KALININ
K-12
Ptitsa (firebird or phoenix). It made a great impression, and on 12th December 1937 the Assistant Head of the WS, YaVSmushkevich, signed an order for renewed NIl-WS testing to start on 1st March 1938, followed by series production of modified aircraft at GAZ No 207. Work began, but in spring 1938 Kalinin's enemies managed to get him arrested and shot on charges of spying and conspiracy. As he had become an 'enemy of the people' the contract was cancelled, the K-12 was scrapped and the ten aircraft on the assembly line were never completed. The structure of the K-12 was almost entirely based on welded KhMA (Chromansil steel) tubing. The wing comprised left and right panels bolted to the roots, each having one main spar running straight from tip to tip. The fuselage was in three bolted sections, the front section being mainly skinned in Dl, all the rest of the skin being fabric. The trailingedge and wingtip controls were all fabricskinned Dl. The main landing gears were to have been retractable, but the intended M-25 engines and variable-pitch propellers were not available in time, so weight was saved by making the landing gears fixed. The inadequate engines which had to be fitted were 480hp M-22 (Bristol Jupiter licence), in cowlings with cooling gills, and driving 2.8m K 12
70
(9ft 2%\n) two-blade metal propellers with pitch adjustable on the ground. Crew comprised a pilot in an enclosed cockpit, a navigator who also served as bomb aimer in a nose turret with one 7.62mm ShKAS (he was provided with a rudimentary flight-control lever in case the pilot was incapacitated) and a radio operator in a similar tail turret. Bombload of up to 500kg (l,1021b) was carried on a KD-2 vertical rack behind the main spar and pilot's cockpit. Other equipment included a VSK-2 radio and AFA-12 camera. At the end of its life, in early 1938, the K-12 was refitted with 700hp M-25 (Wright Cyclone) engines, driving Hamilton Standard type variable-pitch propellers, but it was never tested in this form. Other modifications included fitting an electrically retractable main landing gear and modified armament. It had also been Kalinin's intention to replace the wingtip fin/rudder surfaces by rudders above the wings behind the engines, but these were never fitted. Accounts of this strange tailless aircraft tend either to be strongly positive or strongly negative. There is no doubt Kalinin was the victim of political intrigue, but at the same time the K-12 does not appear to have been a stable or controllable aircraft.
Dimensions (As flown with Span Length Wing area
M-22 engines) 20.95m 10.32m 72.75m2
68 ft 8M in 33 ft WA in 783 ft!
Weights Empty Fuel/oil Loaded
3,070kg 500kg 4,200kg
9,259 Ib
Performance Maximum speed Service ceiling Range Take-off run Landing run
219km/h 7,170m 700km 700m 300m
136 mph 23,524ft 435 miles 2,297 ft 984ft
6,768 Ib
1,102 Ib