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From MiG-1 to MiG-3
The resolution SKF of October 2, 1940, required the increase of the range of new fighters to 1,000 km, at the 90% of maximal speed, measured with fuel contained in internal tanks only. So Zavod 1 was ordered to develop a new version of I-200 that met this request. On that period, they considered the idea to produce the new version of the fighter at Zavod 21, but this idea was soon abandoned.
To increase fuel capacity, a new tank with a capacity of 250 l was installed
under the fuselage, after having moved forward and replaced the water cooler,
now a OP-310; both structures were enclosed on a long cowling
called karakatitsa (cuttlefish).
To balance this, the engine mounts were leghtened 100 mm, bringing
the lenght of the new version to 8250 mm instead than 8150.
The dihedral was increased of 1°, passing from 6° to 7°
to increase lateral stability;
the main undercarriages were modified, with wheels of the size
650x200 mm to support the increased weight of the machine;
their doors were modified, and the small wheels shields, looking as
those of I-16, were replaced by doors hinged under the fuselage;
the tanks were self-sealing.
The prototype of the new version was the I-200 n.04, that was ready
for the factory tests on October 21; it flew on October 29, 1940, flown
by A.N. Ekatov; at the end of November the aircraft was sent to the South
to conduct joint test with NII-VVS avoiding bad winter weather.
The older version was officially named MiG-1, and the new version MiG-3,
according to order NKAP n.704 of December 9; such names were already unofficially
in use in the bureau.
The MiG-3, was introduced into production on 20 December 1940, starting
with the machine numbered 2101 (101st series aircraft); the modification
on a full rate production created some problems. Within the end of 1940,
20 MiG-3 were produced. It was decided to build 3500 MiG-3 in Zavod 1 during
the year 1941, and to start the production in Kiev, where it was projected
to build 100 further MiG-3s during 1941. This latest production line was
never started.
| During January 1941, Zavod 1 Moscow-Vnukovo had produced 150 MiG-3s.
During February 1941 MiG-3s production at Zavod 1 reached a rate of 70 per week, and were widely distributed to the air defense regiments of the VVS; by 28 March, 473 MiG-3s were built, of which 270 were already sent to operative units. Aviation repair depots in Riga were adapted for the MiG-3 maintenance. |
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A photo of the third prototype MiG-3, painted factory green and without markings. It looks identical to operational aircrafts, but it is still unmarked, and painted with a darker color probably reserved to some prototypes. |
The state tests
The tests on I-200 n.04 were never completed on this aircraft; two series
MiG-3s, n.2107 and 2115, were employed for state tests from January 27
to February 26, 1941, flown by the pilots captain A.G. Proshakov and A.G.
Kochetklov. These tests were intended for comparison with the old MiG-1,
to detect defects , to estimate stability and spinning properties and to
determine flight performances.
The mass of the aicraft was grown from 3100 kg to 3355 kg; the horizontal
speed was the same, and the rate of climb deteriorated, requiring 1,71
min more to reach 8000 m altitude. Spin characteristics were the same of
I-200, in fact the aircraft could recover from spin after two turns.
Being unstable and with large load on ailerons, the aircraft rapidly
tired the pilots. The armament worked reliably. The range of the RSI-3
radio was 150 km.
It was noted that the VISh-22 propeller was unadequate, because the
insufficient angle of rotation of blades (20°) causes a dangerous augments
of engine rotation rate during dives at angles of 50-60°. The pick-up
of AM-35a engine was considered inadequate too.
Flying range and tribunals
Flying range of the MiG-3 was checked using the route Chvalovsk-Seym-Chkalowsk-Moscow
(Central Airfield), for a total of 710 km, with a speed of 574 km/h (90%
of top speed) at an altitude of 8,000 m, with the engine at 1950 rpm. On
22 February 1941 the MiG-3 n.2115 was refuelled with 463 kg of fuel at
taking off; at the landing, there remained 84 kg in its tanks, of which
34 were not usable because of design defects; this led to calculate a range
of 820 km. MiG-3 n.2107 gave comparable results.
This was less than the 1000 km range required by SNK. The tests were
made without the altimetric corrector of mixture on, because, according
to the engine manual released by Zavod 21 that built the engine, this could
not be used at an altitude of 8,000 m.
The technicians of the factory didn't agree with such results. Mikoyan
decided, with the agree of the engine designer A.Mikulin, that the altimetric
corrector should be used for the tests. On April 4, the chief designer
A.I. Mikoyan and his assistant M.I. Gurevic wrote to the People Commissar
of the Aircraft Industry, A.I. Shakhurin, that they have calculated reliably
a range not less than 1000 km, on the base of a fuel consumption of 0,38
kg/km, while it reached 0, 48 kg/km during state tests, because the altimetric
corrector was not used during the NII-VVS tests, causing an increase of
fuel consumption.
Tests conducted on April 19 by Zavod 1 on two series aircrafts confirmed
the results of the calculation, giving a flight range of 1180 km.
In all, the program for the modernization of the fighter line met a
lot of troubles, partly due to excessive hurry. Some scapegoats were needed.
Partly because of the wrong results of the tests, the chief of the
NII-VVS, Major General A.I. Filin was devoted to the military tribunal,
and then shot. His great merits didn't save him: he was the first to receive
the pilot-engineer qualification, he took part in flight tests of all the
new aircrafts and knew well all their merits and defects, and was a major
expert of spinning; besides, he established a new flight endurance record
of 75 hours on a Tupolev ANT-25RD, together with M.Gromov and I Spirin.
He was chief of the NII-VVS for 3 years.
Besides, many section chiefs of NII-VVS , as A. Voydevodin, P. Nikitchenko
and M.Maksimov were removed from their functions. All of them were unjustifiably
accused of sabotage and braking the introduction of new aircrafts.
The first attempt to improve armament
The standard armament of the MiG-1 and of early MiG-3s was composed
by one 12,7 mm UBS gun and two 7,62 mm ShKAS guns, all on the nose.
From February 20, 1941, a new version with two further 12,7 mm
BK guns on underwing pods with 145 rounds each entered production.
The new standard revealed itself unsatisfactory, as the weight increased
of about 150 kg, deteriorating the flight characteristics of the aircraft;
besides, the firing at high g manoeuvres was unprecise due to torsion of
the wings, so the most of the gun pods were removed when the aircrafts
arrived to the units.
821 examples with 5 guns were produved until July 27,1941, when the
underwing guns were suppressed, and the standard armament returned to the
original standard; the predisposition for underwing guns pods seems to
have remained on following aircrafts too, and it looks to have been suppressed
only towards the end of the MiG-3 production.
Accidents during tests and introduction into service
On 12 January,1941, the test pilot V.Kuleshov entered in spin and, although
he tried to save his aircraft, he crashed to ground and was killed.
Another test pilot, N.Baulin, suggested that new monoplanes should
be piloted differently than biplanes: overcorrection of the control columb
during loops caused spin.
Another test pilot, V.Gursky, had to make seven emergency landings
in four days of tests, and in two cases he went close to disaster.
The aircraft was difficult to master even for experienced test pilots,
it created major problems to the medium Soviet pilot of early 1941, whose
training was not accurate.
Many accidents happened during the introduction of the new aircrafts.
One of the first units to receive it was 16th IAP of the Moscow Air Defence,
that assigned it to experienced pilots.
On March, the best pilots of 34th IAP visited the Zavod 1 and were
trainedto fly MiG-3s; by 1st May, all the pilots of the unit were able
to fly well the aircraft for the parade. Three days before, a pilot was
killed in an accident.
On March 13, the oldest test pilot A.N.Ekatov died while testing the
MiG-3 n.2147. This happened during a test to determinate the rate of climb
maximum speed and fuel consumption at high altitude. Investigation showed
that the supercharger exploded, damaging the aircraft and hitting the pilot,
that was consciousness at the moment of the impact with the ground.
This accident revealed the unsufficient safety factor of the supercharger
impeller; it was 26% at the nominal rate of the engine (2050 rpm), but
it reduceed to 6% only at the maximum rate of 2350 rpm. Besides, the material
of the impeller (alloy AK-1) had not particular fatigue durability.
Trapezoidal wing MiG-3
During August 1941, TsAGI proposed the installation of trapezoidal wingtips
on the MiG-3, that, according to wind tunnel tests, should decrease the
landing speed of about 5 km/h; this modify was rejected, because such a
small improvement couldn't justify trouble in a full working assembling
line.
The photo shows a mockup with trapezoidal wings, ski landing gear and
stripes on a T-101 wind tunnel.
Moving to Kuybyshev
By the order NKAP n.648 of July 9, 1941, it was decided to open a second
production line in Kuybyshev on the Urals, 885 km east of Moscow, on a
factory still to build called Zavod 122; Kuybyshev was selected as a military
industrial pole for many other factories of bellic interest.
But already on July 22 it was decided to move the factories eastwards
to protect them from invasion and air raids; it was decided to transfer
all the equipment and personnel from Zavod 1 as soon as possible.
To begin with, a part of the Mikoyan design team was trasferred there
during August 1941; the documents and drawings were transported by aircraft,
but unfortunately an heavy rain started while the precious load was unloaded,
and Mikoyan himself had to try to save papers from rain. Subsequently,
remaining documents on the aircrafts were loaded on a truck, that, had
its own problems with muddy ground and had to be pulled in some occasions.
During October, a factory airfield was prepared, many workshops were
built, a forge and a foundry were made.
The moving of machinery of the MiG-3 production line started in October
1941. The moving was made with good efficiency, so machinery in Moscow
worked until the time to be quickly dismounted, moved eastward and quickly
remounted into often unfinished workshops.
Condition were difficult, because building and infrastructures were
lacking, and production often had to be started in unfinished workshops;
personnel was forced to move away from his homes and families in places
where food, housing and clothing were lacking, the fall weather was rainy
while winter brought cold (-35°C), snow, and ice.
The first MiG-3 assembled in Kuybychev rolled out of the workshop ten
days after the arrival of the last parts load, and production was of 1-2
aircrafts to day, well below the 10-15 aircrafts for day made before moving.
All the few (about 30) MiG-3s made in Kuybyshev were obtained by assembling
spare parts already built in Moscow.
The Mikoyan bureau absorbed the experienced technicians of the Tairov
bureau, that were working on the Ta-3 twin engined fighter; this because
Vsevolod Tairov himself had died in an accident while flying to Kuybyshev
at the end of December.
The end of production
On that time, the VVS had already 3 types of fighters on production,
and the MiG-3 was not the most beloved of them. Besides, the same plant
in Kuybishev should produce Il.2 Shturmovoks too, but their output was
very slow, due to the lack of Mikulin AM-38F engines equipping them. After
the loss of a large factory in Byelorussia, the only factory remained to
produce the aM-38F engines was the same producing AM-35A engines for the
MiG-3, located in Kuybyshev tooand activated inlate 1941. The two engines
were nearly identical, so it was clear that an AM-35A more was an AM-38F
less.
The Il-2 was in production et the Kuybyshev plant too, but its production
went slowly, being the production concentrated on MiG-3, probably for inertia,
because its suppression was already decided by the authorities. During
a meeting in Moscow on December 23 with the prence of Stalin, Mikoyan,
Petlyakov, Mikulin and Ilyushin and many other, it was discussed on the
delays of the factory directors to convert the production of MiG-3 and
AM-35A into Il-2 and AM-38F.
As a result, Stalin sent an angry telegram:
"You have deceived our country and our Red Army.
Our Red Army needs Il-2s as much as it does bread and water. Szenkman
is producing one Il-2 for day, and Tretyakov is producing one to two MiG-3s.
This is an insult to the country and to the Red Army. We need Il-2s, not
MiGs. This is your last warning.
The telegram led to the immediate suspension of MiG-3 production, while
the production of Il-2 grew rapidly even beyond the programmed production
volume.
After returning from Kuybyshev to Moscow during April 1942, at the newly organized experimental plant 155 (OKB-155) headed by Mikoyan, they obtained from Zavod 1 and zavod 30 many spare parts and sub-ensembles, that allowed to build up 30 aircrafts, numbered from n.6001 to 6030, all armed with two ShVAK; two further aircrafts, arrived to the plant for major maintenance, were rearmed with two ShVAK.
The total production of MiG-3 of Zavod 1 and OKB-155 was 3172; it is
not clear if this number comprises the MiG-1s, the I-200 prototypes and
the MiG-3M-82.
The modularity of this aircraft led to an easy maintainability by cannibalization,
so 2 or 3 damaged aircrafts could be used to obtain an airworty one; some
MiG-3s remained serviceable, with secondary duties, until the end of the
war.
MiG-7 (izdelye 72)
During April 1941, the engine AM-37 was approved for series production.
A MiG-3 equipped with an AM-37 engine was built and named MiG-7.
Test pilot N.P.Baulin and chief engineer V.N.Sorokin were assigned
to its factory tests; the first flights revealed a poor longitudinal stability,
that would require wide reprojecting of the aircraft. The AM-37 engine
was removed from the MiG-7 to be installed on the DIS-200 (MiG-5) heavy
fighter prototype.
The beginning of the war led to abandoning the project, because of
the priority of AM-38F production for Il-2s.
MiG-3 AM-38
One weak point of the MiG-3 was its poor performance at low altitudes,
where the most of air combat took place. To remedy to this, the aircraft
n.3595 was equipped with an AM-38F engine with a takeoff power of 1600
hp and a AV-5L-110A propeller. The aircraft made its maiden flight on July
31, 1941, and conducted tests for the following 12 days.Test pilots Y.K.
Stankevich and chief engineer K.N. Mkrtychan were assigned to the test
program.
The greater power improved by much the aircraft's performances, particularly
maximum speed, up to the altitude of 4,000 m.
The aircraft was tested in two configurations: one was the original
made by Zavod 1, and the second incorporated some modifies proposed by
the chief designer: new design of the fairings of the exhaust stacks, bomb
shackles removed and inert gas system. In the first configuration the aircraft
reached 582 km/h at 3400 m altitude, while the second configuration reached
592 km/h.
While the AM-38 F engine could easily replace the AM-35A without structural
modifies, the cooling system revealed to be unsufficient for this more
powerful engine, and this limited the operability of the aircraft to temperatures
not higher than 16°C on the ground.
After the test in NII, the aircraft returned in Zavod 1 for modifies,
but after this the aircraft gave problems with the supercharger, and during
a flight the aircraft suffered deformation of fuel tanks. After 22 flights,
on September 22 the aiorcraft returned to the factory for repairs.
On October 4 the aircraft flew again on the airstripe of Zavod 1, but
the following day the aircraft crashed killing the test pilot N.P.Baulin.
An investigation showed that the cause of this was a combat with an
enemy aircraft.
Due to the shortage of AM-35A, some units conducted their own experiment
on the use of AM-38. Two aircrafts of 402 IAP were modified in such way
during November 1941, and were tested by the regimental commander Major
K.A.Grudzev, and squadron commander captain B.G. Boroday. The first of
them shot down two enemy bombers while testing the modified aircraft n.
4184.
Photo-reconaissance MiG-3
During July 1941, five aircrafts were modified in Zavod 1 with the
installation of an AFA-I camera.
Lightened MiG-3
In 1943, two MiG-3s were modified by NII-VVS to increase their ceiling.
One of the aircrafts was lightened of 187 kg, passing to a loaded mass
of 3098 kg; its ceiling increased to 11750 m.
Pressurized MiG-3 (project XS)
Before the war, a pressurized cockpit was required for I-200 and I-153;
the chief designer of Zavod 482, A.Y. Tserbakov developeed three versions
of the pressurized cabin. Due to the starting of the war, the project was
abandoned.
MiG-3 SPB for Zveno
The SPB composite dive bomber, also known as Zveno, consisted of a
carrier aircraft TB-3 with two I-16 fighter armed with two 250 kg bombs
each; the fighters were carried by the TB-3, then they were released for
the final attack and they return back (hopely) on their own or carried
again by the TB-3; this allows to attack objectives by far beyond the range
of an usual bomber.
An updated Zveno considered the use of a Pe-8 four-engine bomber and
two MiG-3s with bombs.
The project was abandoned due to the heavy workload of the factories.
Estimated data:
total mass 33500 kg;
maximun speed with all the engines in action: 405-420 km/h;
Ceiling 8700-8900 m;
Flying range at 5,000 m: 1320-1450 km, with the fighters engines nourished
by the fuel of the bomber;
duration of flight about 5 hours.
MiG-3 with additional wing
In 1941, designer A.A. Senkov proposed to install an additional retractable
canvas wing on MiG-3s to reduce landing speed. The proposal was not accepted
because the increased weight and drag would deteriorate the flight characteristics.
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