Ilyushin Il-30

Ilyushin

Industry	Aerospace, defense
Founded	1933
Headquarters	Moscow , Soviet Union

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The Ilyushin Il-30 was a tactical bomber powered by turbojet engines, conceived in the late 1940s within the Soviet Union. It represented an advanced iteration of the Ilyushin Il-28, featuring a swept wing design aimed at enhancing performance. The aircraft’s slender wings and engine nacelles required the implementation of a tandem landing gear configuration—a first for Soviet aviation. Although plans for a prototype were realized, the Il-30 apparently never conducted a test flight, with some sources offering conflicting accounts.

Development

The Il-30 was developed as a successor to the Il-28, with its design process commencing on 21 June 1948—prior to the first flight of the Il-28. The bomber was intended to fulfill specifications calling for a jet aircraft capable of transporting 2,000 kg (4,400 lb) over 3,500 km (2,200 mi) while achieving speeds no less than 1,000 km/h (620 mph). Building upon the Il-28’s framework, designers incorporated thin, shoulder-mounted wings swept back at an angle of 35°, selected to meet the speed requirements. Propulsion was planned to come from two newly developed Lyulka TR-3 axial-flow turbojet engines, each delivering thrust of approximately 45.1 kN (10,140 lbf), housed within nacelles attached to the wings. Both fuselage and engine pods were shaped according to area rule principles.

The slender wing profile combined with a slight 2° anhedral—introduced to counteract excessive lateral stability—restricted internal fuel capacity, necessitating the use of external tip tanks to achieve the desired operational range. Due to the narrow engine nacelles, it was not feasible to accommodate the main landing gear within them as on the Il-28. Instead, engineers adopted an innovative solution by installing a bicycle-style landing gear arrangement inside the fuselage—the first such configuration on a Soviet plane—with small twin-wheeled outrigger wheels mounted beneath each nacelle for ground stability.

Crew composition included four members: pilot, bombardier, and two gunners. The pilot, bombardier, and dorsal gunner operated within a single pressurized compartment subdivided into two sections—the bombardier’s station located in a heavily glazed nose area, and a combined cockpit and dorsal turret (designated Il-V-12), where pilot and dorsal gunner were seated back-to-back under a shared canopy. A separate pressurized turret (Il-K6) at the rear accommodated the tail gunner. Defensive armament comprised six 23 mm (0.91 in) Nudelman-Rikhter NR-23 cannons: two fixed forward-firing weapons and two twin mounts positioned in dorsal and tail turrets. The maximum bomb payload capacity was 4,000 kg (8,800 lb).

Initial evaluations yielded promising outcomes, leading to a formal review of a full-scale mockup in March 1949. By August that year, construction of the prototype was complete; however, an accident involving the competing swept-wing Tupolev Tu-82, which suffered an engine mount failure during low-level flight, prompted additional structural testing on wing strength before permitting any flight attempts. Subsequently, momentum for the Il-30 waned as Ilyushin’s design bureau (OKB) was directed to prioritize efforts toward facilitating operational deployment of the Il-28. Official cancellation of the Il-30 program occurred via government decree on 20 August 1950, with the sole prototype eventually dismantled in the early 1960s. Aviation historian Bill Gunston cites a maiden flight date of 9 September 1949, while Vaclav Nemecek indicates it may have been as late as 1951.

Despite never taking to the air, the Il-30 attracted considerable (though often inaccurate) attention in Western circles. Some erroneous beliefs included assumptions that it featured a ventral gun emplacement or that it was the Soviet Union’s first bomber capable of exceeding 1,000 km/h (620 mph).

External links

• Il-30 at ram-home.com Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine