dushkin created several engine modifications. He carefully studied and kept until his death published and unpublished books, reviews, reports by Sergei Korolev, Valentin Glushko, Friedrich Zander, Dmitry Zilmanovich. During the "thaw", Leonid Dushkin gave several interviews where he spoke about the situation in the first reactive institute. He openly hates his opponents: "The vicious actions of the RNII management and the erroneous forecasts of V.P.Glushko cost our country dearly."
Valentin Glushko did not reach open statements: in his memoirs he cited irrefutable evidence based on archival documents revealing the true role of Leonid Dushkin and his associates. Reading the case file, you involuntarily recall Mozart and Salieri. But the hatred of these two people claimed, according to legend, the life of one person, whereas in the 30-ies of the 20th century, the NKVD bodies in the case of "engineers-pests" shot more than 30 people who tried to defend their point of view in the process of creating new engines.
The creators of the rocket engine should be considered Leningrad scientists: the first experienced rocket engine was built in Leningrad. In May, the 1929 of the year, on the basis of the gas-dynamic laboratory at the Research Institute of the USSR Revolutionary Military Council, under the leadership of Valentina Glushko, began an experimental design unit for the development of missiles and rocket propulsion systems for them. In 30-x, a whole family of experienced rocket engines with a load from 60 to 300 kgf is created. The fuels used were nitrogen tetroxide and toluene or liquid oxygen and gasoline. The most powerful LRE worked on nitric acid and gasoline, developing cravings to 250-300 kgf. It was in Leningrad that many problematic issues of creating new engines were solved. In 1930, Valentin Glushko proposed and in 1931 he introduced a profiled nozzle, a universal joint for the flight control of the rocket (1931), a turbopump assembly with centrifugal fuel pumps (1933). Also in 1933, introduced chemical ignition and self-igniting fuel.
Bench fire tests of LRE were carried out in Leningrad already in 1931-1932.
In the meantime, rocket movement study groups are being formed on a voluntary basis in Moscow and other cities. Particularly succeeded in Moscow, where the Moscow State Architectural Directorate was opened, which conducted extensive lecture propaganda, even courses on the theory of rocket movement were organized. In 1932, an experimental design organization also called the GIRD was created on the basis of MosGIRD: its work was controlled by the Central Council of Osoaviahima (the predecessor of DOSAAF).
As Lev Kolodny describes, the corridor from the production workshops led to the rooms of design teams. Six windows of the basement brigade walls were divided among themselves. The sun never looked in the windows not only because they were on the north side. From the eyes of curious, they shut up tightly. In the most deaf and secluded place of the GIRD there were no windows at all. It was possible to get here through a massive door with a viewing slot. In the compartment between the thick stone walls there was a test room where they installed a two-cylinder aircraft engine, an aerohydrodynamic pipe, and a compressor. Here it was decided whether to be or not to be new constructions.
Leonid Dushkin got here. Born as the fourth child in the family of philistine Stepan Vasilyevich and Elizaveta Stepanovna Dushkins in the railway village Spirovo near Tver, having graduated from the physics and technology department of the Tver Pedagogical Institute, then a one-year short-term postgraduate course at the Research Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics at Moscow State University, he was sent by the People's Commissariat to teach to a far Siberian city Irkutsk. But the twenty-two-year-old boy didn't want to go there.
From his friends, he learned that in the basement of the house №19 or №10 on Sadovo-Spasskaya Street on a voluntary basis, you can find some kind of income. He began to earn money while still studying in Tver: his scholarship was only 16 rubles per month.
Since October 1932, he began working at the GIRD as an inconspicuous assistant to Friedrich Zander on settlement and theoretical issues.
At that time, the main task, over which both Leningrad and Moscow developers fought, was to create a rocket motor. In Moscow, they were in a hurry because in Leningrad Valentin Glushko had already launched its first LPRE. The first LRE, created by Moscow specialists, was tested in 1933 year. Unlike Leningrad scientists, Moscow experts decided to use liquid oxygen as an oxidizer, and gasoline and ethyl alcohol as fuel.
In 1933, the decision was made to merge Leningrad and Moscow scientists. The world's first State Rocket Research Institute (RNII) was created, which included representatives from both Leningrad and Moscow schools for the creation of LRE, each of which offered its own options for creating engines.
Scientific disputes have escalated into violent controversy. RNII divided into two irreconcilable camps. Valentin Glushko and Leonid Dushkin were on both sides of the barricades.
In the new institute, Valentin Glushko still played a key role, while Leonid Dushkin was still an imperceptible engineer of the second department, whose head, Andrei Kostikov, wrote an application to the party committee of the CPSU (B) around mid-March, which began: "The disclosure of a counter-revolutionary Trotskyist sabotage and sabotage gang persistently demands that we again look more deeply at our work ... Specifically, I cannot point out people and cite facts that would give a sufficient amount of direct evidence, but about my opinion, we have a number of symptoms that arouse suspicion and obsessively instill the idea that everything is not well with us. ”
The six typewritten sheets consistently set out the wines of Ivan Kleimenov, Georgy Langemak and Valentina Glushko, who went the wrong way in the development of the rocket engine. Kostikov demanded a reduction of work on powder rockets and nitrogen-oxygen rocket engines and to strengthen work on the oxygen sector.
This statement did not go unnoticed by the NKVD. Events developed rapidly. Arrests, checks, denunciations, executions, beheaded the institute.
The head of the second department Andrei Kostikov, who became acting. Chief Engineer, collects the "public" for the analysis of "sabotage activities V.P. Glushko ", then to deliver to the NKVD the results of this analysis.
The archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences contains a unique document - the minutes of the meeting of the engineering bureau that took place on February 20. 1938. Leonid Dushkin most of all stood out in his statements: “... Glushko did not speak at meetings about the attitude to the enemies of the people of Langemac (this Chief Engineer - author.) and Kleimenova ... If Glushko does not admit his mistakes, does not restructure, then we must raise the question of Glushko with all the Bolshevik directness. "
Leonid Dushkin also said the phrase: “Glushko was under the great patronage of the enemy of the people of Langemak ... Being detached from public life also makes us alert ...”
The Bureau of ITS stated:
1. V.P. Glushko, working at the Institute on on nitrogen fuels from 1931 and up to now, along with the existing achievements of this problem, has not given any design suitable for practical use.
2. During the entire period of work at V.P. Glushko was divorced from the public life of the Institute. In 1937-38, 7 did not pay membership dues for months, delayed the return of the 1000 loan. at the mutual assistance fund, which indicates the disregard of V.P. Glushko to the trade union bodies.
3. Working for a long time in close connection with the now-exposed enemy of the people Langemakom, as well as receiving support from the former. Director of the Scientific Research Institute №3 - the enemy of the people KLEYMENOVA, V.P. Since the moment of exposure and arrest of Langemak and Kleimenov, Glushko and up to this time, i.e. more than 3 months, did not reveal anything about his attitude to LANGEMAK and KLEYMENOV - neither orally at meetings, nor in print.
4. V.P. GLUSHKO participated together with LANGEMAK in the book: “ROCKETS, their device and application”, containing a lot of information declassifying the work of scientific research institute No. XXUMX.
5. Attitude V.P. LOUD to the subordinates was wrong, not comradely, V.P. DEAF has not created a school, a shift, or even a group of permanent employees. There were unreasonable statements by V.P. BIGGER on tech. Institute councils against Ing. ANDRIANOVA.
6. There was no collective work on the problem of e. on nitrogen fuels, in fact, work on this problem was carried out by a HUlishko single-handedly.
Opponents tried to destroy morally Valentina Glushko: he was forced to admit his mistakes. His works were also destroyed: Andrei Kostikov personally threw the book “Missiles, their device and use” into the fire. The fire slowly devoured the pages. But the drawings left intact! Apparently, they realized that without them the matter would not progress. So it was.
Archives store another document - an act, in the preparation of which participated and Leonid Dushkin. The act expressed a very negative attitude to the work of Valentina Glushko, arguing that his work was unsuccessful, unprofessional, while the signatories, including Leonid Dushkin, argued that he could not understand the nature of his actions.
That was enough for the bodies of the Moscow NKVD to arrest Valentina Glushko. 15 August 1939 by Protocol No. 26 of the Special Meeting at the USSR People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs Valentin Glushko for imprisonment in a counterrevolutionary organization was imprisoned for eight years in a labor camp and determined to be sent to Ukhtjemlag, but someone put the inscription “Ost. for slave in technical bureau »11. They simply transferred me to a sharashka, to an aircraft factory in Tushino: his drawings and documents were delivered from RNII, several people were given to help.
But it was incredibly difficult to continue work on the LRE practically from scratch, and even in prison conditions. While Leonid Dushkin remained a solid base, which he did not fail to use. However, success, according to Valentina Glushko, was not achieved. As he later recalls, “since 1938 was due to the repression in the RNII, the leader of the development of rocket engine using nitric acid oxidants, Leonid Dushkin, who had previously actively shown a negative attitude towards the nitric acid direction, switched to the development of a liquid rocket engine of this class and subsequently almost exclusively dealt with them . Dushkin began this stage of his activity by removing the RP-318 from the rocket-glider and without need reworking the ORM-65 nitric acid engine that underwent final, official bench tests, assigned its cipher to the engine, and flight tests were conducted with it in 1940. tests this rocket glider. The fact that the replacement of the engine was not necessitated also follows from the fact that as early as the beginning of 1939, the ORM-65 successfully passed double flight tests on the 212 cruise missile. Moreover, the engine, delivered to the rocket-glider instead of ORM-65, was worse in terms of the main characteristics of the LRE - specific thrust (194 instead of 210 s at nominal thrust 150 kg). ”
However, experts believe that Leonid Dushkin has achieved some success.
The specialists compared two engines - ORM-65 Valentina Glushko and RDA-1-150 Leonid Dushkina - and concluded that “Glushko used acid for regenerative cooling, and then only for the CS part. The COP from the head to the nozzle was without external cooling. Dushkin used both components for external cooling. The nozzle with the critical part was cooled with fuel (there are the greatest heat flows), and the cooling capacity of kerosene is better than that of the acid. The COP from the nozzle head to the nozzle was cooled with an oxidizing agent. This scheme has become classical and is partially used up to our time. Glushko’s external cooling was only an oxidizing agent. Dushkin used a stepped launch, when a small amount of fuel is first ignited, and then the main consumption of components flows into the resulting torch. ”
In fairness, we note that this scheme has become classic, it was used on most LREs, including the engines of Valentin Glushko, which he created in OKB-456.
In the process of creating engines Leonid Dushkin lurked failures much larger than imputed to Valentin Glushko. The Dushkin design engine had the designation “D-1-А-1100” (“the first nitrate engine with nominal thrust 1100 kg”), designed specifically for the BI-1 aircraft. According to the Russian State Archives of Scientific and Technical Documentation, the components were supplied using compressed air stored on board in cylinders under pressure 150 atm., Therefore very heavy. The projected duration of the flight of the BI-1 with a speed of 800 km / h - 2 min, with a speed of 550-360 km / h near 4-5 min. The weight of the aircraft is about the 1,5 t, the altitude of the flight is up to 3,5 km, it is equipped with cannon armament. This type of aircraft required the creation of a powerful reusable engine with adjustable thrust in 400-1400 kg. Xnumx
In his diary, Leonid Dushkin writes that step by step, overcoming difficulties, the team of developers of the new machine went forward to the goal. "In February, 1943, we already entered the mainstream of work that had to be left in Moscow, the main design work on the aircraft and the engine were completed."
After completing the bench test and pilot training for engine management in April 1942, the first instance of the aircraft, called the "BI-1", was delivered for flight tests at a military airfield in Koltsovo near Sverdlovsk, which was conducted by the combat pilot Captain Gregory Bakhchivandzhi.
The identity of the captain of the Air Force does not give Leonid Dushkin peace of mind, in his diary entries he tells about every word of the pilot. “Finally, the work on the aircraft was successfully completed and the commission gave permission for the first flight. 15 May 1942, the situation at the airfield was unusual. The runway was cleared from the parking of other aircraft. Their flights were suspended. Many representatives of civil and military organizations arrived. The weather was overcast. We had to wait a long time for the appearance of a clear sky over the airport, which was necessary for visual observation of the flight of the BI plane. There were no other means to control the flight: neither radio nor telemetry. Test pilot G.Ya. Bahchivandzhi was in a cheerful good mood. I only confined to the cloudy sky and the long wait for the crew to take off. Finally, at 18, the sky was clear of clouds. The takeoff of the aircraft was allowed. The plane was towed to the start of the aircraft. "
Dushkin describes in detail even such detail as dressing up a pilot: “Bakhchivandzhi came to the airfield in a new coat and new chrome boots. And before the team to take off, he got on a plane in an old jacket and old boots. When asked why he changed his clothes, Bakhchivandzhi replied that his new coat and boots could be useful to his wife, and a worn robe would not prevent him from completing the assignment. ”
During the seventh flight on the 2 Bi-27 in March, 1943 crashed. At an altitude of 3,5 km, the engine automatically turned off, the plane entered a sharp peak and crashed. Test pilot Gregory Bakhchivandzhi died.
Leonid Dushkin writes about the catastrophe very modestly in his diary - “the reason for this was not possible”. Only after a new wind tunnel was built at TsAGI, it was found that on planes with a straight wing at transonic speeds, a huge dive moment arises, which is almost impossible to cope with.
The State Commission suspended Dushkina from work on the engine. The NKVD authorities did not make any claims to him. Above the further development of the engine team worked Alexei Isaev, who achieved the best results. If we compare the specific impulses of the Isaev and Dushkin engines for BI-1, then Isaev has a thrust of 1200 kg, an expenditure of 5.7, an impulse of 210 seconds. Dushkin has kg - 1500, consumption - 7.7, impulse - 194 seconds.
Subsequently, Leonid Dushkin created several engine modifications. He carefully studied and kept until his death published and unpublished books, reviews, reports by Sergei Korolev, Valentin Glushko, Friedrich Zander, Dmitry Zilmanovich. During the "thaw", Leonid Dushkin gave several interviews where he spoke about the situation in the first reactive institute. He openly hates his opponents: "The vicious actions of the RNII management and the erroneous forecasts of V.P.Glushko cost our country dearly."
Valentin Glushko did not reach open statements: in his memoirs he cited irrefutable evidence based on archival documents revealing the true role of Leonid Dushkin and his associates. Reading the case file, you involuntarily recall Mozart and Salieri. But the hatred of these two people claimed, according to legend, the life of one person, whereas in the 30-ies of the 20th century, the NKVD bodies in the case of "engineers-pests" shot more than 30 people who tried to defend their point of view in the process of creating new engines.
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