Soviet BI-1 Rocket Interceptor — Hidden Truth of Stalin’s Secret Jet Weapon on the Eastern Front скачать в хорошем качестве

Soviet BI-1 Rocket Interceptor — Hidden Truth of Stalin’s Secret Jet Weapon on the Eastern Front

A rocket screams to life over the Urals in 1942—no propeller, just chemical fire and a tiny wing. In minutes, the first Soviet rocket-powered interceptor will either make history or vanish into it. This film uncovers the real story of the BI-1: a desperate, high-risk answer to German air raids on the Eastern Front during World War II. Conceived by Aleksandr Bereznyak and Aleksei Isaev under Viktor Bolkhovitinov, and powered by a Dushkin liquid-fuel rocket, the BI-1 leapt skyward with astonishing speed—but only for a few minutes. We trace secret tests in 1942–43, the engineering tradeoffs of pressurized propellant feed, the aircraft’s cramped airframe and tiny wing, and the compressibility effects that made high-speed control treacherous. The narrative centers on test pilot Grigory Bakhchivandzhi’s fatal flight on March 27, 1943, examining the evidence for pitch-down (Mach tuck) near transonic speeds and why the interceptor’s endurance and safety limits doomed it. Set against parallel developments like Germany’s Me 163, this episode places the BI-1 within the broader arc of Soviet WW2 technology, Red Army air defense strategy, and the transition from rocket planes to practical turbojets. It is a documented, sober look at a weapon born of urgency—an experiment that pushed Soviet aviation to the edge and helped define the path to postwar jet flight.