Russians and the high bypass engine in the Cold War

Russians are great in many parts in the aeronautical industry. They built the largest aircraft in history (which are still in use), built some of the best fighter jets and technology related to it. But aircraft engines aren't exactly top notch. While their first inspirations came from    research aircraft and captured German tech, their first successful engine was a reverse engineered clone of the Rolls-Royce Nene engine. The latter came from a visit of the engineers to the plant in England and managed to legally procure a copy for research, creating the Klimov VK-1.

This engine powered aircraft like the Korean War famous Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 and the ubiquitous bomber Ilyushin Il-28 (NATO reporting name: Beagle). The Russians went on to make more powerful engines for their aircraft to properly compete with engines and aircraft from their Cold War adversary, the United States. But the US was able to develop something that the Russians took a while to counter, the high bypass turbofan. As stated before, this engine sucks more air than what goes into the heating chambers in order to provide a cool jet around the heated air in order to provide more propulsion without requiring more powerful engines. This allowed the US military to fly heavier jets while keeping fuel efficiency and great range, like the C-5 Galaxy with the General Electric TF-39 engine (which was the CF6 family of engines that powered all the wide-body, multiple aisle, airliners of that time). 

Russian engines weren't great with low bypass engines (the long & thin looking engines) as they did not have the same performance as those like the TF-39. In fact, the most modern airliner thay had at the time was the Ilyushin Il-86, which was powered by low bypass engine and usually required the entire runway to take off due to the poor performance of these engines. In fact, the Soviet Union tried to make a deal with the United States and Lockheed to purchase a license to make Soviet L-1011 Tristars because of its capabilities and engines (which would have made it the life saver and biggest purchaser of this airline).

Imagine this possibility, one of the strangest and coolest things that could've happened to aviation in the Cold War.

But the technology in the cockpit and engines was too great to share to the Soviets. So aircraft engineer Vladimir Lotarev designed the first high bypass engine for the Soviets, the Lotarev D-36.

It was a small engine, powering medium and small sized aircraft like the unique looking Ukrainian Antonov An-72 (NATO name: Coaler, Russian nickname: Cheburashka, a similarly looking large eared animated character from that region),

Improved version An-74 (Cheburashka/Coaler-A)

the Yakovlev Yak-42 (with the unflattering NATO name: Clobber)

But their advancement to this engineering tech went exponential when the Ivchenko-Progress design bureau, in Zaporizhia, Ukraine, designed the Progress D-18T.

This engine was the largest engine, at the time (beaten by the GEnx, powering the Boeing 787, GE90, powering the 777, and the Engine Alliance GP7000 or the Rolls-Royce Trent 900, either of them powering the Airbus A380), powering the largest mass produced aircraft today,Antonov An-124 (NATO name: Condor)

and the largest aircraft ever, the swansong that is the An-225 Mriya (Russian for dream/inspiration, NATO name: Cossack). 

It would be ten years before the west surpassed the Russian and Ukrainian designs with the General Electric GE90 and the others previously mentioned. The Dream/Cossack continues to be the largest aircraft flying and the Condor is somewhat larger than the largest airliner, the A380. It is likely that Ukraine pushes manufacturing of the An-124, assuming things calm down between Ukraine and Russia due to ownership of designs of that aircraft. One can only Dream, at least we will have the American/Russian collaboration with the GE90 engines (Boeing 777-300ER):

Images provided by Wikimedia Commons.

The Fathers of Mexican Aviation

So everyone wrote about Father's Day and something respective right now. To follow everyone else off the edge, like lemmings, here is another pebble for cliché mountain! Right now I could write about the Wright brothers or Alberto Santos-Dumont. But I'm not going to as speaking for one and not the other will start another debating clusterfuck on the scale of the Enola Gay debate at the Smithsonian in the mid 1990s (was it right to bomb the Japanese, was it right to protect US soldiers, etc.). If you are too young to understand any of this, think of the Wright Brothers and Santos-Dumont debate as which is the best console, XBOX One or PS4 (whilst Otto Lilienthal sits in idle obscurity, like the Wii U). Instead, here are the fathers of Mexican aviation, Juan Pablo & Eduardo Aldasoro.

Juan Pablo (left) and Eduardo (right), a pair of dapper gentlemen

These two men were the first pioneers of aviation in Mexico when they started constructing and testing gliders near Piedad Cemetery, Mexico City. These guys were also given vehement support from progressive President Francisco I. Madero, whom saw the potential of aviation to be a great military tool. What hampered all of this was, unfortunately, the Mexican Revolution and the quick assassination of President Madero. The brothers had a glider that worked successfully, so they went to a mine their father (Andres Aldasoro, Minister of Promotion of mines under Porfirio Diaz) managed, in Tlalpujahua, Michoacán, called Las Dos Estrellas (The Two Stars).There they used the mine's machinery to perfect a design to make an air cooled engine. They also designed an efficient thick wing (which allows greater lift & steady airflow around it) long before it became the norm.



They later moved to New York to learn at the Moisant Aviation School, where many of the first aviators in the North American continent learned to fly. They were the first Mexicans to graduate as pilots and were allowed to fly above the Statue of Liberty, with Juan Pablo becoming the first pilot to do so. The propeller of that flight is currently at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. along with fellow Mexican graduates from that school, Alberto Salinas Carranza, Gustavo Salinas Camiña and Horacio Ruiz, they became the first to fly and teach pilots in their native country. The Aldasoro brothers also founded the Mexican Air Force (FAM) and most of the industries and government branches related to them. Both would pass away in the 1960s, with Juan Pablo achieving the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and Eduardo reaching the rank of Brigadier General. As a result of this, Military Air Base 4 (in Cozumel, Quintana Roo) is called General Eduardo Aldasoro Suarez, while Military Air Base 11 (in Mexico City) is called Teniente Coronel Juan Pablo Aldasoro Suarez.

Images provided by Wikimedia Commons.

The Flying Pencil

               The Boeing 757 was an impressive aircraft that followed Boeing's endeavor to bring jet power to small airports with the 727-100. This small aircraft needed three engines to fly in and out of regional airports that had small runways or rough geographic hazards around it. This enabled towns & rural regions  a fast link to an airline hub or networks to other domestic areas. While smaller than the four engined 707s, the 727 was stretched to the 200 variant to allow medium range and capacity flights from these same airports (while the smaller 737 series could fly routes with less demand).

                But more powerful engines came around by the 1970s and 1980s. The first jumbo jets were powered by high bypass engines. These engines had larger fans in front to suck more air. only a portion of this air could go into the heating chambers of the engine whilst the rest was turbocharged around the same speed. This meant that the engine produced more power with less thrust than previous engines, making them more fuel efficient and less noisy. The designers of the Boeing 757  aircraft took advantage of this. They grabbed two powerful engines (Rolls-Royce RB211, yes THAT Rolls-Royce, and the Pratt & Whitney PW2000). These engines are pretty noisy by today's standards but have more than 37,000 lbs of force each (compare to the 727's engine JT8D that started out with 14,000 and evolved to 20,000 force)!

                As a result, the 757 could carry more (Maximum Take Off Weight [MTOW] of the 757: 255,000 lbs / 115,680 kg  while the 727-200 MTOW: 184,800 lbs / 83,800 kg) and travel almost 3,9 00 miles /  7,222 km away. This meant that airports with small runways and those with noise limits (like John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California) where aircraft have to climb and descend steeply around the runway to minimize noise pollution in the area. And it got elongated with the 300

                But decades have passed and the engines consume more fuel than modern competitors, like the Airbus A321 & the Boeing 737-900ER (despite the fact that it has more power). As the years add onto the 757 fuselages, many airliners replace them with other aircraft. But the legacy of the 757 is not over as it follows the 727 in the freight market. These magnificent airliners, once again, replace the 727 as cargo haulers for the foreseeable future. So today you could still fly with many airliners (like American, United, Icelandair, or Delta), but you'll be seeing more become steady workhorses for freight companies (like UPS, FedEx Express, TNT Airways, DHL).

Images from Wikimedia Commons.