Questions re Polikarpov-fighters.

[Birgir Thorisson]

Technical issues relating to soviet aircrafts are not the most popular topic here, but in the faint hope that some "connoisseurs" are lurking here...

The wikipedia entry for the Polikarpov I-180, which is well sourced, names a number of projected developments of the I-16, that I have never seen mentioned before. As I understand it, these were attempts to re-engine the basic design with 14 cylinder, two-row radial engines. derived from the Gnome Rhone Mistral-Major (14K I presume). The are called I-161, I-162, I-163, I-164, and I-165.
These seem to be precursors to the second variation of the I-180, (mixed construction), represented by the second prototype. (I-180-2).

Does anyone have any info on these planes? or know of websites with more information about them?

A related topic. The wikipedia authors relate M. Maslovs conclusions that the I-180 was cancelled for "irrational" reasons. That, over-awed by the Bf 109, the soviet high command cancelled the radial engined I-180 in favour of in-line engined aircrafts. (Lagg-3, Yak-1).

It is a a reasonable conclusion that the Soviet airforce would have been better off with a fully developed design (I-180), rather than immature designs that were not ready, (MiG, Lagg & Yak), although the expected performance was slightly lower.

One noticeable difference is that the M-88 engines seem to have had better altitude capability than the M-105. (Full throttle height of 7000m v. 5000m?) (The tactical significance is beyond my knowledge).

The irony is that it seems that the factory (No 21 in Gorky) ended up producing +- 1000 I-16, type 24 & 29 fighters in 1940/1941. Why?

Could engine availability be the determining factor? It seems that in mid-1940, there where awful lot of applicants for the utilisation of the M-88 engines, (Ilyushin´s DB-3M bomber, Sukhoi´s BB-2 attack bomber, Tairov´s twin engined fighter, as well as Yatsenko´s I-28 project.) Was production-capacity awailable for the required engines. (As contrasted to great supply of Cyclone-derivatives from Perm, lacking applications.)

Anyone care to comment?

Birgir Thorisson