Polikarpov I16: Difference between revisions

Polikarpov I16 (view source)

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-Polikarpov Design Bureau was a Soviet OKB (design bureau) for aircraft, led by Nikolai Nikolaevich Polikarpov. After his death on 30 July 1944 at the age of 52, his OKB was absorbed into Lavochkin, but with some of its engineers going to Mikoyan-Gurevich and its production facilities going to Sukhoi. For long time the Polikarpov OKB headquarters were located at Aircraft plant #1 (formerly - Dux aircraft factory) in Moscow, where its specially built building still stands.
+The Polikarpov I-16 was a Soviet fighter aircraft of revolutionary design; it was the world's first cantilever-winged monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear. The I-16 was introduced in the mid-1930s and formed the backbone of the Soviet Air Force at the beginning of World War II. The diminutive fighter, nicknamed "Ishak" ("donkey") by Soviet pilots, prominently featured in the Second Sino-Japanese War,[1] the Battle of Khalkhin Gol[1] and the Spanish Civil War[2][3]—where it was called the Rata ("rat") by the Nationalists or Mosca ("fly") by the Republicans. The Finnish nickname for I-16 was Siipiorava ("Flying Squirrel").
 == Variants ==