Latvian Air Force Designs and Prototypes Division

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 12:04am

As you may have noticed, I posted the first locally built Latvian plane in the Latvian folder. Historically, Latvia had 3 companies locally that built planes for the military, Irbitis, Liepajas Military Manufacturing, and Udet. http://latvianaviation.com/index.html Thereby, IMHO, it is not unreasonable to assume that Latvia has enough capacity to produce most of it's aircraft needs in the fighter and light bomber departments. Heavy bombers and floatplanes would have to be purchased elsewhere, and reconnisance planes are most likely World War I relics from abandoned German planes. Note: Please ignore the Swastika's. Few good pictures of Latvian aircraft exist outside of German documentation, and the Swastika's were a cultural symbol of Latvia. I am truely sorry if this offends you.

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Name: Irbitis I-16
Length: 24 feet
Wingspan: 27 feet
Height: 9 feet
Empty: 3,250 pounds
Full: 4,750 pounds
Range: 440 miles
Engine: 650 hp 12-cylinder inline engine
Armerment: 4 .303 machine guns, 2 in the fuselage, 2 on the wings
Ceiling: 28,000 feet

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "TexanCowboy" (Jan 14th 2010, 4:32am)

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Marek Gutkowski

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 12:17am

hakenkreuz aside isn't this picture better. As this one is not in Luftwaffe colors?

As for the plane itself.
Like the look, but isn't it a bit obsolete be WW standards?
In RL Polikarovs (Rata), Avia's and P-11's at first glance look more deadly, performance wise.

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TexanCowboy

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 12:26am

Not really. This plane is 22 MPH faster and has a longer range. Plus, this one has defensive armerment that can deal with anything up to a 13.2'' gun around the engines and cockpit.

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Brockpaine

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 12:31am

Quoted

Originally posted by TexanCowboy
Not really. This plane is 22 MPH faster and has a longer range.

Can you post the speed in the specs?

Quoted

Originally posted by TexanCowboy
Plus, this one has defensive armerment that can deal with anything up to a 13.2'' gun around the engines and cockpit.

Erm, whut?

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Vukovlad

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 12:35am

Have you considered its (unbuilt) big brother the I-19?

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/in…t,vef+i-19.html

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "Vukovlad" (Jan 14th 2010, 12:37am)

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TexanCowboy

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 12:41am

Vukovlad: Where are the Specs? The Lavochkin La-5 plane doesn't say anything about that.

Brock: I'm sorry, but on my computer, Wikipedia isn't accessable at the moment. Look up Avia on Wiki and choose the one built in 35.

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Marek Gutkowski

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 12:59am

I also asks for more specs.

Are You certain that this plane only had 520hp engine.
If they are kilowatts instead of horse power its still underpowered.

Polikarpov had a 1,100hp engine
Avia circa 900hp
P-11(completely outdated at the time) 685hp.

This post has been edited 3 times, last edit by "Marek Gutkowski" (Jan 14th 2010, 1:06am)

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Brockpaine

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 1:10am

Quoted

Originally posted by TexanCowboy
Brock: I'm sorry, but on my computer, Wikipedia isn't accessable at the moment. Look up Avia on Wiki and choose the one built in 35.

Off the website you posted:

Source: VEF
Acquired: 1940
Type: Single-seat light fighter monoplane
Engine: 520-hp Walter Sagitta ISR 12-cylinder V, supercharged, air-cooled
Dimensions
Length: 7.3 m
Wing Span: 8,2 m
Height: 2.7 m
Max Speed: 480 km/hr (est.)
Range: 700 km (est.)
Maximum Ceiling: 8,000 m (est.)

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Marek Gutkowski

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 1:18am

Quoted

Originally posted by Brockpaine
Max Speed: 480 km/hr (est.)
Range: 700 km (est.)
Maximum Ceiling: 8,000 m (est.)

Thats the reason I decided to pass on paper project airplanes.
Pe-2 had estimated speed of 620km/h
Production version only managed 535km/h(or something)

Also Supercharged air-cooled

Well the engine will glow in the dark

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "Marek Gutkowski" (Jan 14th 2010, 1:21am)

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Vukovlad

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 1:27am

The Pe-2 max speed was around 580Km/h and a rather large speed difference between Soviet prototypes and production aircraft was common due to the rough ( or sloppy) finish on the production aircraft

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Marek Gutkowski

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 1:43am

Quoted

Originally posted by Vukovlad
The Pe-2 max speed was around 580Km/h and a rather large speed difference between Soviet prototypes and production aircraft was common due to the rough ( or sloppy) finish on the production aircraft

Well that was not what I wanted to say.
Estimated speed was 620km/h, but the prototype only managed 538km/h.Later production models had there speed increased but never managed the design estimations.

The paper estimations were flowed by the fact that the design aerodynamic cleanness was rarely achieved.
Micro vortexes that at lower speed were so small that were not worth calculating may cost you 30-50 km/h V-max drop at higher velocity's.

As for rough (or sloppy) finish on Russian aircrafts...
Soviet jumped from the tech tree so fast that the factories were unable to cope with.
If half of the stories about Soviet equipment in the 40's is true then I have only admiration for the people ingenuity.

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Vukovlad

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 1:55am

Are you sure that the 538 Km/h is the Pe-2 and not the VI-100 predecessor?

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Marek Gutkowski

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 2:14am

Quoted

Originally posted by Vukovlad
Are you sure that the 538 Km/h is the Pe-2 and not the VI-100 predecessor?

um... the second prototype at that time was named WI-100 (wysotnyj istribitel, projekt 100)*

*W or V I sometimes confuse the two as Russian character,that looks like a small capital letter "B" , translates to a V in English and W in Polish.

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Vukovlad

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 2:21am

Not according to my books, the Pe-2 was a redesigned VI-100 ordered into production from the drawing board (no prototypes), the low speed of the VI-100 attained vs calculated was also in part because flight testing was started before the Superchargers were available

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "Vukovlad" (Jan 14th 2010, 2:24am)

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Marek Gutkowski

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 2:51am

Getting a straight answer from any Slav source can be taxing.
Most sources I read said that VI-100 then PB-100 and finally Pe-2 were a evolution of the same airframe design.
The concept did not changed only the mission.
Form high-altitude fighter to fast bomber to dive bomber.

The rapid redesign of the airframe is a known fact, but it was still the same aircraft.
At least that how most people tend to believe.

Anyway We just hijacked the thread.

Sorry TexanCowboy.

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Vukovlad

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 3:05am

You have been away a long time, hijacking threads is a sport around here!

AS I understand it the VI-100 was ordered into production before it was ready and then during test flights it was ordered to be redesigned as a bomber (PB-100) that changed its name into Pe-2 during the general relabling from type (I,SB,DB etc) to designer (Pe, LaGG, MiG etc) prefixes

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Marek Gutkowski

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Thursday, January 14th 2010, 3:20am

The sport that I'm trying my best too avoid...

Forgetting the number of names that Peszka had it was basically the same aircraft.
Also Pe-2 is a plane that cost a lot of fatalities to its designers.
Petliakov, Izakson, A.I. Putilov and others that the second prototype crushed on during test fight. Some of those deaths had more to do with the NKVD that aviation.

Any who

How our debate started?
I do not put much faith in any data that has (est.) surfix.