March 6 this year marked the 110th anniversary of the birth of Hero of the Soviet Union, Honored Test Pilot of the USSR Yuri Antipov. Over the years of his active work, he has mastered 203 different types of aircraft. The contribution that Yuri Alexandrovich made to the development of aviation was very high.
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| Yu.A.Antipov. |
| Source: Valery Ageev |
How it all started
Yuri Alexandrovich was born on March 6, 1915 in Moscow. Russian by nationality. Proletarian origin. Since childhood, the boy began to show interest in aviation and this determined his future fate.
In 1930, he graduated from the 7th grade of secondary school, as well as the school of factory apprenticeship in plumbing. Yuri Alexandrovich begins his career at the State Aviation Plant No. 1 (GAZ No. 1), where he worked as a tool fitter. At the same time, the future test pilot enrolled in the Moscow Gliding School, which he successfully graduated in 1932. A year later, he completed his studies at the Osoaviakhim factory flight school, which at that time was headed by one of the most experienced test pilots, Alexander Ivanovich Zhukov.
Among his students at various times were V. P. Chkalov, M. M. Gromov, M. A. Nyukhtikov and other famous pilots. It can be said that it was under the leadership of A. I. Zhukov that the future elite of Soviet aviation received a ticket to the skies. Yu.A. Antipov was also among them.
- Valery Pavlovich flew fearlessly, but abruptly, recalled Antipov. If the famous pilot Anisimov performed all the aerobatics beautifully, without strain — the engine sang in flight, then Chkalov's everything cracked, groaned, and the engine howled. like a hungry jackal...
Antipov made his first flights in 1933 on a U-2 training aircraft. During his studies, he received excellent theoretical and practical training, as well as skills in piloting such machines as the U-2, R-1 and R-5.
Oh, war, what a mean thing you've done!
In January 1934, Y. A. Antipov was drafted into the Red Army. At the same time, he studied at the Odessa VASHL (Military Aviation School of Pilots). I flew mainly on the R-1 aircraft. After graduation, it was decided to keep the talented pilot as an instructor. For several years, he has been training cadets on various types of aircraft. Mainly on the R-1, I-5 and I-16. In 1940, Senior Lieutenant Y. A. Antipov was appointed to the post of inspector pilot of higher military educational institutions of the Main Directorate of the Red Army Air Force.
Shortly before the start of the war, he was promoted to the rank of captain. At the front since June 27. He was appointed flight commander of the 402nd IAP, which was formed on the basis of the Air Force Research Institute and the People's Commissariat of the Aviation Industry. The regiment was then staffed by test pilots who flew MiG-3 fighters. At first, the regiment was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel P. M. Stefanovsky, who was soon replaced by Major K. A. Gruzdev. As part of the regiment, Y. A. Antipov takes part in battles on the Northwestern Front (mainly in the Idritsky direction).
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| MiG-3. |
| Source: Valery Ageev |
In August 1941 (according to other sources, in September), Captain Antipov was sent to the 180th IAP as deputy commander of the third squadron. He participated in battles on the Northwestern and Kalinin fronts (on the Velikiye Luki and Starorussian directions.
During the course of the fighting, I had to perform various tasks, including reconnaissance (24 times) and storming enemy troops (19 times). In July 1941, in the Dulovo area, several dozen German Me. Bf. 110 fighters attempted to launch an assault attack on the airfield where the 180th IAP was based.
To repel this attack, a group of MiG-3 fighters was urgently raised, which included Captain Y. A. Antipov. A battle ensued. Our pilot ran out of fuel, the engine stopped, and there were only enough bullets for a few bursts. Three messers joined him from behind, who literally shot the unarmed MiG from cannons. But the fighter continued to fly: it was saved from the fire by an almost complete lack of gasoline (the Germans fired incendiary shells). The armored back of the chair was also protected, which was hit by 8 shells.
However, Antipov was shot in the shoulder, and shrapnel cut his cheek. Bleeding profusely, he managed to land the fighter on its belly and get out of the cockpit. They treated him in the hospital, but he carried some of those fragments inside himself until his death.
After that, he was sent to a military hospital located in Kalinin. The pilot was treated there until December 1941. With this, his direct participation in the battles of the Great Patriotic War was completed.
In November 1941, for "the successful conduct of hostilities, as well as for his bravery and honest service", Captain Yu. A. Antipov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. In total, he flew 181 combat sorties on a MiG-3, participated in 16 air battles, where he shot down 2 aircraft personally and 5 more as part of a group.
In 1942, he was the commander of the aviation squadron of the 27th Reserve Aviation Regiment. He retrained pilots for Kittyhawks, Tomahawks and Hurricanes. In 1943, he graduated from the advanced officer training courses at the Air Force Academy (Monino).
I'm a test pilot!
Soon Antipov becomes a test pilot at the Air Force Research Institute.
"It happened very prosaically," the veteran recalled, "in 1943, I met Peter Stefanovsky in Moscow, at that time deputy head of the Directorate of the Air Force Research Institute. We started talking. Peter asked:
- What are you doing? He replied that he had graduated from a special center in Ivanovo for retraining on foreign aircraft, had flown tomahawks, other American and British aircraft. Upon learning about this, Stefanovsky categorically stated:
- Starting today, you have been appointed a test pilot at the Air Force Research Institute.
I had to fly a lot at the Air Force Research Institute, take the characteristics of all the aircraft available at the institute, and compare them. So, the glazing of Soviet fighters, made of plexiglass, gave glare, became cloudy, and over time cracks appeared on it, making it difficult to see.
The German Me-109 had a faceted armored glass lantern, it was distinguished by excellent optics... The lantern could not be opened in flight, but it was easily reset if necessary. And our lights often jammed in flight, so the pilots preferred not to close them when performing a combat mission. It consumed almost 40 km of speed. In battle, such a loss was equivalent to death. In general, needless to say, the Germans have brought the performance characteristics of their machines to perfection.
The war in Poland and France gave them a tremendous experience that we did not have. However, we turned out to be excellent students and soon surpassed the teachers.
Antipov was the lead pilot of the state tests of the first Soviet MiG-9 jet fighter. The engines themselves, the starters for starting them, and the fuel automation caused a lot of trouble here. There were other difficulties.
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| MiG-9. |
| Source: Valery Ageev |
- When the MiG-9 accelerated to its maximum speed at an altitude of 5 km, due to the destruction of the stabilizer, the aircraft with a large vertical overload switched from horizontal flight to a steep climb, the pilot recalled.
Stefanovsky screams from the ground:
- Antipov, throw this tub to the devil!
I slightly revved up and suddenly I saw the nose of the plane lowered. I sat down normally, opened the lantern, got out of the cockpit, looked at the tail of the plane and was horrified: from the deformation it looked like a corkscrew used to open bottles.
Chief Designer Artyom Mikoyan arrived and exclaimed joyfully:
- Wonderful! I see a defect! I'm taking two weeks to finalize the tail. And so they did. The country got a good jet fighter, Mikoyan got even more fame, and I got the Order of Lenin.
This is a dangerous moment!
In August 1956, during the corkscrew tests of the MiG-19 aircraft, which had a large wing sweep, in which V.S. Kotlov was the lead pilot, Antipov flew as a flyby pilot. He was accompanied, as is usually done during corkscrew flights and other particularly difficult tests, by a second aircraft (often flown by a cinematographer).
Pulling out of the tailspin, Antipov first turned the steering wheel pedal against rotation, and then pulled the handle away from himself. At the same time, the tall Yuri Alexandrovich, who was cramped in the cabin, imperceptibly tilted it slightly to the side, against rotation. The plane continued to spin.
As Antipov later said, after the second withdrawal attempt, something like shock or stupefaction happened to him - he kept the steering wheels on withdrawal and waited. The altimeter needle was rotating rapidly, but it "did not reach" him that there was no longer any altitude reserve for withdrawal.
"I would have sat there all the way to the ground," Antipov recalled later, "if it hadn't been for Nikolai Divuyev (the pilot of the escort aircraft). He told me on the radio.:
- The altitude is low, make a decision (about ejection).
Only then did Antipov realize the situation and immediately pulled the curtain out of the headrest of the chair, activating the catapult and protecting his face from the oncoming stream. The lantern should have been dropped first, but it remained in place! When there was almost no altitude reserve left, Antipov hit the lantern with all his fists from below, it flew off, and the catapult worked. As calculations later showed, the impact force on the lamp should have been at least 220 kg!
Through the thorns to the stars!
It is clear that his relationship with his superiors was not always smooth. For example, when firing a cannon at night on A. Mikoyan's experimental fighter I-320, it was necessary to find out whether the flame escaping from the barrel blinded the pilot.
- I went on a flight with the chairman of the state commission, General Yevgeny Savitsky, recalled Antipov, Took off, reached the target, pressed the trigger. Suddenly, there was such an explosion from the side that even the cabin of the aircraft was depressurized. I decided to sit down. Released the landing gear, flaps. I'm going to land, listening to what's going on outside. There doesn't seem to be any fire, or smoke, but there's a buzzing sound from the side, as if another engine is running there.
After landing, it turned out that a defective shell exploded in the barrel of the cannon, and the fragments tore open the side of the fighter. The torn skin, it turns out, roared so much.
Savitsky, without hesitation, said: the plane is bad, it should be discontinued. Antipov objected, saying that the fighter had nothing to do with it, the cannon was to blame, the defective shell. Savitsky stood his ground. The pilot did not retreat.
Further tests have shown who is right here. They were successful. However, Evgeny Yakovlevich said for a long time that the pilots went along with A.I. Mikoyan.
In 1957, for his courage and heroism shown during the testing of new aircraft, he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and two years later Antipov became an honored test pilot of the USSR. He has mastered 203 different types of airplanes and helicopters.
In recent years, Antipov has worked as a tour guide at the Air Force Museum in Monin. I dreamed that someday we would have a museum where all the planes, both the very first and modern ones, would fly. A beautiful dream of a beautiful man!
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| Yu.A.Antipov in Monino among military pilots. |
| Source: Valery Ageev |
The hero died on June 4, 1997. He was buried in the cemetery in the village of Leonikha, Shchelkovsky district. A memorial plaque was installed on the house where he lived.
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| The grave of the Honored test pilot of the USSR Yuri Antipov. |
| Source: Valery Ageev |
Valery Ageev
