A.M.Isaiev

At the Monino AF Museum near Moscow; Photo (56k) by John Sloan;

ocket-engined fighter, a small straight-wing aircraft. The BI was the world's first rocket-engined fighter, ever flown. This flight took place May 15 1942, on the second BI designated BI-2 (BI-1 was used only as a glider to check handling during landing).

Photo (24k) from Air Force Herald magazine article;

First tests were quite promising, and pre-production series for army tests was started. When test-pilot G.Ya.Bakhchiwandgi crushed on the BI-3 due to revealed serious handling problems, production was 'frozen'. Nevertheless, few BI's were finished and experiments continued.

Rocket powered flight of BI was too short, so the BI-6 was fitted with ramjets on wingtips. Aircraft was tested in wind tunnel TsAGI-101 (Spring 1944), but did never fly.

The BI-7 (slightly different from BI-6 by wing shape and added ramjet starters) was flown in 1944, revealing dangerous vibration in tail section. To study this problem BI-5 and BI-6 were rebuilt to the same configuration as BI-7, and flown as gliders tagged by B-25J. No vibration or other problems obtained. Those tests were last ones, because this program was 'folded' (Russian term for cancelled).