Polikarpov I-185
| Polikarpov I-185 | |
|---|---|
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|
| Side view of the I-185 with a M-71 engine | |
| Role | Fighter |
| National origin | Soviet Union |
| Manufacturer | Polikarpov |
| First flight | 11 January 1941 |
| Status | Cancelled |
| Number built | 4 |
| Developed from | Polikarpov I-180 |
The Polikarpov I-185 was a Soviet fighter aircraft designed in 1940. It was flown with three engines but all of them were either insufficiently developed for service use or their full production was reserved for other fighters already in production. The I-185 program was cancelled on 27 January 1943.
The I-185, designed in early 1940, was based on the I-180, which was itself a development of the I-16, but was virtually a new design. The monocoque fuselage was similarly built of 'shpon', molded birch plywood, and also had an integral fin, but it was considerably longer than that of the I-180. The two-spar, all-metal wing was smaller and thinner than the I-180's wing, nearly as thin as that of the Supermarine Spitfire's wing at 13% at the root and tapered to 8% at the wing tip. The wing had a NACA-230 profile and was skinned in duralumin. Pneumatically powered split flaps and leading edge slats were fitted. The outer wing panels had 3° of dihedral. The fabric-covered control surfaces were framed in duralumin. The protected 540-litre (119 imp gal; 143 US gal) fuel tanks were mounted between the wing center section spars. The I-185 used a conventional undercarriage with a retractable tailwheel. The unproven 1,492 kW (2,000 hp) 18-cylinder, two-row Tumansky M-90 radial engine was carried on welded steel tubes. It was fitted with a ducted spinner to improve cooling with the air expelled through gills as in the I-180 to provide additional thrust. The synchronized armament was mounted in the fuselage, two 7.62 mm (0.300 in) ShKAS machine guns and two 12.7 mm (0.50 in) Berezin UBS machine guns. A 500-kilogram (1,100 lb) bomb could be carried under overload conditions. The first prototype was completed in May 1940, but the only available example of the M-90 did not provide enough power for take-off. The prototype was modified to use another experimental engine, the 895-kilowatt (1,200 hp) Shvetsov M-81 radial, but this was not nearly powerful enough for flight tests. The I-185 (M-81) finally took to the air on January 11, 1941, but it was decided not to waste further development and await a more powerful engine which was fortunate as the M-81 was cancelled in May 1941.
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