Ilyushin Il-8

The Ilyushin Il-8 was a Soviet ground-attack aircraft developed by Ilyushin to replace the Ilyushin Il-2. The first two prototypes were significantly faster than the older aircraft, but proved to be less maneuverable. It was redesigned incorporating many features of what would become the Ilyushin Il-10, but proved to be inferior to that aircraft in testing. It was not ordered into production.

Development

In the Summer of 1942 Sergey Ilyushin was requested to design a heavy attack aircraft with a bomb load of up to Template:Convert. He chose to scale-up the single-engined Il-2 to use the new and more powerful Mikulin AM-42 engine, which was essentially a scaled-up version of the Il-2's Mikulin AM-38 engine. The design was initially designated as the Il-AM-42, but it was soon allocated the factory designation of Il-8. While the design of the Il-8 was based on that of the Il-2, it was a completely new aircraft.

The oil cooler was housed with the coolant radiator in a big air scoop on top of the engine cowling, closer to the cockpit than was the case on the Il-2. The gunner's position was enclosed in the armored shell, unlike that in the Il-2, and was equipped with a Template:Convert Berezin UBK machine gun on a VU-8 flexible mount. Otherwise the gun armament was identical to the older aircraft with a pair of Template:Convert VYa cannon with a total 300 rounds and a pair of Template:Convert ShKAS machine guns with 1500 rounds in the wings. Optionally two Template:Convert Nudelman-Suranov NS-37 could be installed in lieu of the VYa-23 cannon. The rear fuselage was lengthened by Template:Convert to improve airflow and the landing gear was lengthened to accommodate the larger propeller. The landing gear nacelles were modified accordingly.

Two prototypes were built of the Il-8. The first had VYa-23 cannon and a wooden rear fuselage. The second had NS-37 cannon installed and a metal rear fuselage. The first flight was on 10 May 1943 and the prototypes were tested both as attack aircraft and as an artillery spotter variant with less range and better radios. Flight tests were reasonably successful with the Il-8 proving to be almost Template:Convert faster at low altitudes than the Il-2. It climbed 15% faster and had nearly twice the range than the older aircraft. Unfortunately flight testing was prolonged by problems with the AM-42 engines. They were unreliable, smoky and vibration-prone. But the Il-8 proved to be less maneuverable than the Il-2 in both the horizontal and vertical planes. State acceptance trials lasted from 26 February–30 March 1944 and it was provisionally accepted for production, provided that these issues were fixed.

But Ilyushin thought that the best features of the two-seat Il-1 prototype could be incorporated into the Il-8 design and approval for another prototype was granted on 1 July 1944. The new prototype, confusingly referred to in the records with the same Il-8-2 designation used for the second prototype of the original design, greatly resembled what would become the Il-10, except for a longer fuselage and the four-bladed propeller. The armament was changed as Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 cannon replaced the YVa-23 guns and the UBK was upgraded with a Template:Convert Berezin B-20 cannon in a VU-9 mount. A cassette of ten AG-2 aerial grenades was fitted to enhance rear quarter defense. Bomb load was upgraded to a total of 1000 kg compared to the Template:Convert of the first prototypes. The Il-8-2 made its first flight on 13 October 1944 and flight testing was once again delayed with engine problems and State acceptance trials weren't completed until 7 July 1945. While it proved to be an improvement over the first design, it was inferior in performance to the Il-10 which was already in service and was not placed into production.

See also

Related development

• Ilyushin Il-2

Comparable aircraft

• Ilyushin Il-10
• Sukhoi Su-6

References

Bibliography

• Gordon, Yefim; Komissarov, Dmitriy and Sergey (2004). OKB Ilyushin: A History of the Design Bureau and its Aircraft. London: Ian Allan. ISBN 1-85780-187-3. 
• Nemecek, Vaclav (1986). The History of Soviet Aircraft from 1918. London: Willow Books. ISBN 0-00-218033-2. 

Ilyushin aircraft

Fighters: Il-1 - Attack: Il-2 · Il-8 · Il-10 · Il-16 · Il-40 · Il-102

Bombers: Il-4 · Il-6 · Il-20 (I) · Il-22 (I) · Il-28 · Il-30 · Il-46 · Il-54

Transports: Il-12 · Il-14 · Il-18 · Il-20 (II) · Il-32 · Il-34 · Il-62 · Il-76 · Il-78 · Il-80 · Il-86 · Il-96 · Il-106 · Il-114

Reconnaissance: Il-20 (III) · Il-22 (II) · Il-24 · Il-38 · A-50 - Trainers: Il-103

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ilyushin Il-8".