Kalinin K-9

Kalinin K-9 ( Kalinin K-9)

Another design of the Kharkov Experimental Air Race ( Харьковский опытный авиационный завод. The main designer of the project was initially I. G. Něman ( И. Г. Неман), and later A. I. Ščerbakov ( А. Я. Щербаков).


The money for the construction of K-9, as the machine was marked, was chosen by activists OSOAVIACHIM near the Dzerzhinsky region of the city of Kharkov ( района города Харьков). The machine was designed in accordance with the then ideas of mass expansion of aviation as a mass-produced, extremely cheap people's plane - six, a maximum of seven thousand rubles, so that it can be obtained by any regional secretariat of the political commissioner. The name "apparatus" ( облисполкомовский) was used for this type. The designers imagined that such aircraft would be necessary for the contacts of areas and district workplaces with the kolkhozes, and later they would also be bought by the kolkhozes themselves for their own needs. The machines were to be used primarily for connections between individual workplaces, for quick control activities of managers of kolkhozes over field work.


The new machine was introduced to a wide audience on November 7, 1930. The low landing speed - 50 - 60 km/h - had the K-9 to allow landing on very small areas. Structurally, the machine did not deviate from the traditions of Kalinin's projects. In shape, it was even very close to the previous K-6. The fuselage welded from steel tubes, all-wood elliptical wing in a high-surface arrangement of parasols, anchored to the fuselage by a system of struts. Practically the same aerodynamically hooded engine. But the main delicacy of the project was that the wing was folding. A fixed centerplane on a system of struts, to which the individual halves of the wing were anchored, rotating according to the pin on the trailing edge. Literally in two or three minutes, only two people could prepare it for flight without special effort or, conversely, put it to storage. The tail surfaces were also foldable. The main reason for this unusualness was the intention that the machine did not require expensive special hangars, but could be stored - in a folded state - in any ordinary kolkhoz barn.


Although K-9 also had certain advantages, they did not progress beyond the first copy of the work. It was probably not so much a technical problem, the machine used proven procedures and concepts, as a psychological problem, which failed attempts at the so-called "people's plane" in other countries. As in other states, in the USSR air force still remained the fate of the instrument of the chosen, the mass consumer has not yet psychologically arrived at the idea that he could need and use something like this.


The prototype K-9 stayed in the race for some time, where he was almost forgotten due to the influx of other duties. In 1931, a NACA cover and an aerodynamic chassis cover were experimentally mounted on its engine. In 1934, the prototype K-9 was made available to the Kharkov Aeroclub ( Харьковский аэроклуб[/i: a ), where his tracks end.

Sources:
http://www.airwar.ru/enc/law1/k9.html
http://attitude.name/archives/87

then the same sources as the previous constructions are used.