Russian Oddity

[OBIO]

Bismarck13 has produced a very unique Russian plane for CFS2....the Grushin MAI-3. I don't know much about the history of this plane yet...but it did not make it into production. The exterior modeling is nice, the VC is nice for a CFS2 plane...full animations (control stick, rudder pedals, throttle lever, flaps lever, gear lever) though nothing is clickable. I will be doing some tweaking here and there to get the plane to be more fullly usable in FS2004 (some panel work, adjusting the eye point position, effects and lights) and once done will give Bismarck a holler to get his okay to upload to the library.

Oh, no visible pilot or gunner...they are not part of the model, but are displayed via the DP file...so for FS2004, there is no crew.

OBIO

[Lionheart]

Cool looking design OBIO. Looks English to me. I havent seen that one before..




Bill

[Cazzie]

Cool looking design OBIO. Looks English to me. I havent seen that one before..




Bill

Bill, always remember:

If it looks weird, it's British.

If it looks ugly, it's French.

If it looks ugly and weird, It's Russian.

[Haitun]

It's Grusihin's Sh-Tandem (also known as Sh-MAI, MAI-3 and MAI-Tandem). It was build on december 5, 1937 as experimental light attack aircraft in Moscow Aviation University. The flght program was conducted by famous Russian test pilot a polish origin Stefanovsky.
It was wooden and armor-plated, built by a group of 18 students in 45 days.
In 1937 it was powered by M-87 and in 1939 by M-87A engine
Sorry for bad syntax - just translated this from a Russian site:

On January 8th, 1939К the plane with one pilot was certified for initial flight testing program with M-87 engine, where it reached the speed of 406 kph. at ground level and 488 kph at 4280 m height.
Afte rthe flight test Grushin was advised to put the navigator's cockpit further back.
At September and october of 1939 it was equiped with 950hp M-87A engine and VISh-3 propeller
and was taken to factory and state flight tests. The test results were published on October 10th.
The armanent was standrd for the light attack aircraft of the age – 4 wing-mounted ShKAS machine guns, 1 turret ShKAS machine gun and 200kilos of bombs.
Flight tests included 51 flight with a total flight time of 18 hrs 38 mins. With a TOW of 2800 kilos the olane was able to reach 361 kph at ground level and 444 kph at 5600 m. The landing speed without air brakes was 140-145 kph. Take-off run was 400 m and the landing run 480 m.
The pilot said that the aircraft was very easy to maintain.
The plane failed state test program for weak performance, poor rudder stability, small navigator’s cockpit, weak landing gear and weak front wing.
The take off was difficult due to elevator instability and weak rudder response. It was considered that the larger size of the rear wing wasn’t a successful solution.
The armament was far fro pefect too – the MV-3 turret was so heavy that the plane lost 34 kph of speed with it. The solution was to replace it with a Fokker G1- like construction,
At the same time the averall scheme was seen as a success. It was planned to move the plane to Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute for an upgrade and successive testing,
Another Tandem-Sh was built with a lower rear wing.
The main feature of the plane was retractable tricycle gear.
The second plane was equipped with 800 hp M-63 engine

[thedude247]

I Like, where can I get one.

[OBIO]

The Grushin can be found in the CFS2 aircraft library by doing a search by author for Bismarck13. It will need some tweaks to be fully FS2004 ready....but it works fine just the way it is. I will be adding FS9 lights and effects, tweaking the panel config to add GPS, engine and fuel management pop up windows, FS9 radio equipment.

OBIO

[brad kaste]

....Looks like something out of a bad dream. Wonder if Uncle Joe would have approved of this one.....

[Odie]

What a peculiar plane! The design is such that it grows on you the more you look at it!

[OBIO]

I just got a PM from Bismarck...he has offered to add crew members to the model for a true FS9 model...still, the VC will not be clickable...so don't go getting your hopes up on that...but there will be a pilot and gunner visible from spot view...that is good enough in my book!

OBIO

[OBIO]

THe FS9 model is now in my possession...crew added and a couple of texture mapping glitches fixed. I have the panel pretty much tweaked...I will do second panel set up with English gauges...those Russian gauges confuse the daylights out of me. Lights and effects are in place. Need to do some testing and give the plane a good going over before I package everything up and upload. Will be knocking together a dedicated sound package for the plane as well....just need to pick the sound pack I want to start with.

Have the UV Maps exported via ACM and am working on a paint template for the bird...a selection of skins will really make this plane happy.

OBIO

[viking3]

Thanks for taking the time to FS-ize? this model OBIO, I can't wait to fly this beasty in my GW3 setup. Thanks also to Bismarck13 for the model and update.:ernae:

Regards, Rob:ernae:

[edmoore235]

Very cool Obio. Thank you Bismark13 for the update!
Ed

[Cees Donker]

Great find and work there OBIO! (and Bismarck off course!)



Cees