Tupolev I-14
The Tupolev I-14 (Russian Туполев И -14, also: ANT -31, АНТ -31) was a Soviet fighter aircraft; it was designed by Pavel Sukhoi, who worked at that time in the TsAGI belonging design team of Andrei Tupolev.
Development
The first sketches were made in 1932. The machine was designed as a low -wing monoplane of all-metal construction and should get a retractable landing gear.
1933 graduated from the prototype made its first flight. He was equipped with a rigid Skifahrwerk and was powered by a Bristol Mercury engine. The first production copy flew a year later and was awarded the Soviet M -22 engine, which was later replaced by the more powerful M-25. The I-14 had excellent flight characteristics and it was arranged to build this type of 55 pieces. Later appeared as an I- 14bis designated development with a Wright R- 1820' -F -3 drive. Ultimately, however, only 18 aircraft were built in two versions, since the model was constructed in comparison to the Polikarpov I-16 much more complicated, which of course affected the production times and maintenance.
With the I-14 also shooting experiments were carried out with two large caliber einschüssigen Kurschewski APK guns. They were very successful not because the plane was not designed for this type of armament. Therefore Tupolev developed the two specially designated types I- 12 and DIP.