A mysterious Italian with a Russian soul, who devoted his whole life to the development and improvement of aircraft, Robert Ludwigovich Bartini did a lot as an inventor-aircraft designer for Soviet aviation.
This outstanding man strove to get ahead of the time in which he lived. S. P. Korolev considered Bartini to be his teacher.
Robert Ludwigovich Bartini. Stealth aircraft * Steel-6 *.
Before the Second World War, Robert Ludwigovich was engaged in the development of supersonic vehicles (fighters and bombers). He is also the creator of the theory of "multidimensional space-time".
The personality of the inventor was not famous in the Soviet Union due to the absolute secrecy of the projects in which he took part.
Bartini's fate was extraordinary, his life hung by a thread several times - he survived the sentence “to be shot” three times.
In 1912, while still a schoolboy, the future aircraft designer saw the flight of the Russian pilot Khariton Slavorossov. Bartini was struck in the heart and a passion for aviation burned in him all his subsequent life.
In 1923 he came to live and work in the USSR. He got a job as a laboratory assistant at a scientific airfield (now called Chkalovsky) and made a dizzying career in aviation: in 1927, being already a brigade commander, he was a member of the scientific and technical committee of the USSR Air Force.
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In 1928, in Sevastopol, Bartini took up the development of seaplanes at the head of an experimental group.
Experimental high-speed aircraft * Steel-6 *.
In 1929 he became the head of the naval aircraft industry. A year later, Robert Ludwigovich, as chief designer, moved to the Civil Air Fleet (Civil Air Fleet) and began projects to create experimental aircraft.
In 1932, he began work on the unusual Stal-6 reconnaissance aircraft: it should not have been noticeable against the background of the sky. A year later, this mysterious plane set a world record - flying at a speed of 420 km / h.
The secret of "invisibility" was in a special material called rhodoid (a kind of transparent plastic), from which the car's casing was made, and in the use of a special blue gas. The plane released this gas during the flight and, covered by a smoke screen, became invisible. It is also known that the inside of the housing was covered with a layer of amalgam (a combination of mercury with other metals).
In his book about the history of aviation, aircraft designer V. Shavrov talks about the tests of "Steel-6". To make it easier for the members of the commission to find an invisible plane with their eyes in the sky, UT-2 flew behind it, indicating the location of the companion with its presence.
The flights of the unusual machine were carried out at a military airfield and were classified. Stalin was aware of the project of the stealth plane, but there is no evidence that the leader of the USSR was betting on it. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the car was invisible for only a couple of sorties (over time, the rhodoid lost transparency) and it was not possible to build a whole fleet due to the high cost of one unit. After a while, the airplane was dismantled and the project was closed.
In 1939, "Steel-7", also designed by a talented aircraft designer, set a world record: it flew at a speed of 400 km / h a distance of five thousand km. At this time, Bartini was accused of spying on Benito Mussolini. K. Voroshilov saved the designer from being shot: he stood up for Robert Ludwigovich before Stalin. As a result, Bartini received a transfer to the prison design bureau.
High-speed passenger aircraft * Steel-7 *.
Another unique project "Steel-8" was turned off, considering its characteristics to be outrageous. Allegedly, an airplane could fly at speeds up to 650 km / h.
Bartini's biography is not fully understood. The fate of a man of genius is as mysterious as his inventions.