Polikarpov UTI-4 t15B fighter 1/72 Scale Plastic Model Kit Amodel 72315

I-16 (TsKB-12) "sixteenth fighter" (colloquially - "Ishak", "Ishachok") - a Soviet single-engine monoplane fighter of the 1930s, created in the Experimental Design Bureau of the Soviet aircraft designer Nikolai Polikarpov. One of the world's first mass-produced monoplane fighters with retractable landing gear in flight. The aircraft had a predominantly wooden structure and plywood skin.

It was produced in the USSR and was the main fighter of the Red Army Air Force until the beginning of 1942.

The development of the I-16 was initially carried out on an initiative basis by specialists from Brigade No. 2 at TsKB-39, where Nikolai Nikolaevich Polikarpov was the head of the brigade. The first studies of a high-speed monoplane fighter were made in 1932. In the middle of 1933, due to difficulties in fine-tuning the I-14 (ANT-31) by P. O. Sukhoi, the Air Force leadership drew attention to the initiative project of a high-speed monoplane fighter of the Polikarpov brigade, which was called TsKB-12.

The first flight on the prototype was performed on December 30, 1933 by Valery Chkalov, test pilot of the State Aviation Plant No. 39 (GAZ No. 39).

The Air Force leadership preferred Polikarpov's TsKB-12 as cheaper and more technologically advanced (wood-metal, the so-called mixed design against the all-metal I-14) with somewhat higher flight characteristics, the prospects for fine-tuning and development in production.

At the State tests in February 1934, two prototypes were lifted into the air by test pilots Vladimir Kokkinaki and Vasily Stepanchonok. The pilots gave by no means flattering reviews of the aircraft, and after reading the report of test pilots Yumashev and Chernavsky, Alksnis, by special order, allowed only the most experienced pilots to fly the I-16 aircraft.

The designers deliberately made the aircraft aerodynamically unstable, based on the then popular hypothesis that the unstable aerodynamics of the airframe would have a positive effect on the maneuverability of the fighter in combat.

On March 1 and 2, the I-16 aircraft piloted by Valery Chkalov was tested for a spin.

After operational tests in the Crimea based on the airfield in Kacha, the latest fighter was demonstrated to the general public at the May Day parade in Moscow in flight over Red Square.