Soviet Soviet & Eastern Block Quiz

[JimZ]

Actually, I think It's Viktor Belenko.

1. Snr Lieutenant Belenko

2. Deputy commander of squadron and pilot with the 513th Fighter Regiment of the Soviet Anti-Air Defense based in Chuguyevka, Primorsky Krai.

3. Flew to Japan to defect (to the USA) ((East looking West?!))

4. He almost hit an airliner when landing, and nearly crashed into a radar dish. With only 30 seconds of fuel left. Then he was interrogated for 5 months.

5. He flew a MIG25 foxbat that the Japanese and US dismantled and sent back to the USSR in 30 crates (shipping costs to new friends). The cost to the USSR was that they had to cancel production of 2 aircraft carriers to replace all Soviet aircraft's target ID systems.

Well done Belaruski!

I hope you found my hints fair and correct .... and somewhat challenging too in getting to our man

As your answers are correct I will not post mine .... I will instead put the links that you may find some as interesting reading

Jim

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Belenko

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout...,946610,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout...,946651,00.html

http://english.pravda.ru/russia/history/4029-0/

http://www.geocities.com/siafdu/viktor.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiG-25

[Christian Zulus]

Actually, I think It's Viktor Belenko.

1. Snr Lieutenant Belenko

2. Deputy commander of squadron and pilot with the 513th Fighter Regiment of the Soviet Anti-Air Defense based in Chuguyevka, Primorsky Krai.

3. Flew to Japan to defect (to the USA) ((East looking West?!))

4. He almost hit an airliner when landing, and nearly crashed into a radar dish. With only 30 seconds of fuel left. Then he was interrogated for 5 months.

5. He flew a MIG25 foxbat that the Japanese and US dismantled and sent back to the USSR in 30 crates (shipping costs to new friends). The cost to the USSR was that they had to cancel production of 2 aircraft carriers to replace all Soviet aircraft's target ID systems.

Dear Belaruski,

that might be the right answer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Belenko .

That creature Belenko is really a true "Enemy to the people", who cost the people of the Soviet Union a fortune in money .

Best regards

Christian

[Christian Zulus]

Dear Belaruski,

congratulations to your victory .

So it is again your task to put a tricky question .

Best regards

Christian

[Belaruski]

Ok, here's a riddle!

Which dead Bolshevik smashed through the Mannerheim Line?

[Christian Zulus]

Ok, here's a riddle!

Which dead Bolshevik smashed through the Mannerheim Line?

Dear Belaruski,

to make your question a bit more precise:

Finnish Winter War and the Bolshevik did not smash as a dead corpse - as "El Cid" - through the Mannerheim Line .

Are my assumptions correct ?

Best regards

Christian

[Belaruski]

Winter war= correct.

The Bolshevik in question died before 1939 though..

[Christian Zulus]

Winter war= correct.

The Bolshevik in question died before 1939 though..

Dear Belaruski,

when the "Winter War" is correct and the Bolshevik in question died before the beginning of that war, than the Red Army smashed the corpse of the poor fellow in a coffin through the Mannerheim Line ?

Best regards

Christian

[Christian Zulus]

Finnish Winter War & Mannerheim Line - basic informations

Gentlemen,

for tackling with Belaruski's tricky question, some basic informations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War

Best regards

Christian

[Christian Zulus]

Winter war= correct.

The Bolshevik in question died before 1939 though..

Dear Belaruski,

I just checked another website http://www.winterwar.com/mainpage.htm , but couldn't find anything .

Without solving your "corpse & coffin question" in advance, the answer will be hardly to gain .

Again: The comrade in question had been already a dead man and smashed through the Mannerheim Line ?

Best regards

Christian

[Belaruski]

As I said, it's a riddle!

Think of a very important and influential Bolshevik, who famously died in the late 30's and 'the penny should drop'.

Not a corpse, more a legacy

Another clue: nothing could stop him until he hit a mine, and even then he was indestructable!

Edited April 3, 2007 by Belaruski

[Christian Zulus]

As I said, it's a riddle!

Think of a very important and influential Bolshevik, who famously died in the late 30's and 'the penny should drop'.

Not a corpse, more a legacy

Another clue: nothing could stop him until he hit a mine, and even then he was indestructable!

Spain ?

Best regards

Christian

[Christian Zulus]

As I said, it's a riddle!

Think of a very important and influential Bolshevik, who famously died in the late 30's and 'the penny should drop'.

Not a corpse, more a legacy

Member of Politburo ?

Best regards

Christian

[Carol I]

Ok, here's a riddle!

Which dead Bolshevik smashed through the Mannerheim Line?

The first idea that came to my mind was "tanks produced at the Kirov Factory", but I guessed that it was not quite the answer Belaruski wanted. However, a subsequent search showed that during the Winter War the Soviets have used an SMK (Sergei M Kirov) tank protoype on the Mannerheim Line. I hope I am not right.

[Belaruski]

Carol, you are right!

The tank (only one ever made) was literally named "Sergei Mironovich Kirov" It was a double turreted KV predecessor. It was so heavily armoured and packed quite a punch that it rolled through Finnish lines and just kept going. Eventually it hit a mine, and the crew abandoned it. The Finns were unable to recover the vehicle or move it, and even were unable to destroy or dismantle it. Eventually the Soviets recovered it after the war was over.

Edited April 3, 2007 by Belaruski

[Christian Zulus]

The first idea that came to my mind was "tanks produced at the Kirov Factory", but I guessed that it was not quite the answer Belaruski wanted. However, a subsequent search showed that during the Winter War the Soviets have used an SMK (Sergei M Kirov) tank protoype on the Mannerheim Line. I hope I am not right.

Dear Carol,

congratulations to your victory .

It had been the T-100 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-100 a rather odd predessor to the KV-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kliment_Voroshilov_tank .

But comrade Kirov died in 1934 and not in the late 1930s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Kirov , dear Belaruski .

Best regards

Christian

[Carol I]

Carol, you are right!

I was afraid that it would turn out this way. I feel like I am stealing the wind of the more knowledgeable members of this section as soviet history is not high among my interests. I will try to come up with something by this evening, but it becomes tougher and tougher...

[Belaruski]

But comrade Kirov died in 1934 and not in the late 1930s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Kirov , dear Belaruski .

Christian

Well it was the late 1930's for him..

Sorry for the mistake!

The T100 was also in the Winter war, and survived it. The SMK had the long barreled 76mm that ended up in the KV! and T34, whilst the T100 originally mounted the short barrel version like the T35, if I remember rightly..

[Carol I]

I think I have a new one, simple I hope.

Who is the man in the photo below?

He was an aeronautical engineer and inventor with a rather succesful career in the West who at the end of his career chose to move and work in an Eastern Block country.

[Christian Zulus]

I think I have a new one, simple I hope.

Who is the man in the photo below?

He was an aeronautical engineer and inventor with a rather succesful career in the West who at the end of his career chose to move and work in an Eastern Block country.

Dear Carol,

just looking at photograph, I guessed the comrade might be John Reed, but reading the text ...

Difficult question .

I don't think, that the case has to do with the CCCP, because the comrade must have been rather well known and all the famous designers had been already during the GPW in Russia.

Maybe a Romanian - the had an aeronautic industry during communism and started rather late ?

Best regards

Christian

[Carol I]

Maybe a Romanian - the had an aeronautic industry during communism and started rather late ?

You are on the right track, but the aeronautic industry in Romania started much earlier so you have to think much earlier. However, it is true that the gentleman in question gave it a big push in the communist time.

One more hint: a patent of his is very much used for increasing manoeuvrability in modern fighters.

[JimZ]

Our Gentleman is Henri Coanda.

Born in Bucharest, Coandă was the second child of a large family. His father was General Constantin Coandă, a mathematics professor at the National School of Power and Roads. His mother, Aida Danet, was the daughter of French physician Gustave Danet, and was born in Brittany. He was later to recall that even as a child he was fascinated by the miracle of wind.

Coandă studied at the Petrache Poenaru Communal School in Bucharest, then (1896) at the Liceu Sf. Sava (Saint Sava National College). After three years (1899), his father, who desired a military career for him, had him transfer to the Military Lycee in Iaşi. He graduated from that institution in 1903 with the rank of sergeant major, and he continued his studies at the School of Artillery, Military, and Naval Engineering in Bucharest. Sent with an artillery regiment to Germany (1904), he enrolled in the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg, Berlin.

Coandă graduated as an artillery officer, but he was more interested in the technical problems of flight. In 1905, he built a missile-airplane for the Romanian Army. He continued his studies (1907-1908) at the Montefiore Institute in Li?ge, Belgium, where he meets Gianni Caproni. In 1908 Coandă returned to Romania to serve as an active officer in the Second Artillery Regiment. However, his inventor's spirit did not comport well with military discipline; he solicited and obtained permission to leave the army, after which he took advantage of his renewed freedom to take a long automobile trip to Isfahan, Teheran, and Tibet. Upon his return in 1909, he travelled to Paris, where he enrolled in the newly founded ?cole Nationale Superieure d'Ingenieurs en Construction A?ronautique (now the ?cole Nationale Sup?rieure de l'A?ronautique et de l'Espace, also known as SUPAERO); one year later (1910) he graduated at the head of the first class of aeronautical engineers.

With the support of engineer Gustave Eiffel and the mathematician, politician, and aeronautical pioneer Paul Painlev?, he began experimenting the aerodynamic techniques: one of this experiments was mounting a device on a train running at 90 km/h so he could analyse the aerodynamic behavior. Another experiment used a wind tunnel with smoke and an aerodynamical balance to profile wings to be used in designing aircraft. This led to the discovery of the aerodynamic effect now known as the Coandă Effect.

In 1910, using the workshop of Gianni Caproni, he designed, built and piloted the first 'thermojet' powered aircraft, known as the Coandă-1910, which he demonstrated publicly at the second International Aeronautic Salon in Paris. The powerplant used a 4-cylinder piston engine to power a compressor, which fed to two burners for thrust, instead of using a propeller. It would be nearly 30-years until the next thermojet powered aircraft, the Campini Caproni CC.2. (See also Jet engine)

At the airport of Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris, Coandă lost control of the jet plane, which went off of the runway and caught fire. Fortunately, he escaped with just a good scare and some minor injuries to his face and hands. Around that time, Coandă abandoned his experiments due to a lack of interest and support on the part of the public and of scientific and engineering institutions.

Between 1911 and 1914, he worked as technical director of Bristol Aeroplane Company in the UK, where he designed several airplanes known as Bristol-Coandă airplanes. In 1912 one of these planes won the first prize at the International Military Aviation Contest in UK.

In 1915, he went again to France where, working during World War I for Delaunay-Belleville in Saint-Denis, he designed and built three different models of propeller airplane, including the Coandă-1916, with two propellers mounted close to the tail; this design was to be reprised in the "Caravelle" transport airplane, for which Coandă was a technical consultant.

In the years between the wars, he continued traveling and inventing; inventions included the first jet-powered sleigh, and the first de luxe aerodynamic railroad train. In 1934 he was granted a French patent related to the Coandă Effect; in 1935, he used the same principle as the basis for a hovercraft called "Aerodina Lenticulara", which was very similar in shape to the flying saucers later developed by Avro Canada before being bought by USAF and become a classified project.

In 1969, during the first years of the Ceauşescu era, he returned to spend his last days in his native Romania, where he served as director of the Institute for Scientific and Technical Creation (INCREST) and in 1971 reorganized, along with professor Elie Carafoli, the Department of Aeronautical Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, spinning it off from the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Coandă died in Bucharest November 25, 1972 at the age of 86.

Bucharest's Henri Coandă International Airport is named after him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Coanda

[JimZ]

Amongst his list of dicoveries and inventions are:

1910: A mobile platform for aerodynamic experiments, mounted on the side of a train, running at 90 km/h on the Paris - Saint-Quentin route. Effectively, this gave him a wind tunnel; using smoke and a photographic camera of his own design, he was able to test the stability of designs for airplane wings.

1910: The Coandă-1910, the world's first thermojet aircraft (which crashed on its only demonstration).

1911: A two-engine, one-propeller airplane.

1911-1914 as technical director of Bristol Aeroplane Company, designed the Bristol-Coandă airplanes.

1914-1916: at Delaunay-Belleville, designed three more types of airplane, including the Coandă-1916, with two motors near the tail.

He invented a new decorative material for use in construction, beton-bois; one prominent example of its use is the 1926 Palace of Culture, in Iaşi.

1926: Working in Romania, Coandă developed a device to detect liquids under ground, useful in petroleum prospecting. Shortly thereafter, in the Persian Gulf region, he designed a system for offshore oil drilling.

Probably the most famous of Coandă's discoveries is the Coandă Effect. After the crash of the "Coandă-1910" airplane, Coandă observed that flames and incandescent gas emitted by the fire tended to remain close to the fuselage. After more than 20 years studying this phenomenon along with his colleagues, Coandă described what Albert Metral was later to name the "Coandă Effect." This effect has been utilized in many aeronautical inventions and is crucial to successful supersonic flight.

Now that I read the last paragraph I realise I knew about this gentleman from too many hours in front of Discovery Channel

Jim

[Carol I]

Our Gentleman is Henri Coanda.

Congratulations, your turn now!

1910: The Coandă-1910, the world's first thermojet aircraft (which crashed on its only demonstration).

Probably the most famous of Coandă's discoveries is the Coandă Effect. After the crash of the "Coandă-1910" airplane, Coandă observed that flames and incandescent gas emitted by the fire tended to remain close to the fuselage. After more than 20 years studying this phenomenon along with his colleagues, Coandă described what Albert Metral was later to name the "Coandă Effect." This effect has been utilized in many aeronautical inventions and is crucial to successful supersonic flight.

Actually it is said that the crash of his 1910 jet was caused by a combination of factors. The hot exhaust gases started sticking to the surfaces of his wooden airplane due to the later-named Coandă Effect and eventually set to the plane was one of them. The other was that Coandă himself was too caught up in studying the phenomenon to properly land the plane (I think the legend also says that he did not have a pilot licence at that time, but I cannot find any reference for this).

He invented a new decorative material for use in construction, beton-bois; one prominent example of its use is the 1926 Palace of Culture, in Iaşi.

Here is an image of the hall where this material is said to have been used.

[Christian Zulus]

Dear Jim,

congratulations to your victory .

I have to get faster in my researches .

Best regards

Christian

[JimZ]

Thanks Gents. I'll work on the next question and post it shortly!

Jim