Russian Aircraft Encyclopedia

The book Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft 1875-1995 is a very comprehensive compendium of Russian/CIS aircraft built during the last years of Romanov dynasty, the timespan when the USSR existed, and the Russian Federation’s first years. There are two alphabetic sections in this book devoted to the OKB-1 and OKB-2 design groups which were formed by captured German aeronautical engineers who had worked on the DFS 346 supersonic research aircraft and Junkers EF 126 pulsejet fighter but also the Ju 287 and EF 131 forward swept wing bomber programs and EF 132 strategic jet bomber project during the last years of the Third Reich. In fact, when Brunolf Baade was in the USSR working as part of OKB-1, he used the EF 131 prototype FSW jet bomber as the basis of the twin-engine EF 140 derivative, which used newer-generation turbojets with greater output than the Jumo 004 and BMW 003. I should point out that the entry about the Myasishchev M-50 in this book is a bit incorrect with respect to the aircraft’s developmental history because although the M-52 was derived from the M-50, it differed in having a side-by-side cockpit and a compartment in the nose for a navigator but also the extra horizontal stabilizer atop the vertical stabilizer, and five M-52 prototypes were ordered (only the first was nearly completed but not yet flown when the Myasishchev OKB was closed down in 1960). There was also a second M-50 prototype on order, which would have had the Zubets turbojets, but it was not completed.