Without further ado, exposure is respectful.
Il-40 Buddha-figures
Above is the second prototype of the Il-40 strike aircraft. Originally, after saying that Su-11 should go to Su-17, but still when talking about Su-7, I searched for photos of this product, and I fell into the visual expression of these two ugly and cute big nose holes. Ilyushin was also one of the soviet aircraft bosses, at that time the design of the aircraft did not go to the kidney, it is said that there is no special reason to get out of such a visual effect, with the spirit of exploration to the end of the hole, conveniently delved into it.
Ilyushin was a famous grain processing enterprise aircraft design bureau in the Soviet Union during World War II, the main product Il-2 was likened by Stalin to "the bread and air of the Soviet Red Army", the true provenance of this statement seems to be unknowable now, but since everyone says so, there must be a source, to less can explain the success of the Il-2 in the Soviet Union, after World War II, the Il-10 only made a simple improvement to the Il-2, and the aerodynamic layout has hardly changed at all. The Il-40 was the first generation of Soviet jet strikers, and everything was still in the exploratory stage, so it still retained the two-person driving mode that was "proven in actual combat" to be useful and useful.
The Il-2's backsseat was defenseless against incoming attacks from the rear
In fact, the Il-40 was still in a normal layout at the beginning. The strike machine has to lick the ground, and it is indispensable to greet all kinds of light and heavy weapons. The Soviet Union's combat experience during World War II made heavy armor protection the standard for strong strike aircraft, coupled with structural strengthening, and to carry a large number of ground attack weapons and ammunition, the weight of the whole aircraft increased significantly, and Mikulin's AM-5 engine was originally so little thrust that it could not be pushed without two.
The role of the Il-2 was well known to the Soviets, and the death rate of the rear-seat shooters was the same, and it may be for this consideration that the Il-40 was set up with the tail cannon that even the bombers of that era were gradually eliminated, and it was directly 23 mm caliber, remotely controlled by the rear-seat shooter, replacing the machine gun that had been directly operated by the shooter before, and the firepower was far superior to the previous Il-2 and Il-10. The rear seat frame is also more perfect, the airtightness is much stronger than the two predecessors, and it finally provides conditions for the rear seat shooter to increase armor protection. It should be said that if you really want to participate in the war, the back seat should be more assured, of course, this goods did not have a batch production service in the end, so how effective it is, we can only think about it.
Model, visible tail turret
As for why the nose of the nose became two large nostrils, it was because of the cannon. The first prototype began with three 23 mm guns on each side of the fuselage, and as a result, smoke billowed from any of the guns, and the engines on both sides of the fuselage were just full, burping and stopping in minutes. This phenomenon is commonly known as "swallowing smoke", the Il-40 first flew on March 7, 1953, the first aerial gun test, the pilot was briefly blinded by the gun flames, the two engines stopped at the same time, fortunately after the pilot recovered the successful start in the air, safely flew back. Ilyushin initially moved the cannon forward, thinking of moving as far away from the engine intake as possible, but moving all the way to the front nose did not solve the problem, and the results of ground tests found that any gun could cause at least one engine to stop as long as it fired 5 to 10 shells.
The gun was moved to the nose with 2 fewer guns
If you can't move forward, you can move backward, and that's what the MiG 15 does. The gun was then moved to a movable shelf behind the nose gear, which could be turned to shoot at the ground, and the air intake was pushed directly to the front. In this way, the sacrifice of appearance and good lai can also be regarded as a complete solution to the problem of swallowing cigarettes. After the test flight, it was found that the performance of the Il-40 was not bad, and after the test flight was equipped with a larger thrust RD-9 engine, the maneuverability was so good that it could fight with the MiG-15 Biss and even the MiG-17, and the maximum bomb load also soared from 400 kg to 1000 kg, and even reached 1400 kg when overloaded, almost catching up with half of the Il-28.
The artist's Il-40
But such a toss- and turning, the time also took more than a year. In 1954, Ilyushin began to improve the Il-40P, thinking of clearing all the previous problems, and on February 14, 1955, the first flight of the Il-40P was successful, and the national acceptance test began in October. But at this time, the tactical thinking of the Soviet Air Force changed, no longer taking the provision of close support to the Army as the main task, and the new fighter-bomber also replaced the previous large-scale service of the strike aircraft, at this time the Su-7B caught up, and the Il-40 had to lie flat. This is one of the reasons for the success of the Su-7B.
Il-40P three-view
But Ilyushin did not die, bored his head to do a lot of improvements and tests, by the end of the 60s and introduced the Il-40's improved Il-42, and later further developed into the Il-102, or two-seat, with a tail turret, but lost to the Su-25 in the competition, but the prototype of the Il-102 was still on public display until the 1992 Moscow Air Show, and said that it could be exported, but the design of the 50s was of course no one would want it in the 90s.
The Il-102, so look a bit like the Su-25
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