Sweno (aircraft project)
Sweno ( Russian звено for chain or swarm , [ zven'ɔ ]) is the name of an aircraft project that was tested in the USSR from the early 1930s . Devices for attaching small, single-seat fighter planes were attached to a heavy bomber on and under the wings and under the fuselage . In the event of an attack by enemy interceptors, these aircraft should detach themselves from the mother aircraft ("Awiamatka") and defend it. After a successful mission, either an independent return flight or a new latch on the bomber was planned.
Development and use
The flight engineer Vladimir Wachmistrov , the inventor of Sveno , was probably inspired by the tests of airships with attached biplanes , which were carried out in Germany , Great Britain and especially the USA ( Curtiss F9C ) after the end of the First World War . The ZAGI was commissioned to carry out the necessary aerodynamic calculations and the development of the mountings, and the practical implementation took place in the Monino workshops near Moscow.
The first tests took place on December 3, 1931 with the newly developed TB-1 bomber and two I-4 fighters under the name Sweno 1 (S-1). It turned out that a delayed release of the two I-4s attached to the wing was possible without any problems.
In September 1933 a combination of a TB-1 and two I-5s called Sweno 1a was tested . A Sweno team consisting of a total of four aircraft began testing in August 1934; it consisted of three I-5s on the fuselage and wings as well as the newly developed four-engine TB-3 from OKB Tupolew .
Previously, these tests had only tested a detachment from the mother aircraft, after which the machines had to return to the base on their own. In a variant known as Sweno 5 , on March 23, 1935, the IZ aircraft successfully coupled itself back into a frame located under the fuselage of the carrier machine after it had been released. The tests finally culminated in the Sweno Awiamatka combination , with a TB-3 carrying two I-5s on the wings, two I-16s underneath and an IZ under the fuselage. A total of twelve different Sweno combinations had been tried out by 1939.
During the Great Patriotic War , Sweno was used sixteen times against the German troops, according to Soviet statements. The group consisted of TB-3M-34R with two specially retrofitted I-16SPB ( Sweno SPB ) suspended below , each of which also carried two 250 kg bombs. On August 1, 1941, the port facilities of Constanța in Romania were bombed when approaching the Black Sea. The attack was very successful; the large bridge to the harbor in particular was so badly damaged that it could never be completely repaired during the entire war. After this surprise success, however, the air defense adjusted itself to these attacks, so that the successes decreased and the losses increased. Furthermore, Romania was soon beyond the reach of the Sweno teams. The slow TB-3 carrier aircraft were also easy prey for the fighter planes of the Axis powers and therefore withdrawn from the fighting units. On September 18, 1941, the last operation of this type took place against the Dnepr bridges near Zaporozhye .
Another type of mother-daughter combination (" mistletoe ") was constructed in Germany during the final phase of World War II . A Messerschmitt Bf 109 or Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter was attached to an unmanned Junkers Ju 88 . This twin-engine bomber was loaded with explosives, flown from the piggyback plane to the emergency room and released there. Similar to the Sweno, these projects were not too successful in practice.
Sweno combinations
| designation | Carrier aircraft | Escort hunter | First flight |
|---|---|---|---|
| S-1 | TB-1 | two I-4s on the wings | December 3, 1931 |
| S-1a | TB-1 | two I-5s on the wings | September 1933 |
| S-2 | TB-3 | three I-5s on the fuselage and wings | August 1934 |
| S-2a | TB-3 | two I-5s on the wings | August 1934 |
| unknown | TB-3 | an I-5 on the fuselage | 1935 |
| S-3 | TB-3 | two IZ under the wings | October 1934 |
| S-4 | TB-3 | two I-Ze under the wings | May 1935 |
| S-5 | TB-3 | an IZ under the fuselage, can only be picked up in flight | March 23, 1935 |
| S-6 | TB-3 | two I-16s under the wings | August 1935 |
| Aviamatka | TB-3 | two I-5s on the wings two I-16s under the wings one IZ under the fuselage, can only be picked up in flight |
November 20, 1935 |
| SPB | TB-3 | two I-16s under the wings | July 1937 |
| S-7 | TB-3 | two I-16s under the wings, one I-16 under the fuselage, can only be picked up in flight |
November 1939 |
Technical specifications
| Parameter | Data |
|---|---|
| Conception | Light dive bomber for parasite use |
| Carrier aircraft | Tupolew TB-3M-34R (Sweno SPB) |
| crew | 1 |
| span | 9.00 m |
| length | 5.99 m |
| height | 2.41 m |
| Wing area | 14.54 m² |
| Empty mass | 1150 kg |
| Takeoff mass | normal 1470 kg maximum 2070 kg |
| Engine (s) | an air-cooled 9-cylinder radial engine M-25E or M-25W |
| Starting power | 552 kW (751 hp) |
| Top speed | 455 km / h at an altitude of 3000 m |
| Cruising speed | 360 km / h |
| Rise time | 6.2 min at 5000 m altitude |
| Service ceiling | 8300 m |
| Range | normal 820 km with 90 l additional container 1020 km |
| Armament | two rigid 7.62 mm MG above the engine, two 250 kg FAB-250 high-explosive bombs |
See also
literature
- Rainer Göpfert: The spectacular Russian project “Zveno” . In: JET & PROP . (January / February), 2002.
- Rainer Göpfert: The Russian project "Sweno" . In: FLiEGERREVUE X . No. 43 , 2013.
- Olaf Groehler : Piggyback. Part 1 . In: Fliegerrevue . No. 10 , 1983.
- Wilfried Copenhagen : Soviet fighters . Transpress, Berlin 1985.
- Peter Korrell: TB-3. The story of a bomber . Transpress, Berlin 1987.
Web links
- Sweno 7 on suchoj.com. Retrieved April 5, 2017 .