Soviet Union military aircraft designation systems explained

Pre-revolutionary Imperial Russia (before 1917) did not have a single national unified system but instead relied on those provided by the manufacturers of the aircraft, like Sikorsky Ilya Muromets or Anatra Anasal.

Pre-war Soviet system

The Soviet system used from shortly after the revolution in 1923 and until gradually superseded after 1940, was divided by function, with numbers assigned in order by the government. Duplicate designations were common, as were multiple meanings for individual letters. Designers and manufacturers also had their own internal designations which could be confused for the official government designations. For instance, Tupolev's designs used the designator ANT, for A.N.Tupolev and Yakovlev's designs used AIR, for A.I.Rykov, the communist leader he reported to. Not all designations were taken up, some numbers were assigned to projects that were subsequently cancelled, often at a very early stage of development.

Type prefixes

(Cyrillic characters in parentheses)

Polikarpov

Polikarpov

Grigorovich

Laville

Kochyerigin/TsKB-2 (project)

Kochyerigin/TsKB-11

Polikarpov/TsKB-14 (project)

Tupolev ANT-46/Tupolev SB

Tupolev ANT-29

Tupolev ANT-25

Tupolev ANT-37

Ilyushin TsKB-30, precursor of Il-4

Ilyushin TsKB-56 (prototype only)

Yermolayev, redesignated Yer-2

Tupolev Tu-2

Tupolev TB-1 as transport

Tupolev TB-3 as transport

Tupolev ANT-40

Sukhoi Su-2

Soviet system after December 9, 1940

The system after December 9, 1940 (in accordance with order No 704) used letter abbreviations for the design office, then sequential numbers, sometimes with odd numbers for fighters (e.g. Yak-3, MiG-15, Su-27...) and even numbers for other types (e.g. Il-2, Tu-16, Su-34, Tu-154...). However, this latter rule was not always applied, especially for helicopters.

Contrary to western sources, official Soviet designations did not include constructors' names (e.g. Yakovlev Yak-1), only abbreviations (i.e. Yak-1) however initially full names like Yakovlev-1 were occasionally used. Numerical designations were assigned individually for each developer to aircraft when they entered service. Aircraft also frequently had development designations used within design bureaus, like aircraft 105, or ANT-105 that led to the Tu-22, or T-6 for Su-24, and an industry production name assigned to the facility where production was undertaken.

The NATO Air Standardization Coordinating Committee reporting name system (used because designations of new types were often unknown to NATO) was based on an initial letter indicating type of aircraft (B = bomber, C = cargo, F = fighter, H = helicopter, M = miscellaneous) or missile, and 1 syllable if propeller-driven or 2 if jet- or rocket-powered.

Design office prefixes

An (Ан): Antonov

Ar (Ар): Archangelski

BI (БИ): Berezniak-Isaev

Be (Бе): Beriev

Che (Че): Chetverikov

Gu (Гу): Gudkov

Il (Ил): Ilyushin

Ka (Ка): Kamov

La (Ла): Lavochkin

LaG (ЛаГ): Lavochkin-Gorbunov

LaGG (ЛаГГ): Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov

Li (Ли): Lisunov

M (М): Myasishchev

Mi (Ми): Mil

MiG (МиГ): Mikoyan-Gurevich, until the death of Artem Mikoyan in 1970, then just Mikoyan

Pe (Пе): Petlyakov

Po (По): Polikarpov

Su (Су): Sukhoi

Sh (Ш): Shavrov

Shche (Ще): Shcherbakov

Ts (Ц): Tsybin

Tu (Ту): Tupolev (bureau designation was ANT)

Yak (Як): Yakovlev (bureau designation was AIR)

Yer (Ер): Yermolayev

See also

References

. Bill Gunston . The Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft 1875–1995 . London . Osprey Publishing . 1995 . 1-85532-405-9.

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: A-4, TsAGI.
  2. Web site: A-7, N.I.Kamov.
  3. Web site: GST, Licence-built Consolidated PBY Catalina.
  4. Gunston, Bill. The Osprey Encyclopaedia of Russian Aircraft 1875–1995. London, Osprey. 1995.
  5. Web site: Be-2, KOR-1, (KR-2, TSKBMS-3) G.M.Beriev.
  6. Web site: MBR-1 by R.L.Bartini (Project).
  7. Web site: MBR-5 by P.D.Samsonov.
  8. Jackson, Robert. The Encyclopedia of Aircraft. Silverdale Books, 2004. 236. Print.
  9. Web site: ROM-1, MDR-1, MR-3 by D.P.Grigorovich, P.D.Samsonov and V.B.Shavrov (OMOS) . Ram-home.com . 1998-07-28 . 2022-04-19.
  10. Web site: MDR-3 (TSKB-11) by V.I.Chetverikov.
  11. Web site: Che-2 / MDR-6, Chetverikov 'Mug'.
  12. Web site: MDR-7, Shavrov.
  13. Web site: MR-3 naval reconnaissater by OMOS.
  14. Web site: R-3LD, PS-3, A.N.Tupolev.
  15. Web site: PS-5, Neman.
  16. Web site: PS-9 by A.N.Tupolev and S.I.Komarov.
  17. Web site: ANT-35, ANT-35bis, PS-35 by A.A.Arhangelskij and A.N.Tupolev.
  18. Web site: SB, Tupolev.
  19. Web site: Ps-41-2M-103U.
  20. Web site: Vultee V-11GB attack-bomber aircraft.
  21. Web site: PS-84 passenger/Transport plane, Soviet conversion of Douglas DC-3.
  22. Web site: PS-89, ZIG-1 by A.Laville and A.V.Kulev.
  23. Web site: R-9, Kocherigin.
  24. Web site: ROM-2, ROM-2bis, MDR-1, by D.P.Grigorovich (OMOS) . Ram-home.com . 1998-07-29 . 2022-04-19.
  25. Web site: TSH-3, TSKB-4 by S.A.Kocherigin and M.I.Gurevich.
  26. Web site: KAI-1 No.3 (UPB) by Z.I.Itskovich.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Soviet Union military aircraft designation systems".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.