Grigory Yakovlevich Bakhchivandzhi: biography. About us Bakhchivandzhi test pilot

1909-1943

Hero of the Soviet Union (04/28/1973), test pilot, captain (1941).
Born on February 20 (7 - old style) February 1909 in the village of Brinkovskaya, Primorsko-Akhtarsky volost, Temryuk department of the Kuban region (now the Primorsko-Akhtarsky district of the Krasnodar Territory). From 1917 he lived in the cities of Yeysk (now Krasnodar Territory) and Mariupol (now Donetsk region, Ukraine), in 1919-1921 - in the village of Troitskoye (now the village of Karl Marx, Berdyansk region, Zaporozhye region, Ukraine), since 1921 he lived in the city Primorsko-Akhtarsk. In 1925 he graduated from the 5th grade of the school.
In 1925-1927 he worked in a foundry and mechanical workshop and as an assistant locomotive driver in the railway depot of Akhtari station. Since 1927, he lived in the village of Buzinovka (now within the city of Mariupol, Donetsk region, Ukraine). He worked as a pipe-roller in the open-hearth shop. Mariupol Metallurgical Plant named after Ilyich.
In the army since 1931. In 1932 he graduated from the regimental school. Until 1932 he served in the infantry (in the Ukrainian military district), after which he switched to aviation.
In 1933 he graduated from the Orenburg Military Aviation School of Armament Technicians, in 1934 - the Orenburg Military Aviation School of Pilots.
Since December 1934 - test pilot of the Air Force Research Institute. He served in a separate fighter squadron and an air squadron of a group of engine and fuel departments. He tested the R-Z aircraft with a turbocharger (1939), participated in test work on the I-16, Yak-1, MiG-3 and other fighters.
Member of the Great Patriotic War: in June-August 1941 - a pilot of the 402nd Fighter Aviation Regiment. Fought on the North-Western Front. Participated in defensive battles on the Idritsa and Staraya Russian directions. He made 65 sorties on the MiG-3 fighter, in 26 air battles he personally shot down 2 and as part of a group of 3 enemy aircraft. He was awarded the Order of Lenin.
After being recalled from the front, he returned to flight test work in the air squadron of the engine and fuel department group of the Air Force Research Institute. Participated in carrying out test work on the Yak-1, Yak-9, MiG-3, R-39 Airacobra fighters and others.
On February 20, 1942, when the engine was started on a test bench, despite the competent actions of Bakhchivandzhi, there was ... an explosion. A jet of nitric acid under pressure poured over the face and clothes of A.V. Pallo. During the explosion, the engine head broke off the mounts, flew between the nitric acid tanks, hit the armored back of the pilot's seat and tore off the mounting bolts. Bakhchivandzhi hit his head on the instrument board and cut his forehead. Returning from the hospital, he continued the tests.
On May 15, 1942, at the Koltsovo airfield in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), he performed the country's first flight of a BI-1 aircraft with a working rocket engine. During the tests, he performed 6 flights on this aircraft.
On July 29, 1942, during a flight on the P-39 Airacobra fighter to test American summer oil at an altitude of 3,000 meters, the hose of the cooling system was torn off. Fluid started escaping into the cockpit. Bakhchivandzhi turned off the engine, planned and made a safe landing at his airfield.
He died on March 27, 1943 during a test flight on a BI-1 aircraft.
On this day, at the Koltsovsky airfield in Sverdlovsk (now the city of Yekaterinburg), test pilot G.Ya. The plane took off normally, retracted the landing gear, climbed to 2,000 meters, went into level flight and began to accelerate. Having gained some speed, the plane suddenly went downhill, at an altitude of 100-150 meters it went into a dive and crashed into the ground at an angle of 50 degrees 6 kilometers south of the Koltsovo airfield. The pilot died, the plane was completely destroyed.
The alleged cause of the disaster (as it turned out later) was the dragging of an aircraft with a straight wing into a dive at speeds above 900 km / h.
For courage and heroism shown during the tests of the first domestic rocket aircraft, Grigory Yakovlevich Bakhchivandzhi was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on April 28, 1973.
He lived in the village of Chkalovsky (now within the city of Shchelkovo) in the Moscow Region. He was buried in the village of Maly Istok (within the boundaries of the Koltsovo microdistrict of the city of Yekaterinburg). In February 1963, representatives of the Civil Aviation Research Institute of the Air Force installed an obelisk on the grave of Bakhchivandzhi, until then unnamed.
He was awarded 2 orders of Lenin (10/17/1942; 04/28/1973, posthumously).
In the village of Chkalovsky, a memorial plaque was installed on the house in which he lived. In the city of Yekaterinburg, a bust of G.Ya. Bakhchivandzhi and a memorial sign at the Koltsovo airport, and in the village of Brinkovskaya - a memorial complex. A crater on the far side of the Moon, a railway platform in the Shchelkovsky district of the Moscow region, a square in Yekaterinburg, streets in the cities of Aramil (Sverdlovsk region), Akhtubinsk (Astrakhan region), Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Mariupol, Orenburg, Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Shchyolkovo, are named after him. the village of Bilimbay (Sverdlovsk region) and the village of Brinkovskaya.
The words of Yuri Gagarin are known: “Without the flights of Grigory Bakhchivandzhi, there would probably have been no April 12, 1961.”

Sources of information:

/ M., 2015 /
"Airplanes of the Country of the Soviets" / "Multimedia service", 1998, CD-ROM /
"The history of aircraft designs in the USSR (1938-1950)" / V.B. Shavrov, 1988 /
Four meetings with Arvid Pallo / A. Loktev, "Bulletin" No. 18 (225), August 31, 1999 /
Flight in the jet era / V. Mishin. Aviation and astronautics /

Grigory Bakhchivandzhi was born on February 7, 1908 in the village of Brinkovskaya, now the Primorsko-Akhtarsky district of the Krasnodar Territory. He began his working life in 1925, working in a foundry. Then he was an assistant driver on a steam locomotive in the Primorsko-Akhtarsky depot of the Krasnodar Territory. Then he built a plant in Mariupol, where he worked as a locksmith. In 1931 he was drafted into the Red Army, and then became interested in aviation. In 1933 he received the specialty of an aviation technician for weapons, but Grigory had another goal - to become a pilot. And he became one - among the best cadets, he graduated from the Orenburg military aviation pilot school.

Since 1935, Grigory Yakovlevich worked at the Air Force Research Institute, where he came immediately after graduating from the flight school, and after 5 years he became one of the most famous and most experienced pilots in the country. At first, Bakhchivandzhi worked on reconnaissance aircraft, then on fighter jets. After some time, he was instructed to test new aircraft engines in flight, a delicate and far from safe matter.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War at the front, a participant in the defense of Moscow. He served in the 402nd Special Purpose Fighter Aviation Regiment, where he showed his flying talent in all its splendor.

On July 4, he won the first air victories - he personally destroyed 2 Do-215 reconnaissance aircraft. It happened like this.

Having received an order to take off with the entire regiment, the commander of the 402nd IAP ON P. M. Stefanovsky left Bakhchivandzhi at the airfield - to cover our fighters when returning from a combat mission. Less than 10 minutes after the take-off of our planes, a Do-215 appeared over the airfield. "MiG" Bakhchivandzhi directly from the parking lot rushed into the air. He went into the tail of the enemy and opened fire from 50 meters. The enemy plane, engulfed in flames, crashed on the outskirts of the airfield.

At this time, another Dornier fell out of the clouds. Noticing the collapsed colleague, he rushed away. Bakhchivanjdi, having made a combat turn and forcing the motor mode, quickly overtook the enemy and opened fire. Thick black smoke erupted from the Do-215's right engine, then burst into flames. Rolling over over the wing, the enemy plane rushed to the ground ... Further events are described in detail by Stefanovsky:

"... Our joy was taken away. Even from the ground it was clear that the MiG propeller had stopped. Now a corkscrew will follow and ... But this did not happen. A masterful turn followed. The plane with an idle engine began to land. Landing gear extended , flaps, the car is gliding. This is a MiG-3, is it gliding? Yes, it is gliding and landing classically. Everyone who was at the airfield is running to the plane.

Even from a distance I see the pilot's flushed face, his white silk scarf is pierced by a bullet, there is a burn on his neck. Gregory is squeezed in a friendly embrace - not everyone is destined to win 2 brilliant victories in the very first sortie. Then we examine his plane. The engine, both radiators, wing spars, even the pneumatics of the wheels are riddled with bullets. Indeed, only a tester was capable of landing such a "dead" car ... "

MiG-3 fighter from the 402nd Fighter Aviation Regiment. July 1941.

In the following days, Bakhchivandzhi won several more air victories: for example, on July 6, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe city of Nevel, paired with Captain A. G. Proshakov, he destroyed a Ju-88 bomber. On July 10, in the same area, together with Lieutenant K.F. Kozhevnikov, an Hs-126 spotter shot down. He also has victories over the Me-110 and Me-109 fighters. In total, for the period from July 1 to August 10, 1941, the senior pilot of the 402nd Fighter Aviation Regiment (57th Mixed Aviation Division, 6th Air Army, Northwestern Front) Captain G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi made about 70 sorties, in air battles destroyed 7 enemy aircraft [ some sources give other numbers: 5 + 5 and 5 + 10; M. Yu. Bykov in his research indicates 2 personal and 3 group victories. ]

In mid-August, Grigory Yakovlevich was recalled from the front to test an experimental BI-1 rocket aircraft. Here is the description with which the personal file of Captain G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi was sent to Sverdlovsk:

"He showed himself at the front of the fight against German fascism as a courageous, fearless fighter pilot. When performing combat missions, he showed exceptional initiative and valor ... During his stay at the front, by August 1941, he made 65 sorties and flew 45 hours 05 minutes "Held 26 air battles, destroyed personally and in a group of 5 enemy aircraft. A strong-willed and demanding commander. Confidently drives aircraft in clouds and difficult meteorological conditions. As a pilot, he is balanced, calm, strictly observes the discipline of flight, flies willingly."

The right to the first test flights was granted to Bakhchivandzhi. (Later, the commander of the 402nd IAP ON, K. A. Gruzdev, joined this work.) The appointment turned out to be extremely successful. This man happily combined such character traits as courage and shyness, simplicity and charm, love of life and fearlessness, and most importantly, an active life position. It manifested itself in him back in the Civil War, when, as a 9-year-old boy, for several days he hid his father and 5 sailors of the Sevastopol flotilla from the White Guards under the terrace of his house. He brought them food, talked about the situation in the city, and carried out instructions from his father in connection with his comrades.

When executions began in the city, he found the right fisherman, and he transported the sailors and Yakov Ivanovich to Mariupol at night. But there they fell into the hands of the whites. Then Bakhchivandzhi also crossed to Mariupol and in one of the transfers he managed to give his father 2 hacksaws. After waiting for the time when the head of security left for the neighboring station, Grisha's father and his comrades sawed through the prison bars. The escape was successful. Thus, a 9-year-old boy saved his father and the sailors from inevitable death...

Work on a new machine was difficult and quite dangerous, because both the pilot and the engineers had to constantly discover something new, still unknown. Anything happened. So, on February 20, 1942, when the engine was started on a test bench, despite the competent actions of Bakhchivandzhi, there was ... an explosion. A jet of nitric acid under pressure doused the face and clothes of engineer Arvid Pallo. During the explosion, the engine head broke off the mounts, flew between the nitric acid tanks, hit the armored back of the pilot's seat and tore off the mounting bolts. Bakhchivandzhi hit his head on the instrument panel and cut his forehead. But he did not refuse to continue the tests, but, returning from the hospital, he got involved in the work with even greater perseverance.

On May 15, 1942, Grigory Yakovlevich performed the first flight on the BI-1, thus opening a new era of jet aviation (for a detailed story about this flight, see the article "Jump into the unknown ..."). Flights on this aircraft were fraught with difficulties of a special order. They consisted not only in the unusualness of the engine and aerodynamics of the machine, but also in the great imperfection of design solutions. As a rule, it was necessary to land on the BI-1 after the fuel was completely exhausted, the proximity to nitric acid was unpleasant, which was under high pressure and sometimes burst out through the walls of tubes and tanks. These damages constantly had to be repaired. But the main difficulty was that at that time there were no wind tunnels with high-speed scavenging of the aircraft. And therefore, the experienced BI-1 took off "with many unknowns."

Grigory Yakovlevich was well aware of the difficulties he had to overcome. So, at one of the parties, in response to the congratulations of friends on a successful flight, he uttered unusual words that caused amazement and disputes of all those present: “My friends, thank you for everything, for your work, for wishing you health. But I know that I will break on this plane! I am of sound mind and account for my words. We are at the forefront of a technical battle, and there will still be casualties. I go into this with full conscience of duty. " Unfortunately, he was right in his premonitions...

Bakhchivandzhi raised the plane to safe flights 4 more times. These were the 2nd and 3rd copies of the machine, equipped with skis (the first "BI", damaged during landing in the first flight, was already decommissioned). The second flight was made only on January 10, 1943, that is, with a break of almost 8 months, caused by the difficulties of building a second copy of the aircraft and engine, as well as the need to install a ski chassis on the machine.

The third flight, January 12, 1943, was performed by Lieutenant Colonel K. A. Gruzdev. In this flight, a speed of 630 km / h was achieved, but when the landing gear was extended, one ski came off before landing. Gruzdev, showing restraint, managed to safely land the plane on one right ski, while not even damaging the experimental car.

Answering the question of his comrades, what feelings he experienced in flight, Konstantin Afanasyevich answered this way: "... And quickly, and scary, and the fire behind ... In a word, you fly like the devil on a broomstick! .."

The next 3 flights were performed by Grigory Yakovlevich on March 11, 14 and 21, 1943. The flight on March 27 was the last for Bakhchivandzhi. When performing a task to achieve a maximum flight speed of 800 km / h, at an altitude of about 2000 meters, the aircraft suddenly went into a dive at an angle of about 50 degrees. The car, together with the pilot, fell 6 km south of the airfield.

At first, they decided that when the engine was stopped at full thrust under the action of an overload directed forward, Bakhchivandzhi hit his head on the optical sight and lost consciousness ...

Another reason was the possibility of spontaneous release in flight of one of the skis, which violated the controllability of the machine. The true cause of the disaster became known only after the construction of a new wind tunnel at TsAGI, which made it possible to conduct research in high-speed air flows. It was found that on an aircraft with a straight wing, which was the BI-1, at transonic speeds there is a huge dive moment, which is almost impossible for the pilot to cope with ...

Already after the tragic death of G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi, on the BI-6 aircraft of an improved design, in January - May 1945, the country's oldest test pilot, Boris Nikolaevich Kudrin, flew, and a little later, the rather well-known pilot Matvey Karpovich Baikalov.

In 1946, test pilot Alexei Konstantinovich Pakhomov joined the tests of the modified BI-1bis.

However, it soon became clear that, despite the advantage in speed, the BI aircraft as a fighter-interceptor could not be put into service due to the short duration of the flight (the engine running time did not exceed a few minutes) and operational difficulties.

Grigory Bakhchivandzhi is buried in the cemetery of the village of Maly Istok, located near Koltsovo Airport. His BI-1 testing partner Konstantin Gruzdev, who died in February 1943 on the Aerocobra, and Trofim Chigarev, who died in October 1941, are buried next to him. Only in February 1963, representatives of the Civil Aviation Institute of the Air Force Research Institute installed an obelisk on the grave of Bakhchivandzhi, until then nameless.

In the village of Brynkovskaya of the Krasnodar Territory, in the homeland of Grigory Bakhchivandzhi, a majestic memorial was opened to their fellow countryman - the Hero; at the Sverdlovsk airfield Koltsovo, at the site of the BI-1 crash, a memorial stone was laid; one of the craters of a volcano on the Moon, one of the railway stations of the Yaroslavl road and one of the streets of the village in which the tester spent the last years of his life are named after him; a memorial plaque has been opened on the house where Grigory Bakhchivandzhi lived.

Many years after the death of Bakhchivandzhi, in 1962, when his flights were studied in more detail, the question arose of worthy perpetuating the memory of the pilot, of conferring on him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. But this decision had to wait for many years. An obstacle to this was the fact that on October 17, 1942, for testing the world's first combat fighter with a rocket engine, G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi was already awarded the Order of Lenin ...

However, many prominent statesmen and military leaders continued to insist on their own. Finally, on April 28, 1973, Grigory Yakovlevich Bakhchivandzhi was awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously for his courage and heroism in mastering new jet technology and in battles with enemies during the Great Patriotic War. He was awarded the Orders of Lenin (twice) and medals.

* * *

Hero of the Soviet Union Bakhchivandzhi Grigory Yakovlevich

On July 4, he won the first air victories - he personally destroyed 2 Do-215 reconnaissance aircraft. It happened like this.

“...Our joy vanished. Even from the ground it was clear that the propeller of the MiG had stopped. Now a corkscrew will follow and ... But this did not happen. A masterful turnaround followed. The plane with the idle engine began to come in for landing. The landing gear, flaps are extended, the car plans. Is this the MiG-3 planning? Yes, he plans and sits down classically. Everyone who was at the airport runs to the plane.

In the following days, Bakhchivandzhi won several more air victories: for example, on July 6, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe city of Nevel, paired with Captain A. G. Proshakov, he destroyed a Ju-88 bomber. July 10, in the same area, paired with Lieutenant K. F. Kozhevnikov, shot down an Hs-126 spotter. He also has victories over the Me-110 and Me-109 fighters. In total, for the period from July 1 to August 10, 1941, the senior pilot of the 402nd Fighter Aviation Regiment (57th Mixed Aviation Division, 6th Air Army, Northwestern Front), Captain G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi made about 70 sorties, in air battles destroyed 7 enemy aircraft.

“He showed himself at the front of the fight against German fascism as a courageous, fearless fighter pilot. When performing combat missions, he showed exceptional initiative and valor ... During his stay at the front, by August 1941, he made 65 sorties and flew 45 hours 05 minutes. Spent 26 air battles, destroyed personally and in a group of 5 enemy aircraft. Strong-willed and demanding commander. Confidently drives aircraft in clouds and difficult meteorological conditions. As a pilot, he is balanced, calm, strictly observes the discipline of flight, flies willingly.

The right to the first test flights was granted to Bakhchivandzhi (Later, the commander of the 402nd IAP ON K. A. Gruzdev joined this work.). The appointment turned out to be extremely successful. This man happily combined such character traits as courage and shyness, simplicity and charm, love of life and fearlessness, and most importantly, an active life position. It manifested itself in him back in the Civil War, when, as a 9-year-old boy, for several days he hid his father and 5 sailors of the Sevastopol flotilla from the White Guards under the terrace of his house. He brought them food, talked about the situation in the city, and carried out instructions from his father in connection with his comrades.

On May 15, 1942, Grigory Yakovlevich performed the first flight on the BI-1, thus opening a new era of jet aviation. Flights on this aircraft were fraught with difficulties of a special order. They consisted not only in the unusualness of the engine and aerodynamics of the machine, but also in the great imperfection of design solutions. As a rule, it was necessary to land on the BI-1 after the fuel was completely exhausted, the proximity to nitric acid was unpleasant, which was under high pressure and sometimes burst out through the walls of tubes and tanks. These damages constantly had to be repaired. But the main difficulty was that at that time there were no wind tunnels with high-speed scavenging of the aircraft. And therefore, the experienced BI-1 took off "with many unknowns."

Grigory Yakovlevich was well aware of the difficulties he had to overcome. So, at one of the parties, in response to the congratulations of friends on a successful flight, he uttered unusual words that caused amazement and disputes of all those present: “My friends, thank you for everything, for your work, for wishing you health. But I know - I will crash on this plane! I am in a sober mind and give an account of my words. We are at the forefront of a technical battle, and we still cannot do without casualties. I'm going into this with full conscience of duty." Unfortunately, he was right in his premonitions...

Bakhchivandzhi raised the plane to safe flights 4 more times. These were the 2nd and 3rd copies of the machine, equipped with skis (the first "BI", damaged during landing on the first flight, was already decommissioned). The second flight was made only on January 10, 1943, that is, with a break of almost 8 months, caused by the difficulties of building a second copy of the aircraft and engine, as well as the need to install a ski chassis on the machine.

Answering the question of his comrades, what feelings he experienced in flight, Konstantin Afanasyevich answered this way: “... And quickly, and scary, and the fire behind ... In a word, you fly like the devil on a broomstick! ..”

At first, they decided that when the engine was stopped at full thrust under the action of an overload directed forward, Bakhchivandzhi hit his head on the optical sight and lost consciousness ...

Already after the tragic death of G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi, on the BI-6 aircraft of an improved design, in January-May 1945, the country's oldest test pilot Boris Nikolayevich Kudrin flew, and a little later, the rather well-known pilot Matvey Karpovich Baikalov.

In 1946, test pilot Alexei Konstantinovich Pakhomov joined the tests of the modified BI-1bis.

However, it soon became clear that, despite the advantage in speed, the BI aircraft as an interceptor fighter could not be put into service due to the short flight duration (engine operation time did not exceed several minutes) and operational difficulties.

Grigory Bakhchivandzhi is buried in the cemetery of the village of Maly Istok, located near Koltsovo Airport. His BI-1 testing partner Konstantin Gruzdev, who died in February 1943 on the Aerocobra, and Trofim Chigarev, who died in October 1941, are buried next to him. Only in February 1963, representatives of the Civil Aviation Research Institute of the Air Force installed an obelisk on the grave of Bakhchivandzhi, until that time unnamed.

In the village of Brynkovskaya, Krasnodar Territory, in the homeland of Grigory Bakhchivandzhi, a majestic memorial to their countryman-hero was opened; at the Sverdlovsk airfield Koltsovo, at the site of the BI-1 crash, a memorial stone was laid; one of the craters of a volcano on the Moon, one of the railway stations of the Yaroslavl road and one of the streets of the village in which the tester spent the last years of his life are named after him; a memorial plaque has been opened on the house where Grigory Bakhchivandzhi lived.

Private bussiness

Grigory Yakovlevich Bakhchivandzhi (1909-1943) was born in the village of Brinkovskaya, Krasnodar Territory, where his father, Yakov Ivanovich, worked as a mechanic. When the boy was two years old, his mother Maria Efimovna died. The father, left a widower with two small children, soon married again - to the widow Agnes Stepanovna, who also had two children. The stepmother became a close friend of Gregory, raised him as her own son, replacing him with a mother whom he did not even remember.

He graduated from the seven-year school in the village. Started working at the age of 16. Thanks to his father, since childhood he was interested in technology, machines. In 1925, in the city of Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Grigory got a job in a foundry, studied to be a locksmith. Then became an assistant locomotive driver. In 1927 he moved to the city of Mariupol in the Donetsk region of the Ukrainian SSR. Participated in the construction of the "Plant named after Ilyich", where he later worked as a pipe-roller of the open-hearth shop.

In 1931 he was drafted into the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA). The following year he became a member of the CPSU (b). In 1932, he was sent on a Komsomol voucher to Orenburg, to a military school for aircraft armament technicians, and in 1933 he began to study at the Orenburg military school for pilots and letnabs. In 1934 he graduated from the pilot school, having received 2 military specialties: weapons technology and a pilot. In 1935, after graduating from school, he joined the regiment. He possessed excellent piloting technique and a good knowledge of aircraft, and also had a good physical condition. As a result, it was decided to send him to the Research Institute of the Air Force of the Red Army (NII VVS) for flight test work. At first, Bakhchivandzhi worked on reconnaissance aircraft, then on fighter jets. Some time later, he was instructed to test new aircraft engines in flight. Bakhchivandzhi did not refuse any tasks and performed each of them impeccably. His conclusions about aircraft and engines were always highly qualified. The tester recorded the readings of the instruments, listened to the sounds, noted vibrations and shocks, trying to understand which units behave incorrectly under loads. All observations and data were recorded on a tablet, fixed with an elastic band at the knee. Designers and engineers were guided by these records in the future when finalizing the engines, they were used to draw up instructions for operating the engines in flight.

Grigory Bakhchivandzhi was among the first in the research institute to test a new weapon - rocket launchers on an airplane, and some time later these installations were tested in battles with the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, in 1941, the pilot voluntarily went to the front as part of the 402nd IAP, a special-purpose fighter regiment, which was formed by order of the command mainly from test pilots based on the Air Force Research Institute.

Bakhchivandzhi fought until August 10, 1941. During this time, he made sixty-five sorties on a MiG-3 aircraft, conducted 26 air battles. He personally shot down 2 enemy aircraft and 3 in the group. He rose to the rank of squadron commander and received the military rank of "captain".

By that time, the serial production of new aircraft that the front needed was launched in the USSR, and Bakhchivandzhi was recalled from the front for test work. He went to the Urals, to Sverdlovsk, where the Air Force Research Institute was evacuated.

In October 1942, for the courage and heroism shown at the front, Bakhchivandzhi was awarded the first Order of Lenin.

It fell to Bakhchivandzhi to test the first Soviet aircraft with a liquid-propellant rocket engine "BI-1" (BI - Bereznyak-Isaev, or Middle Fighter).

Not everything went smoothly. On February 20, 1942, during the test launch of the BI-1 engine, an explosion occurred on the stand. A jet of pressurized nitric acid hit lead engineer Arvid Pallo in the face, and the engine head, breaking off its mounts, flew between the nitric acid tanks and hit the armored seat, breaking the mounting bolts. Grigory Bakhchivandzhi hit the dashboard and cut his forehead. The commission, which studied the cause of the emergency, found that the cause of the explosion was "fatigue failure of the metal of the combustion chamber."

Despite this incident, Bakhchivandzhi did not refuse to continue the tests and, returning from the hospital, he again actively got involved in the work. Already on May 15, 1942, the pilot completed the first flight on the BI-1. The tests were carried out at the Sverdlovsk airport "Koltsovo". For the first time, when starting an aircraft engine, the pilot did not say the traditional warning: “Away from the propeller!”. On this significant day for the history of Soviet aviation, a new team was born: "From the tail!".

March 27, 1943 Bakhchivandzhi conducted the sixth test flight of the BI (already BI-3). This time, the task involved bringing the horizontal flight speed to 800 km / h at an altitude of 2000 meters. According to observations from the ground, the flight proceeded normally until the end of the engine operation, which occurred at the 78th second of the flight (the engine on the BI-1 could only work for a few tens of seconds, as it quickly overheated). After that, the fighter, which was in level flight at a speed of over 900 km / h, entered a dive and hit the ground at an angle of 50º six kilometers south of the airfield. The pilot died.

Grigory Bakhchivandzhi was buried in the cemetery of the village of Maly Istok, located near the Koltsovo airport near Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg).

What is famous

Grigory Bakhchivandzhi went down in history as the man who made the world's first flight on an airplane with a jet engine. Work on the creation of the BI-1 aircraft marked the beginning of the practical development of jet aviation both in the USSR and in the world. The first flight of the BI-1, piloted by Bakhchivandzhi, opened the era of rocket flights of mankind.

What you need to know

The accident that occurred with the Bakhchivandzhi aircraft during the test of the BI-1 missile at maximum speed is the most famous case in the history of domestic aviation of being pulled into a dive from horizontal flight.

Examination of the remains of the plane showed that Bakhchivandzhi did not try to jump out with a parachute, did not even unfasten the seat belts and did not drop the lantern, which is usually done when the car is on the verge of a catastrophe. The accident commission then ruled that after the engine was turned off, there was a sharp decrease in speed, the pilot was thrown forward, he lost consciousness from a blow to the solar plexus and did not come to his senses until the death of the car.

It was possible to reveal the secret of Bakhchivandzhi's death only a few years later. When testing models in a wind tunnel at high speeds, the phenomenon of aircraft dragging at the peak was discovered. It turned out that when the flight speed approaches the speed of sound, the so-called “wave crisis” occurs - a change in the nature of the air flow around the aircraft, accompanied, as a rule, by a deterioration in its aerodynamic characteristics: the wing lift drops, the air rudders and ailerons lose their effectiveness, the aircraft becomes unmanageable.

It turned out that for wings with a relatively thick profile, under conditions of a wave crisis, the center of pressure shifts sharply backward, as a result of which the nose of the aircraft "gets heavier" and it goes into a dive. Researchers believe that the death of Bakhchivandzhi, most likely, did not occur from a blow to the solar plexus and not from shock, but from the fact that until the last moment he tried to bring the car out of the peak, concentrating all his efforts on this. He hoped he would get his way. However, at that time they still did not know how to deal with dragging in the peak - it was impossible to get out of a dive without extinguishing the speed, which, in turn, is very difficult to do in a dive.

This phenomenon was studied in practice by the pilot engineer A. G. Kochetkov and other testers only after the end of the Great Patriotic War.

Direct speech

From the graduation examination of Grigory Bakhchivandzhi: “Initiative. Resolute. Demanding of himself. It flies great. Intelligence in flight is instantaneous. Has no accidents or breakdowns. Has an inquisitive mind and a penchant for research."

Yuri Gagarin on the significance of the feat of Grigory Bakhchivandzhi:"Without the flights of Grigory Bakhchivandzhi, there would not have been April 12, 1961."

6 facts about Grigory Bakhchivandzhi

Grigory Bakhchivandzhi was a Gagauz.
Bakhchivandzhi played the button accordion well. Most of all he liked the waltz "On the Hills of Manchuria"
For the heroism shown during the testing of the first Soviet aircraft with rocket engines, Grigory Bakhchivandzhi was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Secular Union in 1973, at the same time he was awarded the second Order of Lenin.
Buried next to Grigory Bakhchivandzhi were his BI testing partner Konstantin Gruzdev, who died in February 1943 on the Aerocobra, and Trofim Chigarev, who died in October 1941. Only 20 years after the death of Bakhchivandzhi - in February 1963 - representatives of the Civil Aviation Research Institute of the Air Force installed an obelisk on his grave.
In honor of Grigory Bakhchivandzhi, the village at the Chkalovsky airfield in the Moscow Region and the Bakhchivandzhi platform of suburban traffic (41 km along the Yaroslavl direction of the Moscow Railway) were named.
A crater on the far side of the moon is named after the pilot.

Materials about Grigory Bakhchivandzhi

B akhchivandzhi Grigory Yakovlevich - test pilot, captain.
Born on February 7 (20), 1908 in the village of Brinkovskaya, now the Primorsko-Akhtarsky district of the Krasnodar Territory. Greek by origin. Member of the CPSU (b) since 1932. He graduated from the seven classes of the school in his native village Brinkovskaya.
In the ranks of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA) since 1931. In 1933 he graduated from the Aviation Technical School, and in 1934 from the Orenburg Pilot School. Since 1934 - test pilot of the Air Force of the Red Army. Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War at the front - a fighter pilot, made 65 sorties. Participated in the defense of Moscow, personally and in a group shot down 5 enemy aircraft.
Since August 1941 - in flight test work. On May 15, 1942, he made the first flight in the USSR on a BI-1 aircraft with a liquid-propellant rocket engine. The flight was made from the airfield "Koltsovo" in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg).
He died on March 27, 1943 during the next test flight. The pilot's task for his last flight included bringing the horizontal flight speed to 800 km/h at an altitude of 2000 m. According to observation from the ground, the flight proceeded normally until the end of the engine operation at the 78th second. After the end of the engine, the fighter, which was in level flight, at a speed of over 900 km / h, smoothly entered the peak and hit the ground at an angle of 50º. The car crashed 6 km south of the airfield. The decision to build 30-40 experimental vehicles was canceled, although test pilot B.N. Kudrin continued testing the missile interceptor for some time.
It was possible to reveal the secret of the death of G.Ya. Bakhchivandzhi only after a few years. When testing models in a wind tunnel at high speeds, the phenomenon of aircraft dragging at a peak was revealed, which they did not know how to deal with at that time. It was studied in practice by the pilot engineer A.G. Kochetkov and other testers.
He was buried in the cemetery of the village of Maly Istok, located near the Koltsovo airport (near Yekaterinburg). In February 1963, an obelisk was erected on his grave.
At order of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 28, 1973 for the heroism and dedication shown during the testing of the first Soviet aircraft with rocket engines, to the captain Bakhchivandzhi Grigory Yakovlevich awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).
Captain (1941). He was awarded 2 orders of Lenin (10/17/1942; 04/28/1973, posthumously), medals.
Monuments were erected to him in the village of Brinkovskaya, at the Koltsovo airport near Yekaterinburg, in the city of Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Krasnodar Territory, in the village of Koltsovo (city limits of Yekaterinburg). His name was given to the village of pilots at the Chkalovsky airfield (Moscow city) and the nearby suburban railway platform, a crater on the far side of the moon, streets in Yekaterinburg, Donetsk, Mariupol, Akhtubinsk and other cities of Russia and the CIS, a comprehensive school at the Air Force Research Institute (city Ekaterinburg). Many essays, books have been written about him, a documentary film has been shot, his feat formed the basis of many feature films, a commemorative medal with a minted image of the hero has been issued. The phrase of Yu.A. Gagarin is also known: “Without the flights of Grigory Bakhchivandzhi, there would probably have been no April 12, 1961.”