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Rockets and People
with a violent bang or they will explode, destroying the chamber and spilling nitric
acid over the nearby instruments. It would be a good thing to come up with a
safety system to protect against such an eventuality.
Visiting NII-3, I became acquainted with L.S. Dushkin, the chief specialist on
liquid-propellant rocket engines; A.V. Pallo, the chief tester; and other engineers.
They were very calm about the explosive nature of the liquid-propellant rocket
engines. I already considered myself an experienced aircraft engineer, and their
attitude toward the rocket engine seemed, at the very least, to be strange. For them,
the engine literally had a “mind of its own.” Each test—if the engine started at
all—brought so many surprises that it seemed impossible to predict the engine’s
behavior after the next modification.
Compared with “the song of the propeller” and the usual roar of multi-cylinder
gasoline engines, the deafening, howling flame of a liquid-propellant rocket engine
inspired no affection whatsoever. Each time the engine was activated, a rust-colored
cloud of nitric acid vapor would explode from the nozzle. Our eyes teared our faces
stung as if hit by an arctic blast, we continually felt like sneezing and coughing. It
was obviously dangerous to inhale the rust-colored atmosphere, and I had the
imprudence to allude to this. Pallo said that the vapor was nothing compared with
the explosion of a rocket engine.That was when it was really harmful.
Pallo had previously worked as an aircraft flight mechanic.When I started talking
about aircraft engines, his eyes got a look of nostalgia. Beside their other
merits, propeller engines had a pleasant smell.We recalled the noble scents of aviation
gasoline and hot engine oil, which at any airfield in any weather provided us
no less pleasure than the fragrance of good eau de cologne.
As calmly as I could, I related to Bolkhovitinov my first impressions of the
rocket engine. He said that Kostikov and Dushkin had promised him that they
would modify the engine so that it was suitable for installation in an aircraft in
three to four months. During that time, we ourselves still needed to fabricate the
airplane and test fly it in glider mode.
Bereznyak and Isayev received my suggestions for automating the startup, but
without enthusiasm. It turned out that Dushkin’s designers had developed a rudimentary
model of the turbo-pump assembly that fed fuel and oxidant into the
combustion chamber.A new feed system needed to be devised, and consequently,
a different automatic device needed to be developed.
The turbopump feed in Dushkin’s engine permitted a thrust of no more than
600 kgf, and we needed at least 1,200 kgf. No electric automatic device was capable
of doubling thrust! “I have an idea,” said Isayev,“but we will have to redesign
and redo the layout of the entire aircraft. Tomorrow, Sunday, I will work all day,
and Monday we will go see the patron.”
That was Sunday, 22 June 1941.A new time of reckoning was beginning.
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