Kuibyschew (OKB-2, USSR)
The second experimental plant in Russia was the Experimental Factory No. 2 at a small town named Uprawlentscheski near the city of Kuibyschew at the River Volga in the Kazan aera. During WWII here the Kirow Aircraft Facility No. 145 was located. During 1946 this facility was restorated and a lot of new laboratories and production halls were erected. In November 1946 the engine staff of Dessau's OKB-1 arrived here. The facilities at Kuibyschew were fully concentrated on the engine developement and equipment was transfered from the Otto Mader Werke and the Junkers Motorenwerke at Dessau. The builtup of this factory took until 1949. Klimow was appointed as the general manager. Three OKBs were installed at Kuibyschew. The OKB-1 was headed by Brandner and most of the 350 former Junkers employees were integrated here. The OKB-2 was set up with former BMW people under the management of Prestel. Initial works at Kuibyschew were:
The further developement of the Jumo 004 was transfered to the Factory No. 26 in 1947. The BMW 003 developement was transfered to Factory No. 16 in Kazan, where it was further developed to the RD-20 for the Mig 9. Also the 032 compressor engine developement was already stopped at the end of 1947.
More successfull work was performed on the Jumo 012 developement. Two engines were already tested in Dessau and transported to Russia in September 1946. A lot of improvements were added at Kuibyschew, but in 1948 the WK-1 engine of Klimow was finished at Leningrad and that Russian engine was more compact at the same performance as the Jumo 012. Therefore the programme was stopped in 1948.
Since 1948 the three OKBs were reduced to two and the OKB-1 continued the Jumo 022 developement. In 1949 the Experimental Plant got a new management headed by Kusnezow. He further improved the 022 design, which performed its first test run at Kuibyschew in 1950 and was by then designated TW-2. When the 022 developement was finished in 1950, half of the 610 staff members were allowed to return to Germany.
The remaining staff of Kuibyschew was asked to develope a PTL engine of 12000hpr for the strategic Tu95 bomber since 1950. The socalled 2TW-2F engine was a coupled TW-2 design and this engine finished its test phase in November 1952. A Tu95 crash was caused by the new engine and therefore further improvements were necessary in 1953, leading to the TW-12 or NK-12 engine. In late 1953 the last Germans left Kuibyschew for Germany. Kusnezow continued further developements on the NK-12 with a Russian develope team at Kuibyschew.
Literature:
- Dimitri Alexej Sobolew
Deutsche Spuren in der sowjetischen Luftfahrtgeschichte
Verlag E.S. Mittler GmbH, 2000ISBN No. 3-8132-0675-0, 311 pages
introduced Mar 2004, transfered Dec 2017
http://hugojunkers.bplaced.net/
contents last updated 14 Mar 2004