Book Review: Korchagin and His Aircraft - Konstantin Udalov

gabrielorosco

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Hi to all!

I just received my copy of the book “Korchagin and His Aircraft”, written by our dear Soviet/Russian aircraft specialist Konstantin Udalov.
First of all, the book quality is unquestionable. There are a lot of high quality images, including action pictures, colored 3D views, drawings and historical documents, covering all the historical aspects relating to V.A. Korchagin and his work in the field of aviation.
I am sure that you will have the same feeling I had when I started reading this book. It literally impression us with the good vocabulary, which makes the reading very fluent and pleasurable.
Firstly, the book starts with a brief biography of Valentin Aleksandrovich Korchagin, covering some early aspects of his life and evolving into the description of his work in aviation. In this part, we have access to documents regarding his life, as well as a good amount of his photos.
The first project described is a jet powered glider, and after it, we see another glider project. After this relatively simple designs, Korchagin started designing more advanced aircraft, including the multipurpose, single engine KOR-54. This aircraft is very well described in all aspects, with a huge amount of visual material and original drawings.
After it, we are able to see the full description of larger projects, including the “Angara” amphibian and it’s variants and the incredible KOR-70 VTOL aircraft, which, in some aspects, reminds Bartini’s work with the VVA-14 aircraft.
The book then presents a small, multipurpose landplane aircraft called “Volga” and it’s amphibious variants, with a distinctive duct around the propeller, a very innovative feature in aircraft design. He also worked on a more complex project, the T-12 STOL aircraft, based on a Myasishchev Project.
Later, we can see his work with the “Taifon” carrier-based aircraft, which had many purposes, mainly anti-submarine warfare (ASW) duties. He later worked on the Yamal 1 and 2 medium amphibians, which were meant to perform both civilian and military activities. It is worth to say that this aircraft reach the mock-up stage, with many photos of it in the book.
Korchagin advanced his projects into the field of paraplanes, with the design of the Yamal-MP, and later with a series of large hovercrafts also for civilian and military use, called Yamal-VP. After them, he designed more light aircraft, with different designs and even an air cushion landing gear. I will not describe these models, I just can’t spoil the pleasure you will have reading this book.
In my opinion, this book is the most complete work regarding the work life of V.A. Korchagin in the field of aviation, and it is a “must have” for all aviation enthusiasts. My best regards to Konstatin Udalov for spending his time making one more incredible book, which I highly recommend.

Book cover in attach.

Best regards,
Gabriel Orosco
 

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Being interested in something like a glider theme and leafing through a magazine in a library, I came across an article about a competition for a training glider’s projects, and V. A. Korchagin was among the participants. Further searches led to the AVICO PRESS website where articles about some of Korchagin's works were posted. And now I received an amazing book with a complete list of all the works of this talented designer, who had an amazing dream to create amultirole amphibian for the vast expanses of Siberia and the far north, which developed and evolved during the entire design activity. It is a pity that the bureaucratic obstacles did not make this dream come true.
This amazing book opens another unknown page to the general reader of the page of the Russian aviation. Well, as always, smart information and design where there is archival material and 3D graphics.
I highly recommend reading this publication and many thanks to the author Konstantin Udalov.
 

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Amazing book from my dear Ucon,

specially high quality of many colors to 3-view and profiles in all book.
 
Finally I got my copy. This book fits very well in the series by Konstantin Udalov of profound research, presented in an impressive way combined with great artwork (this time by Arkhipov and Gatial). Some of the information about the Jamal and Jamal 2 are based on older publications by Kostja (from the 90´s) but it´s truly upgraded here. Planes that are described in the usual way are the following: Gliders (e.g. N2-53, KAI-14), KOR-54 (one of the An-2 predecessors), the amphibiums "Angara", "Jamal" and "Jamal 2", "Jamal-MP", "Jamal-VP", "Jamal-6" and "Jamal-8", then the KOP-70, the passenger plane "Volga" and the carrier aircraft "Taifun" (Typhoon). Especially interesting is the history of the designcollektiv "aviaspeztrans". The bandwidth of the designs done by Korchagin (and his team) is truly amazing. Unfortunately almost nothing came out of all these beautiful and futuristic designs. There is a foreword by the member of the academy Pukhov and the first chapter is about Korchagins life and biography. Many interesting details can be read here. So, great recommendations. This series is highly addictive! Cheers, Athpilot
 
Hi to all,

I received my copy of the book “Korchagin and His Aircraft”, written by Konstantin Udalov.
The book is great, the artwork is perfect, and what you can see in this book is that Korchagin was a very amazing Aircraft designer.
The historical Background in the book is also very good. I would recommend the book for erveryone who is interested in Secret Projects and espacially who is interessted in Russian Secret Projects.
It is a very good book with lot of information About Korchagin and his designs. The book make addictive!

Best regards
Phil
 
Flying Sorcerer said:
I assume the text is all Russian. Where is it available from?

That´s right; the text is complety russian. I don´t know if an english edition is planned. Maybe it is a good opportunity to learn russian...? ;)
 
Would someone please share the source from where they received their copy of "Korchagin and His Aircraft"?

A website or ordering instructions would be most helpful and gratefully received.

Thanks,

Richard
 
Richard N said:
Would someone please share the source from where they received their copy of "Korchagin and His Aircraft"?

A website or ordering instructions would be most helpful and gratefully received.

Thanks,

Richard

Seconded.
 
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