Aviapedia

Development and serial production of the own engines requires the highest technological, engineering and industrial level.

First post-WW2 engines for the Soviet jet planes were based on the foreign models. But soon there were developed completely “our own proper” engines which were as good as their foreign analogs, and even better by some characteristics. Klimov plant is one of the leaders in the aviation engines industry.

In the February 1944 three hundred heavy bombers of the US 8th Army Air Force were attacked by the 20 modern jet fighters Me-262 supported by the hundred prop fighters. That day USAF lost 78 bombers and 10 fighters from the cover groups. Most of the losses were caused by the jet Messerschmitts. The heart of Me-262 was a turbojet Jumo 004A engine. It had thrust of 840 kg and was able to speed the fighter up to 800 kmph.

After the Third Reich fall captured engines were transported to the USSR. The Vladimir Klimov design bureau was ordered to launch serial production. Re-designed version of the Jumo 004A received designation RD-10 and was put into serial production very soon. This engine was used by Yak-15 – the first serial jet fighter of the Soviet Union.

But performance of the re-designed engine already wasn’t enough. The best turbojet engines by the moment were in England. Klimov engineers, having only open published information and one NIN-1 engine profile cut photo, started to make blueprints of the new engine. And very possible they would succeed in creating engine “by the photo”. But at the end of 1946 USSR has officially bought three “Rolls-Royce” turbojet engines from England. Again, serial production was put onto Klimov design bureau. Soviet versions of the English engines has received designations RD-45, RD-45F and RD-500 and were used in first MiG-15 and in many prototypes.

With enough experience at the end of ’40s Klimov KB had started the development of their own turbojet engine. Engineers had the maximal goal – Soviet engine should have better performance then all foreign prototypes and analogs do. And Klimov team succeeded. In 1949 the first Soviet serial turbojet engine VK-1 was put into production.

Aleksey Grigoriev, V.Ya.Klimov plant general designer: “From the beginning, when in ’46 the OKB (opitno-konstruktorskoe buro - design bureau) was created, we were dealing with turbojet engines. I mean VK-1 engines were used in MiG-15 and since then it has been our specialization. We had very good experience of work with Mikoyan company and other companies who used our VK-1 and following modifications.”

MiG-15bis with VK-1 engine was able to reach the speed more then 1000 kmph and had theoretical ceiling more then 15 km. Amazing, but in servicing it was much more simple and useful then some turboprop fighters. During the Korean war MiG-15 had total air superiority. In 50s it was named as best world fighter.

After two years since serial production has started, it was produced the first modification of VK-1 – engine has received the afterburner duct. This engine was used in the first supersonic fighter-interceptor MiG-17.

Petr Izotov, V.Ya.Klimov plant chief designer: “In the beginning of ‘50s this engine was very massively produced, and not only in USSR but in Poland, Czechoslovakia and China. Next it was afterburner modification and later it was created engines to be several decades in advance of their time. Under the Klimov and Izotov guidance there were created VK-2, VK-3 and VK-13 engines, engines with afterburner duct and engines with cooled blades.”

The VK-1 engine had a lot of modifications, but by some reasons most of them were out of use. Totally it was produced more then 20.000 engines, some of them are working till today – technical staff of the airports are using them to clean runway from the snow.

In the 1960 Sergey Izotov became the chief designer of the OKB-117, the bureau started to deal with heli and rocket engines.

Only after 10 years, in 70s Klimov team started to develop plane engines again. They participated in the MiG-29 4th generation light frontline fighter engine tender. Besides Klimov KB it was Sergey Tumanskiy design bureau to take part in the same tender. But the gas-generator project, offered by the Izotov was unrivaled.

Petr Izotov, V.Ya.Klimov plant chief designer: “It was a victory due to the first part of the demonstration prototype mobile implementation. By that time RD-33 design was a breakthrough.”

Izotov’s idea was so useful that other engine designers started to use it. Once Petr Dementiev, minister of the aviation industry in USSR, was visited by the famous engineer Arkhip Lyulka, who was designing engine for the Sukhoi fighters at that time.

Fedotova Svetlana, Sergey Izotov’s widow: “He went to Dementiev with an offer that he will switch to the Izotov’s scheme. Dementiev supported his decision. It means Arkhip Lyulka has forced his ambitions. For his work he was able to force it. I suppose it was far not so easy for the person like him, famous academician.”

Lyulka’s partnership with Klimov KB didn’t finish with this. Very soon engine, developed for the Sukhoi, started to have vibrations it was very hard to get rid of.

Fedotova Svetlana, Sergey Izotov’s widow: “And then Lyulka got stuck. He sayd – how is that, Sergey Petrovich? He answered – ok, send me your guys. They came and together with our guy, Lobanov, the head of department, they started to deal with that vibrations. He helped them, they avoided vibrations by damping.”

In the MiG-29 engine development process it was very helpful for the Klimov team to have their own production plant. The timelimits from the project till the component production were minimal. And serial production plants received not only blueprints, but tested technologies too. But it wasn’t always so smooth.

Fedotova Svetlana, Sergey Izotov’s widow: “Sometimes there were serious conflicts. Sometimes we made advances, sometimes we were pushing and they had to do exactly what we were asking for. Sometimes it was a strong fight. But it is ok, at the end of the day we were managing it and work continued.”

Once there was a big problem with MiG engineers.

Fedotova Svetlana, Sergey Izotov’s widow: “From the certain moment pilots started to get poisoned. What was the reason? They (MiG engineers) were developing the air cleaner for the air going to cockpit. And of course, whose fault it was? Air is being taken from the engine. So it’s Klimov KB problem”

Klimov KB engineers urgently visited MiG plant. It has appeared that new cleaner was taking air from the air flow, which was receiving small parts of oil from the working engine components. The air cleaner creators have missed this point, and oil had been accumulated. When oil concentration was reaching dangerous level, pilots started to get poisoned. When the reason was clarified, this problem was solved very fast.

Already at that time KB had an engine test bench, unique for the whole country.

On the test bench engines are passing full tests complex, from the acceptance tests till the lasting tests of the resource. Modern hardware allows receiving a huge amount of data. For today it’s the most modern complex in Russia.

During the RD-33 development Sergey Izotov has tried out a new engineering approach. From the beginning the engine was designed with minimal reserve factor, and all the weak spots were figured out and fixed during the tuning. As a result, RD-33 was very light and in the same time fit all the necessary performance parameters. It has thrust of 8500 kg. It has very high gasdynamic stability factor, which is very important during the weapon usage. MiG-29 with Klimov engine has got such a big thrust-to-weight ratio that now is able to perform complicated aerobatic evolutions, such as “Kolokol” (Bell) or “Kobra”.

Both specialists and simple show visitors looking MiG-29 demo flights are mentioning black smoke of the engine. Some of the experts even say this is big disadvantage of the Klimov engine.

Klimov engineers are trying to fix this side-effect, but they never agreed this is a critical disadvantage of the engine.

Petr Izotov, V.Ya.Klimov plant chief designer: “Smoke is absolutely subjective. It would be a problem if it would affect plane’s flight performance or engine characteristics. But it doesn’t!”

Today Klimov engineers are doing their best to lower down smoke of the engine. But the main point is not to affect brilliant engine performance.

Aleksey Grigoriev, V.Ya.Klimov plant general designer: “There is a certain correlation between smoke and engine characteristics, like reliability, for example. But for today we have not found a solution how to keep necessary engine components reliability and to remove this side-effect we’ve been complained about for many years.”

RD-33 was built using module design, which allows repairing separate components. RD-33 is known to be a very reliable engine. In the beginning Klimov engineers were fighting for the single hours of stable work, now it is thousands of hours.

The Next step of the RD-33 development was a creation of the thrust vectoring nozzle. It was named exactly like this – KLIVT (KLimovskiy Vektor Tyagi – Klimov Thrust Vectoring), while in general such systems has well-known name OVT – otklonyamiy vektor tyagi, or TVC – thrust vector control.

This nozzle provides engine with unique performance. Klimovs know-how – ring and three hydraulic cylinders, this complex can turn the jet stream to any side.

The First time OVT appeared on MAKS airshow in Russia. Its design was so original that even Viktor Chepkin, the first thrust vectoring nozzle creator, was very excited.

Petr Izotov, V.Ya.Klimov plant chief designer: “Here comes Chepkin and says: “Petya, they say you’ve brought something interesting?” And I say: “Yes, Viktor Mihailovich.” He took a look and says: “But it will not work!” I say: “What do you mean? We’ve just took it off from the test bench” and then he said “This just can’t be” and as he was, in white shirt, got into it. When he got out of there, he was totally black, we didn’t have time to clean the engine, took it off directly from the test bench.”

Unlike other OVT systems, KLIVT is full-aspect – jet stream can make a full circle around with angle of 15 degrees. It allows the plane to perform unbelievable evolutions. Another unique ability of the KLIVT – it can be applied to other engines, including foreign ones.

Petr Izotov, V.Ya.Klimov plant chief designer: “In general we’ve created the technology. We’ve applied our technology to the RD-33 engine, but the same technology was used in AL-31, demonstrated by the “Salut” plant.”

The latest Klimov engineers development is RD-33MK “Morskaya Osa” (The Sea Wasp) modification. This engine was created specially for the MiG-29K, fighter for the Indian navy.

Petr Izotov, V.Ya.Klimov plant chief designer: “Morskaya Osa is the first deep RD-33 modification aimed to increase the main engine parameters – which means thrust. Of course, in addition there were applied technologies to allow engine work in maritime climate.”

Besides, “Morskaya Osa” was installed on the latest MiG-35 fighter, presented to the Indians on the airshow in Bangalore.

According to the Klimov engineers opinion RD-33 still has a lot of potential to use. And right now it goes work to increase engine performance even more.

Petr Izotov, V.Ya.Klimov plant chief designer: “Today we are trying to increase thrust of the engine. We have very good parameters of the base model in terms of reliability and main characteristics. And today we are making them even higher. I wouldn’t like to talk about exact numbers, but we may expect 30-35% more in basic parameters.”

Already there are plans for the new engine. Last year engineers of the Klimov KB have sent the letter to MiG with their proposals by the 5th generation fighter engine. Klimov team promises new engine will have a number of really unique parameters and abilities.