Ilyushin Il-54

Il-54

Picture - Three-quarter view of the second Il-54 prototype

Role: Bomber
National origin: Soviet Union
Manufacturer: Ilyushin
First flight: 3 April 1955
Number built: 2

The Il-54 was a transonic bomber developed in the USSR in the 1950's. Only two examples were built before the project was abandoned.

The Council of Ministers issued a directive to OKB-115, for a transonic bomber prototype to be submitted for State Acceptance Trials in July 1954. The design of this bomber went through several stages before settling on the final configuration.

The Il-54, as built, had a very thin 45 degree swept wing with anhedral, which was shoulder mounted on the fuselage. The Lyulka AL-7 engines were housed in slim, pylon mounted, pods at approximately 1/3 span. Because the wings and engine nacelles were too small to house a conventional undercarriage, the Il-54 used a bicycle undercarriage arrangement, with nose and main gear units on the centreline of the aircraft, at each end of the bomb bay. This arrangement meant a conventional rotating take-off would be impossible. To enable the Il-54 to take-off, in a reasonable runway length, the main gear knelt and the nose gear extended to give the ideal angle of incidence for take-off (10 degrees).

Flight trials of the Il-54 commenced in April 1955 with test pilot Vladimir Kokkinaki at the helm. Difficult handling during the landing run was rectified by modifying the undercarriage.

Production of the Il-54 was not proceeded with, due to competition from Yak-25 derivatives, and the belief that manned aircraft would soon be replaced by missiles.

Booked to fly in the flypast at Tushino in 1956, the Il-54 was dropped from the flying programme. The aircraft was then shown to a US Military Delegation at Kubinka. The Delegation were told that that the Il-54 was the Il-149 as part of a deception programme. As a result the Il-54 was given far more importance than it actually warranted, and was assigned the NATO reporting name ("Blowlamp") after it had ceased flying.

Variants

Il-54T - Torpedo Bomber (project)
Il-54U - Trainer (project)
Il-54R - Photo-Reconnaissance (project)

Specifications (Il-54)

Data from Gordon, OKB Ilyushin: A History of the Design Bureau and its Aircraft

General characteristics

Crew: 3
Length: 28.963 m (95 ft 1/4 in)
Wingspan: 17.65 m (57 ft 11 in)
Wing area: 84.6 m² (910.7 ft²)
Empty weight: 26,505 kg (58.443 lb)
Gross weight: 41,600 kg (91,728 lb)
Powerplant: 2 x— Lyulka AL-7 with water injection, 84.34 kN (18,960 lbf) thrust each

Performance

Maximum speed: 1,100-1,150 km/h (683-715 mph)
Maximum speed: Mach 1.15
Range: 2,057 km (1,278 miles)
Service ceiling: 13,630 m (44,720 ft)
Rate of climb: 25.25 m/s (4,924 ft/min)

Armament

1 x— 23 mm Nudelman-Rikhter AM-23 cannon in the port forward fuselage.
2 x— 23 mm Nudelman-Rikhter AM-23 cannon in the remotely controlled tail barbette
6,000 kg (13,200 lb; maximum load) or 3,000 kg (6,600 lb; normal load) of bombs

Comparable aircraft

Sud Aviation Vautour
Yakovlev Yak-26
Yakovlev Yak-28

Gordon, Yefim; Komissarov, Dmitriy and Sergey (2004). OKB Ilyushin: A History of the Design Bureau and its Aircraft. London: Ian Allan. ISBN 1-85780-187-3.

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Source: WikiPedia