My grandfather was flying I16 in the beginning of war, then became a commander of a ТB-3. He did survive the war and always given high praise to the donkey. Though he envied to pilots of some rare Mig-3 modification he said was the best fighter of all the war.
"the beginning of war" When Soviets and Germans was fighting hand by hand to start the WW2 or are you talking about the time when the friendship ended and your brothers in arms backstabed you when you finished accumulating forces at the border to backstab them? Soviets got so big numerical advantage at the beggining of the Operation Barbarossa but thx to the fact that some of the airfields were so blatantly build for the purpose of Soviet invasion that some of them were as close to the border as 800m... perfect position when you are invading but the worst posible if you trying to deffend the country. Generaly opinions of soviet soldiers that survived are so out of touch with reality, i remember interview where vet is talking that they did not invade Poland just after he is talking about German-Soviet parade in Brześć(Brest-Litovsk) that you can find even filmed by Gemans on youtube and just by coincidence was in the middle of Second Polish Republic. I can also imagine that you could only have a good opinions about I-16 or you would end up in the gulag as there was this popular joke in USSR sbout how many years in gulag you are getting for nothing(and bad opinion about Soviet fighter is allready something...).
@@blkmgk16 You don't know dick about the true history of WWII or you can't handle the truth! Prior to Barbarossa, there was message after message from Churchill and Roosevelt to Stalin, damn near demanding that Russia enter the war against Germany and promising Beans, Bullets and Bandages and the spoils of a victory over Germany. You see, the victor writes history and only a devoted seeker of the truth can sort through the bullshit and find the ice cream(truth).
Play IL2 Sturmovik as a German and you will have the delight of these planes flying rings around your BF109. Get into a turning fight and you WILL lose !
One I 16 pliot learned about the germans being very "kill horny" to put it mildly, constantly trying to oneup eachother and even fitting cameras to their planes to prove their killcounts. This lead to them often going after planes that seemed damaged or already going down (similar to players in a videogame) than formations cause a kill is a kill on the camera. So the guy would purposefully fly the plane at a lower speed and jiggle it around giving the enemy the idea that it was damaged, when the enemy tried to engage, they would suddently drop their act, evade and drag them infront of other planes or outmaneuver them at low altitude.
From Master and Commander to classic the Star Trek "The more helpless he thinks we are...." "The closer...." he"...... "Is going" ....."To get!" Always a ballsy bet on kill lust over patience and training, those who won that bet lived to tell the tale, but could add a survivorship bias to the odds of such tactics working out as planned.
There's several birds that do that when a cat, for example, get close to their nest. Some even go so far and actually drag one wing behind them while walking away from you on the ground to pretend being hurt. Waiting for the last moment when the cat attacks to just take off and repeat the game. I saw a pair of blackbirds completely distract and divert a cat away from their clutch like that. They just continued to play easy prey until they had the cat 100 m away and around the street corner.
"Knife fight in a phone booth" Coalition forces can win the battle of Baghdad, but grisly images of death and destruction could cost them the war for Arab hearts and minds. By Eric Boehlert Published March 29, 2003 1:28AM (EST)
The presenter mentions many problems with the I-16, such as the poor quality of the canopy glazing, difficulty raising and lowering the landing gear and problems with machine guns jamming. It should be noted that, while Polikarpov designed the aircraft, he had little or nothing to do with the manufacturing of it. In the Soviet system, design teams created the deigns of aircraft such as the I-16. However, once the aircraft was accepted for production, the government would assign it to a factory for mass production. From that point onward, the designers had little or nothing to do with the process. For example, it is known that Polikarpov desired the acquisition of foreign aircraft engines for his fighters, from makers such as Pratt & Whitney and BMW, because he did not have much faith in the availability of high-powered Soviet-built aircraft engines. Polikarpov has likewise been criticized for keeping the I-16 in production too long after it was obsolete. However, again, Polikarpov had nothing to do with that. In fact Polikarpov was busy developing newer and better fighters which were not, for a variety of reasons, adopted for production.
I think 💭 that you are 100% correct, the compartmentalised system of Russian design, manufacturing and proving of new aircraft, in fact anything new, had a huge impact on their advancement in the increasingly competitive, fast paced and lucrative aviation industry, just imagine where aviation, in fact all the science’s, would be if Russian/Soviet leadership had not been so paranoid and insecure about allowing people like Polikarpov to oversee a design from inception to completion, I personally think that the world would have been far more advanced than it is, whether that would have been good or bad we will never know. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴🇺🇦
Не мог он быть таким дураком, чтобы желать для своего истребителя моторов от BMW пусть на тот момент (не на долго) и более эффективных. Врёшь ты всё, Буча.
Ага..конструктор боевого самолёта ,хотел установить мотор , производства,своего потенциального противника.. Ты идиот? Это первое. Второе.. Конструктора контролировали и курировали всю цепочку пооизводства и в любой момент, могли вносить изменения... Из тебя историк ,как из говна пуля..😆😃😆
Well done. My grandpa had told me about these. In the Wehrmacht, they were called "Rata" (rat). He said that the pilots occasionally threw hand grenades from the open cockpit.
Really well done. Excellent graphics and photos, and high quality narration (a British accent does wonders lol). The first video from this channel I watched was on the Vought Vindicator dive bomber (it showed up in my suggestions after watching one of Montemayor's videos on the Coral Sea). I almost didn't watch it because you never know what you're going to get with a random algorithm suggestion, but I'm glad I did. They have an airworthy I-16 Type 24 at the Flying Heritage museum in Everett WA where I live (Seattle area) but I haven't seen it fly yet. Fun Fact: This I-16 was shot down during the war and later discovered in 1991 in Eastern Europe. It was restored at the same factory where it was originally built in 1940, in some cases by the same workers themselves who had worked on the I-16 production line in the 40's as children.
Don't forget the SBP dive bomber version that served as the offensive half of the Sveno-SBP strategic weapon system: In 1938, Vakhmistrov devised the Zveno-SPB (SPB: Sostavnoi Pikiruyuschiy Bombardirovschik, Combined Dive Bomber) which consisted of a Tupolev TB-3-4AM-34FRN mother ship and two Polikarpov I-16 Type 5 fighters. Each of the fighters was armed with a pair of 250 kg (550 lb.) FAB-250 high-explosive bombs. Although an I-16 Type 5 could get airborne on its own with no more than 100 kg (220 lb.) of bombs, once hoisted in the air by the TB-3 it could reach 410 km/h (220 knots, 255 mph) at 2,500 m (8,200 ft.), had a service ceiling of 6,800 m (22,310 ft.), and could dive at up to 650 km/h (350 knots, 405 mph) while carrying 2x 250 kg bombs. Once the bombs were dropped, the SPB-launched I-16s performed like conventional Type 5s. The three-aircraft Zveno-SPB had a total takeoff weight of 22,000 kg (48,500 lb.), a top speed of 268 km/h (145 knots, 165 mph), and a range of 2,500 km (1,350 NM, 1,550 mi). The use of a mother ship increased the range of the I-16s by 80%. The SPB first flew in July 1937, with TB-3 piloted by Stefanovskiy, and I-16s piloted by Nikolayev and Taborovskiy. Following the successful test program in 1938, Zveno-SPB was accepted into service. By 1 February 1940, Soviet Air Force was supposed to receive 20 TB-3s and 40 I-16s, ith the same number going to the Soviet Navy. Vakhmistrov was also asked to investigate the possibility of using Tupolev TB-7, Tupolev MTB-2, and GST (PBY Catalina) as the mother ships, as well as arming I-16s with 500 kg (1100 lb.) bombs. By 1939, the government support for the project had waned, the Navy canceled all of its orders, and the Air Force reduced the number of fighters from 40 to 12. However, Soviet military observers noted the success of the Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers in the opening stages of World War II. As the Soviet Union had no dive bombers, it was decided to resume low-scale work on the Zveno-SPB. Testing of the first production Zveno began in June 1940. It differed from the prototype in using the much more powerful I-16 Type 24 fighters. A total of six mother ship-fighter combinations (six TB-3s and twelve modified I-16 Type 24s) were completed. All were attached to the 2nd Special Squadron of the 32nd IAP (Fighter Regiment) of the 62nd Aviation Brigade of the Black Sea Fleet Air Force stationed in Eupatoria. Mirroring the nickname of the Zveno experiments, the squadron was dubbed Shubikov's Circus (Цирк Шубикова) after its commander Arseniy Shubikov. I write for the Admiralty Trilogy game system, and I did this research for a Sveno-SBP scenario attacking the Romanian oil transport system (the King Carol I Bridge over the Danube River).
Nice work Rex. The operational histories of I-16 over Spain, China, Finland, and Soviet Union could each have their own video. The modern I-16 restorations would also make for a interesting story that hopefully someone will tell. Given their mixed construction, I’m very curious how much of the original aircraft made it into the current flying I-16s.
The Polikarpov was in service in the spanish civil war. The engine durability was disasterous, only 100 flight hours and the engine was burned out. They were optimized in Terrassa (Catalonia-Spain) and equiped with an oil cooler gaining a total of 200 flight hours. No dought that the planes manouverability was excellent.
"only 100 flight hours and the engine was burned out." Sounds perfectly sufficient for the time and what limited flight time would be needed in this war.
@@danijuggernaut Actually in wars every piece of equipment has an optimal cost-for-performance ratio. Sadly those who view everything in absolute terms and compare apples and oranges don't understand this. Is the F35-Lightning II crap? Considering its whopping cost and running compared to whatever small advantage it has over cheaper designs it's truly crap. And on the other side of the spectrum there are the cheap workhorses. Some arguably bad. Others quite good for the money invested.
It was called "Ishak" not because of it's stubby appearance, but because I-16 in Russian "И-Шестнадцать" sounds kinda similar, something like "Yi-Shestnadtsats". Also, in Russian some bad words are ended on "-ak", so it give this unofficial name some rude connotation. In official propaganda this plane was called "Yastrebok" (Ястребок), it is word play, as this word is shortened form of "Yastreb" ("Ястреб", hawk) and also sounds similar to "Istrebitel" ("Истребитель", fighter aircraft).
"Yastrebok" sinply means little/young hawk. There is no word play. just similary sounding words. Also, I see no rudeness in the word Ishak, apart those that are traditionaly ascribed to a donkey.
@@zoranocokoljic8927 “Ishak” is totally a rude word in Russian if addressed to a person. However, many a time have I met references to this plane as “Ishachok” which sounds endearing and not offensive at all, something along the lines of “cute lil’ donkey”.
@@zoranocokoljic8927 C'mon, maybe, as a native russian speaker, i know better either there is a word play or not? ;) About "Ishak" and "Ishachok" @Maxim Bravo already said enough. Pretty good illustration if love/hate relationships of russian pilots with this plane
@@damekkoDASHkun Повторю свое мнение что тут нет игры слов, а только созвучые слов "Ястреб" и "Истреб/итель". Ястребы же не получили свое название потому что истребляют.
@@zoranocokoljic8927 А созвучие - это не игра слов? Вы про понятие каламбур слышали? Но вообще мы тут бессмысленный спор ведём, если честно. Что меня изначально задело в видео, так это то, что англоязычные авторы совершенно не выкупают почему И-16 называли "ишаком" и начинают придумывать какой-то совершенно оторванный от реальности обоснуй. Я это уже не первый раз встречаю.
I've always liked the I-16, she has nice lines. I would love to have one to fly, as well as the P-26. Since I wouldn't have to use them in combat, they would be fun to fly. I a chance to have a close use look at the I-16 that the Commemorative Air Force in Midland, TX. It has since been sold and move to Florida with Weeks.
Interesting information: While on the main front, the I-16 and it's relatives were outclassed by German aircraft, in the Caucasus they held up extremely whel due to their high maneuverability.
Very interesting video(s) and good informative narration. To my mind the I-16 bears a passing resemblance to the Gee Bee Racers of the 1930's. Great stuff.
Awesome vid. 👍. Very well researched, appreciate learning of new details. Always thought this plane looked like it was inspired by a can of pineapple juice :).
I'm russian and I'm aviation fan, and of course I know about history of this legendary plane which is one of symbols of Victory in Great Patriotic War in our country. But I am really very interested in a look from the outside at the creations of our designers, besides, sometimes in Western sources there are some details that we can only find in the archives. And other videos on this channel are just a godsend for such an aviation history lover like me!
Hello Matvey, as a Westerner I would like to apologize on behalf of KateLicker , nice to see that the interest in aviation history is something we all can enjoy.
@@ccmadminstrator No, I concede that I cannot actually prevent people from following monsters or supporting and participating in monstrous events, but that does not have to mean I have to endorse or fail to condemn it, which is apparently the at-best apathy of you and your buddy KD here.And btw I did not accuse the Russian poster of taking that position either, I said that I hoped he was not one of the accomplices to it.
Four of these were built from scratch in Russia on behalf of the Alpine Fighter Collection which is based at Wanaka in New Zealand. They all flew together at the year 2000 show. These can be seen flying at Wanaka on You tube.
At 1:55 the simulated Englishman states that an I-19 early prototype had a "wooden monocoque fuselage with fabric covering". Monocoque means the primary strength comes from the covering. Unless the covered the metal skin with fabric, this airplane would have been as strong as a heavily starched sock, if what you say is true. Has Rex been replaced by an AI? Otherwise a good video, like the rest.
Here are some translations 1:14 : 1 and 2-y VARIANT 9:19 (apologies in advance for this crude translation) : Glory to the heroes that partook in the war! Glory stalinism sokolam (i have no clue what "sokolam" means) 11:11 : For the USSR! (and fun fact : the acronym "USSR" is a direct translation of the russian acrnym word for word so its full name is "Союз Советских Социалистических Републик" (Latinised : Soyuz Sovetkikh Sotsialisticheskikh Repyblik) which of course translates to Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)
The I-16 might seem obsolete but it depends on how you see it and the quality definitely isn't Polikarpov's fault. In fact, the plane was useful to the Russians that they continued using it in small numbers till the end of war. Due to it being way smaller and nimbler than the BF-109, the Soviets soon realized that in open grounds in the central Russian plains, it was useless as the BF-109 could fly rings around it and it would be a sitting duck whereas in the Carpathian mountain and Caucasus region where the planes are mostly flying extremely low and ducking and weaving between mountain ranges, the I-16 proved to be the king and they often use one to bait the BF-109 to go low and chase one into the ranges and once the Luftwaffe pilot becomes encumbered with the burden on the mountainous terrain, another I-16 would come in and swoop the BF-109. It worked soo well that pilots soon rejected any other planes except the I-16 and whatever the Soviet Air Force had left that wasn't destroyed be given to the air forces down south to fight the Luftwaffe threat at the Caucasus.
I think another large dose of bad press the plane got came from the Chinese theater where Kuomintang I-16 piloted by seals went against Japanese unicums flying Zeros and Soviet volunteers were too few to made up the differences. Real life seal clubbing if there ever was one. Of course Jiang is not going to openly accept his air forces are filled with potatoes so the plane took the blame. The image stuck.
@@thanakonpraepanich4284 The I-16 actually never took the blame at all during the Chinese theater. In fact, it has one of the best ratios out there, far superseding the Eastern Front ones. When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, China had a relatively small airforce and the I-16 only had about 250-300 units in the air and only about 150 pilots that can fly it across the vast landscape of China and by 1941 since the outbreak started in 1936, the tallies if I remember correctly was about 250 planes downed in total for the I-16 with various pilots with the loss of 85 planes where most of the pilots were useless Chinese conscripts or Russian pilots who were too strung after long stints of combat. When the Russians fully backed out, the I-16 lost parts and that's why they wern't really flown again in China and the new pilot situation did not help either. Yes the count of 250 or so planes vs the loss of 85 themselves seems like a high count but it was within a span of like 7 years which itself was pretty amazing considering the state the Chinese Air Force was in and the constant mismatched planes they had.
The origonal I16 was probably unique in having a complete canopy that slid forwards not backwards on rails. You can see it in one of the earlier photos. Cant think offhand of any other plane that did that.
"A knife fight in a phone both"? A graphic description that caused me to take a large bite out of my seat cushion without getting out of the chair. Jim Y
The American Frank Tinker downed the first Me109 ever lost in combat while flying an I 16. (Spanish civil war). Kermit Weeks owns one. You can clearly see the canopy slide rail ends
One the most common myths of the Spanish Civil War is that the quality and quantity of the German help to nationalist side supposed an immediate superiority for that side. No so, in quality the I-16 was far better than anything the nationalists could field, including German help, and the bf-109 only appeared much later in the war. And in quantity, the high number of planes and tanks received from the Soviet Union meant that they had to become part of the nationalist army by the end of the war.
I have the game Squadron Scramble and it has a I-16 as the only Russian plane to be represented. I’ve always liked this plane because it reminds me so much of the GeeBee racing plane that I had a model of. Cute planes. Very chibi. Much adorbs 🥰
Yes the I-16 reminded me of a GeeBee as well, similar aircraft from the same time period. Important difference: the I-16 wasn't as unstable as the GeeBee. The GeeBee was just a large radial engine with stubbly wings, practically no tail surfaces, oh yeah, better put a pilot in it somewhere as well.😅
2 points. 1. In Russian the Cyrillic letter I is usually said as E, making the I-16, I-15 & I-153 be said as E-16, E-15 etc. And the multi letter codes (Eg: Pe-2, La-5, LaGG-3) were said as words, so Pee-2, LA (as in Tra la la)-5 and Lag-3. 2. The canopy on the I-16 early models did not slide back, it slid forwards to open the cockpit. Slid back it enclosed and sealed the cockpit. The complaints about it was that it was almost impossible to open in flight in case of emergency bail out...
Yea noone would complain about that because of 2 points: 1. You would be already dead because you were not able to open it... 2. You would not want to criticize anything soviet and point fatal flaws of the soviet design if you want to not end up dead or in Siberian gulag... Also your pronaunciation advises sounds very fishy to me. 2 points. 1. Why would you be pronouncing I as E? 2. There is no such thing in Russian as letter L... in Russian you say L when behind the letter Ł probounced like a "W" in "week"(looks similar to the Greek letter alfa) you have soft mark that looks like a amini "b" and it is not the case for Ła-5. Just put the name of the designer "Лавочкин" in google translate and press the "listen" button. Ergo: Its Ла-5 not Льа-5 and it is the same story with ŁaGG-3.
В итоге к началу войны "ишачки" отставали от "мессеров" и их щёлкали как мух. Пытались отдельные личности, конечно, выжать всё что можно из того что есть, но в основном брали числом и старались выбирать бомберы без конвоя.
That being said, the I-16s had two machineguns mounted under the hood inside the plane's fuselage, near its engine. You can totally see that two machinegun spots in frontal of the plane (right above the propeller). I dont know where did you find this "wing mounted" machineguns, especially 4 of them. As i know, and as i saw at the museums, there were always two ShKAS under the hood, and then the wing mounted ShKASes and even 20mm cannons were added
I do renember a version of the I-16 with only wing mounted machinegun in war thunder, probably a VERY early version of it. And i can see why those variant, if they had fought in the Spanish Civil War, lead to the "need more firepower" thing.
The prettiest Polikarpov fighter of this era I think is the little I 153 with its gulled upper wing, sesquiplane configuration and retractable u/c. Also these tiny fighters were fast for the time. Some were even fitted with crude ram jets on their wings. Though I have no clue as to how successful these were. Maybe a prog about that and the later I 183/ 185s BI 1s or the early jets you don't hear about like the La 5 and the Su 6 ( I think) which looked a bit like a straight winged Me 262. Soviet aviation is a real treasure trove of odd, brilliant and downright bizarre aircraft types. And there rocket planes are fascinating.
Before appearance of BF-109E in 1938 it was the best fighter in the world. It was proved in Spain, Finland and conflicts with Japan on Chinese border. But even after 1938 it was still able to do dog fight against modern fighters due to excellent maneuverability. Though it was not easy to drive , especially landing was tricky. Plane could easily start jumping and could hit the ground by nose.
RUSSIAN engineers later built the YAK aircraft that more than matched the BF 109 that German pilots avoided the YAK in combat, This polikarpov at the time was chubby but that was at the time the racing profile. The aircraft design proved to be in flight to be inferior to the Zero but how many aircraft were at the commencement of the Sino Japanese war were a match for the Zero but its superiority soon declined .
Amazing that that winged pepper shaker flew so well. But I don't understand how having retractable gear, the poor Russians flew to the brink of hypothermia in that open cockpit.
In Spain, the pilots wore heavy woolen pants and woolen shirts, with wool sweater, and over that , a sort of ' bib overall ' made of sheepskin ( fur side in ) and a heavy, sheepskin coat . On their heads they wore fur lined leather helmets, goggles, and had a silk scarf around their necks between the leather helmet and the collar of their coat. They wore heavy woolen socks, and fur lined leather boots, and they had fur lined mittens over cotton gloves on their hands.
Great one. My 2 cents: 1) Last one was I-16 type 29; 2) In my childhood there was a great all- metal model of the plane,made somewhere in the Eastern Block.
The archive of the war between the USSR and Germany is still classified. The country no longer exists, but secrets frighten the authorities to announce the historical truth. One veteran said that the new Yak-3, La-5 aircraft appeared only in the spring of 1943. So, until that time, I-16s and others from the 30s were used. The German pilot claimed that he shot down a TB-3 over the Crimea in 1943 ... this is noted in the German archive. In general, there will still be enough surprises from the Soviets for several generations to wonder how the largest army in the world retreated to Moscow in three months and walked back in three years.
Policarpov was in actual prison on the account of being convicted of being guilty in a number of crimes (mostly spurious, tho one could argue that he did fail some work). Those were harsh times, and the big war was coming, so nobody tolerated even minor faults.
"Manhattan project ate, slept and worked there under armed guard, no possibility of leaving." HAHA The difference is that scientist were leaving Los Alamos because they were not a prisoners and the place was not a pison. And onlythx to that all the Soviet spies were able to get all the data from Manhattan project and Stalin copied everything even the layout of the Los Alamos facilities was copied...
@@Bialy_1 the Soviets weren't in a prison either, they left. It's brain washed American propaganda against the USSR and now Russia. The US needs to sort out its own failing democracy and extreme wealth inequality before criticising ANYONE.
I feel like the I-16 was a really good fit for the Soviet Union at the time--it was cheap, easy to build, allowed for good skill expression, had sufficient firepower, and could be built in huge numbers by the still relatively flawed Soviet industry. It gave the VVS a fighter that could at least contend with the German air force, even if it was technologically inferior. The fact that its designer made it while in a prison camp is also so characteristically Soviet that it hurts. It really takes a country as backwards as the USSR to have a tendency for their greatest innovators to be or have been prisoners in harsh prison conditions, yet also be so dependent upon said innovators.
Always liked the I-16..It was a feature in the Valiant Battle Comic of Johnny Red of my early teens , also in the same stable was the Rata..Good one Rex.
Looking at the side profile, I see both the GB and F4U corsair. The idea that regaining control was achieved by maintaining engine speed and neutral stick reminds me of the DC3. All engineering roads seem to lead to Rome.
It's easy to explain. Nikolai Polikarpov, the creator of the first domestic fighter jet, an outstanding Soviet aircraft designer, founded and headed Plant No. 51. That was the name of his design bureau. Pavel Sukhoi started his career as an aircraft designer exactly at Polikarpov. And later on, Design Bureau No. 51 became known as the Sukhoi Design Bureau.
I almost guarantee the impetus for it's soviet nickname were the first two sounds of I-16 in russian - EE-SHest-nad-tsut. But spanish would nickname it for visuals and i guess demeanor - rat and fly.
![Polikarpov I-16 "Ishak" | The Revolutionary Russian Fighter [Aircraft Overview #12]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
