Memory. Grigory Bakhchivandzhi

Born on February 20, 1909 in the village of Brinkovskaya, now the Primorsko-Akhtarsky district of the Krasnodar Territory. Since 1925 he worked in a foundry. Then he was an assistant driver on a steam locomotive in the Primorsko-Akhtarsky depot of the Krasnodar Territory. Then he built a plant in Mariupol, worked as a mechanic there.

Since 1931 in the Soviet Army. He graduated from the Orenburg Flight Military School in 1934, having 2 military specialties: weapons technology and a pilot.

Since 1935, on flight test work at the Air Force Research Institute. At first, Bakhchivandzhi worked on reconnaissance aircraft, then on fighter jets. Some time later, he was instructed to test new aircraft engines in flight.

In 1941, he participated in the Great Patriotic War as part of the 402nd Special Fighter Aviation Regiment, formed on the basis of the Air Force Research Institute. He fought on the MiG-3 fighter, which he tested the day before. From July 1 to August 10, 1941 he made about 70 sorties, during the defense of Moscow he shot down 6 (5) enemy aircraft.

In mid-August 1941, he was recalled from the front to the Air Force Research Institute for testing the first BI-1 rocket fighter. On February 20, 1942, when the engine was started on a test bench, despite the competent actions of Bakhchivandzhi, there was ... an explosion. A pressure jet of nitric acid doused the face and clothes of Arvid Pallo. During the explosion, the engine head broke off the mounts, flew between the nitric acid tanks, hit the armored back of the pilot's seat and tore off the mounting bolts. Bakhchivandzhi hit his head on the instrument panel and cut his forehead. But he did not refuse to continue the tests, but, returning from the hospital, he got involved in the work with even greater perseverance.

The task for the pilot for the seventh flight, which took place on March 27, 1943, provided for bringing the speed of the horizontal flight of the aircraft to 750 - 800 km / h on the instrument at an altitude of 2000 m. According to observations from the ground, the seventh flight, until the end of the engine at 78 seconds , proceeded normally. After the end of the engine, the aircraft, which was in level flight, lowered its nose, went into a dive and hit the ground at an angle of about 50 °. The car, together with the pilot, fell 6 km south of the airfield. The reason for the dragging of a straight-wing aircraft into a dive at speeds above 900 km / h was clarified later.

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He was buried in the cemetery of the village of Maly Istok, located near Koltsovo Airport. Buried next to him were his BI testing partner Konstantin Gruzdev, who died in February 1943 on the Aerocobra, and Trofim Chigarev, who died in October 1941. Only in February 1963, representatives of the Civil Aviation Institute of the Air Force Research Institute installed an obelisk on the grave of Bakhchivandzhi, until then nameless.

Awarded with Orders of Lenin (twice) and medals.

April 28, 1973 G.Ya. Bakhchivandzhi was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The bright memory of him and his flights into the unknown is reflected:

In the name of the platform "Bakhchivandzhi" for suburban traffic along the Yaroslavl railway;

Installation of a monument in the village of Brinkovskaya (in the homeland of the pilot) and in Koltsovo (NII VVS, Sverdlovsk region), where the school was named after Bakhchivandzhi;

A crater on the far side of the moon is named after Bakhchivandzhi

The words of Yuri Gagarin are known: "Without the flights of Grigory Bakhchivandzhi, there would probably have been no April 12, 1961."

1909-1943

Hero of the Soviet Union (04/28/1973), test pilot, captain (1941).
Born on February 20 (7 - old style) February 1909 in the village of Brinkovskaya, Primorsko-Akhtarsky volost, Temryuk department of the Kuban region (now the Primorsko-Akhtarsky district of the Krasnodar Territory). From 1917 he lived in the cities of Yeysk (now the Krasnodar Territory) and Mariupol (now the Donetsk region, Ukraine), in 1919-1921 - in the village of Troitskoye (now the village of Karl Marx, Berdyansk region, Zaporozhye region, Ukraine), since 1921 he lived in the city Primorsko-Akhtarsk. In 1925 he graduated from the 5th grade of the school.
In 1925-1927 he worked in a foundry and mechanical workshop and as an assistant locomotive driver in the railway depot of Akhtari station. Since 1927, he lived in the village of Buzinovka (now within the city of Mariupol, Donetsk region, Ukraine). He worked as a pipe-roller in the open-hearth shop. Mariupol Metallurgical Plant named after Ilyich.
In the army since 1931. In 1932 he graduated from the regimental school. Until 1932 he served in the infantry (in the Ukrainian military district), after which he switched to aviation.
In 1933 he graduated from the Orenburg Military Aviation School of Armament Technicians, in 1934 - the Orenburg Military Aviation School of Pilots.
Since December 1934 - test pilot of the Air Force Research Institute. He served in a separate fighter squadron and an air squadron of a group of engine and fuel departments. He tested the R-Z aircraft with a turbocharger (1939), participated in test work on the I-16, Yak-1, MiG-3 and other fighters.
Member of the Great Patriotic War: in June-August 1941 - a pilot of the 402nd Fighter Aviation Regiment. Fought on the North-Western Front. Participated in defensive battles on the Idritsa and Staraya Russian directions. He made 65 sorties on the MiG-3 fighter, in 26 air battles he personally shot down 2 and as part of a group of 3 enemy aircraft. He was awarded the Order of Lenin.
After being recalled from the front, he returned to flight test work in the air squadron of the engine and fuel department group of the Air Force Research Institute. Participated in carrying out test work on the Yak-1, Yak-9, MiG-3, R-39 Airacobra fighters and others.
On February 20, 1942, when the engine was started on a test bench, despite the competent actions of Bakhchivandzhi, there was ... an explosion. A jet of nitric acid under pressure poured over the face and clothes of A.V. Pallo. During the explosion, the engine head broke off the mounts, flew between the nitric acid tanks, hit the armored back of the pilot's seat and tore off the mounting bolts. Bakhchivandzhi hit his head on the instrument panel and cut his forehead. Returning from the hospital, he continued the tests.
On May 15, 1942, at the Koltsovo airfield in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), he performed the country's first flight of a BI-1 aircraft with a working rocket engine. During the tests, he performed 6 flights on this aircraft.
On July 29, 1942, during a flight on the P-39 Airacobra fighter to test American summer oil at an altitude of 3,000 meters, the hose of the cooling system was torn off. Fluid started escaping into the cockpit. Bakhchivandzhi turned off the engine, planned and made a safe landing at his airfield.
He died on March 27, 1943 during a test flight on a BI-1 aircraft.
On this day, at the Koltsovsky airfield in Sverdlovsk (now the city of Yekaterinburg), test pilot G.Ya. The aircraft took off normally, retracted the landing gear, gained an altitude of 2,000 meters, switched to level flight and began to accelerate. Having gained some speed, the plane suddenly went down, at an altitude of 100-150 meters it went into a dive and crashed into the ground at an angle of 50 degrees 6 kilometers south of the Koltsovo airfield. The pilot died, the plane was completely destroyed.
The alleged cause of the disaster (as it turned out later) was the dragging of an aircraft with a straight wing into a dive at speeds above 900 km / h.
For courage and heroism shown during the tests of the first domestic rocket aircraft, Grigory Yakovlevich Bakhchivandzhi was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on April 28, 1973.
He lived in the village of Chkalovsky (now within the city of Shchelkovo) in the Moscow Region. He was buried in the village of Maly Istok (within the boundaries of the Koltsovo microdistrict of the city of Yekaterinburg). In February 1963, representatives of the Civil Aviation Research Institute of the Air Force installed an obelisk on the grave of Bakhchivandzhi, until then unnamed.
He was awarded 2 orders of Lenin (10/17/1942; 04/28/1973, posthumously).
In the village of Chkalovsky, a memorial plaque was installed on the house in which he lived. In the city of Yekaterinburg, a bust of G.Ya. Bakhchivandzhi and a memorial sign at the Koltsovo airport, and in the village of Brinkovskaya - a memorial complex. A crater on the far side of the Moon, a railway platform in the Shchelkovsky district of the Moscow region, a square in Yekaterinburg, streets in the cities of Aramil (Sverdlovsk region), Akhtubinsk (Astrakhan region), Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Mariupol, Orenburg, Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Shchyolkovo, are named after him. the village of Bilimbay (Sverdlovsk region) and the village of Brinkovskaya.
The words of Yuri Gagarin are known: “Without the flights of Grigory Bakhchivandzhi, there would probably have been no April 12, 1961.”

Information sources:

/ M., 2015 /
"Airplanes of the Country of the Soviets" / "Multimedia service", 1998, CD-ROM /
"The history of aircraft designs in the USSR (1938-1950)" / V.B. Shavrov, 1988 /
Four meetings with Arvid Pallo / A. Loktev, "Bulletin" No. 18 (225), August 31, 1999 /
Flight in the jet era / V. Mishin. Aviation and astronautics /

I think it is appropriate to recall the creators of BI-1.

Victor Fedorovich Bolkhovi?tinov (January 23, 1899, Saratov - January 29, 1970, Moscow) - Soviet aircraft designer.
Major General of the Aviation Engineering Service (1943), Doctor of Technical Sciences (1947). Honored Worker of Science and Technology of the RSFSR.

In 1939, he supervised the construction of the original high-speed fighter aircraft "C" with two coaxial propellers, which showed a speed of 570 km / h during flight tests.
The plane was very interesting.

S (Sparka) - high-speed short-range bomber, double, low-wing with the original installation of two M-103 engines of 960 hp each. with., in tandem with a mechanical transmission from both to coaxial screws (? Spark?). This setup was adopted to reduce the front of the aircraft by eliminating the harmful drag of the engines by enclosing both of them in the fuselage in order to obtain a record speed. Sparka was designed and tested on the bench specifically for this aircraft, but is also suitable for other schemes.

The engines were mounted on common sub-engine bars in tandem, with socks in different directions. The transmission was in theory and structurally very simple, but heavy - more than 150 kg due to the shaft with its mounts and damping devices.

The design of the aircraft began with the development of twins in 1936. Testing of twins on the stand gave encouraging results. In 1937, an aircraft project was developed, in July 1938, its construction began, completed in the winter. In the summer of 1939, test flights were launched (pilot B.N. Kudrin).

The design of the aircraft is all-metal, in the wing and fuselage - panel. The two-spar wing with a span of 11.38 m and an area of 22.9 m2 consisted of the upper and lower skin panels between the spars, cut along their neutral axis, nose and tail. The fuselage was assembled from four panels - two side, lower and upper - which were joined on four spars-gons. The design was original, technological, progressive. A dozen years later, it was used in the Il-28 aircraft.

The wing had Fowler flaps, without which landing was difficult, since the specific wing load of 247 kg / m2 was a record. A variable-transmission device was introduced into the differential control system for the elevators to limit the force on the handle. Electrical systems are widely used.

In all flights, it was noticeable that the aircraft was slowly taking off, after taking off slowly accelerating and gaining altitude. With an increase in speed to 300 km/h (vertical speed Vу = 8 m/s), the excessive load on the wing affected, and also, apparently, the fact that there were sensitive power losses in the transmission from the rear engine, and the ratio of the speeds of rotation of the coaxial propellers did not the best. The aircraft was handed over for state tests in 1940. B. N. Kudrin and A. I. Kabanov flew. The following data were obtained: the speed at an altitude of 4.6 km was 570 km / h, the takeoff run with a weight reduced to 5150 kg in tests was 863 m (with a normal weight of 5652 kg it would be 1045 m). Flight range according to calculations 700 km. It was recognized that the aircraft did not pass the tests due to unsatisfactory takeoff and landing properties. At the same time, it was noted that for the first time in the USSR, the problem of increasing the power of the VMG without increasing drag was solved on the aircraft? С?, essentially experimental, and this problem was practically solved by the designer.

It turned out that the wing profile was not chosen very well. It was decided to change it on the finished aircraft. 3. I. Itskovich, then (in 1940-1941) working for Bolkhovitinov, did this, "re-gluing" it? profile. On the surface of the all-metal wing, wooden slats and plywood skids were riveted with countersunk rivets, and a second - plywood - skin was glued on them on the upper side of the wing. The profile has become better, the plane - too. But this did not help, since the aircraft was produced in 1941, just before the war, when the mass production of the Pe-2 aircraft was already underway at the same plant.

In order to test the controllability, stability of the aircraft and the operation of the mechanisms, flights were previously carried out on the aircraft of the variant? with the rear engine removed, with non-retractable ski landing gear at a takeoff weight of 4000 kg.

It can also be added that the armament of the aircraft was weak - only one ShKAS machine gun at the rearmost point of the fuselage, then replaced by two UBT machine guns with remote control from the gunner-observer, with an original mechanical drive, very convenient. In the fuselage - 400 kg of various bombs. There was no machine gun ahead.
Article about the aircraft under the spoiler

B akhchivandzhi Grigory Yakovlevich - test pilot, captain.
Born on February 7 (20), 1908 in the village of Brinkovskaya, now the Primorsko-Akhtarsky district of the Krasnodar Territory. Greek by origin. Member of the CPSU (b) since 1932. He graduated from the seven classes of the school in his native village Brinkovskaya.
In the ranks of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA) since 1931. In 1933 he graduated from the Aviation Technical School, and in 1934 from the Orenburg Pilot School. Since 1934 - test pilot of the Air Force of the Red Army. Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War at the front - a fighter pilot, made 65 sorties. Participated in the defense of Moscow, personally and in a group shot down 5 enemy aircraft.
Since August 1941 - in flight test work. On May 15, 1942, he made the first flight in the USSR on a BI-1 aircraft with a liquid-propellant rocket engine. The flight was made from the airfield "Koltsovo" in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg).
He died on March 27, 1943 during the next test flight. The pilot's task for his last flight included bringing the horizontal flight speed to 800 km/h at an altitude of 2000 m. According to observation from the ground, the flight proceeded normally until the end of engine operation at the 78th second. After the end of the engine, the fighter, which was in level flight, at a speed of over 900 km / h, smoothly entered the peak and hit the ground at an angle of 50º. The car crashed 6 km south of the airfield. The decision to build 30-40 experimental vehicles was canceled, although test pilot B.N. Kudrin continued testing the missile interceptor for some time.
It was possible to reveal the secret of the death of G.Ya. Bakhchivandzhi only after a few years. When testing models in a wind tunnel at high speeds, the phenomenon of aircraft dragging at a peak was revealed, which they did not know how to deal with at that time. It was studied in practice by the pilot engineer A.G. Kochetkov and other testers.
He was buried in the cemetery of the village of Maly Istok, located near the Koltsovo airport (near Yekaterinburg). In February 1963, an obelisk was erected on his grave.
At order of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 28, 1973 for the heroism and dedication shown during the testing of the first Soviet aircraft with rocket engines, to the captain Bakhchivandzhi Grigory Yakovlevich awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).
Captain (1941). He was awarded 2 orders of Lenin (10/17/1942; 04/28/1973, posthumously), medals.
Monuments were erected to him in the village of Brinkovskaya, at the Koltsovo airport near Yekaterinburg, in the city of Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Krasnodar Territory, in the village of Koltsovo (city limits of Yekaterinburg). His name was given to the village of pilots at the Chkalovsky airfield (Moscow city) and the nearby suburban railway platform, a crater on the far side of the moon, streets in Yekaterinburg, Donetsk, Mariupol, Akhtubinsk and other cities of Russia and the CIS, a comprehensive school at the Air Force Research Institute (city Ekaterinburg). Many essays, books have been written about him, a documentary film has been shot, his feat formed the basis of many feature films, a commemorative medal with a minted image of the hero has been issued. The phrase of Yu.A. Gagarin is also known: “Without the flights of Grigory Bakhchivandzhi, there would probably have been no April 12, 1961.”

Grigory Bakhchivandzhi was born on February 7, 1908 in the village of Brinkovskaya, now the Primorsko-Akhtarsky district of the Krasnodar Territory. He began his working life in 1925, working in a foundry. Then he was an assistant driver on a steam locomotive in the Primorsko-Akhtarsky depot of the Krasnodar Territory. Then he built a plant in Mariupol, where he worked as a locksmith. In 1931 he was drafted into the Red Army, and then became interested in aviation. In 1933 he received the specialty of an aviation technician for weapons, but Grigory had another goal - to become a pilot. And he became one - among the best cadets, he graduated from the Orenburg military aviation pilot school.

Since 1935, Grigory Yakovlevich worked at the Air Force Research Institute, where he came immediately after graduating from the flight school, and after 5 years he became one of the most famous and most experienced pilots in the country. At first, Bakhchivandzhi worked on reconnaissance aircraft, then on fighter jets. After some time, he was instructed to test new aircraft engines in flight, a delicate and far from safe matter.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War at the front, a participant in the defense of Moscow. He served in the 402nd Special Purpose Fighter Aviation Regiment, where he showed his flying talent in all its splendor.

On July 4, he won the first air victories - he personally destroyed 2 Do-215 reconnaissance aircraft. It happened like this.

Having received an order to take off with the entire regiment, the commander of the 402nd IAP ON P. M. Stefanovsky left Bakhchivandzhi at the airfield - to cover our fighters when returning from a combat mission. Less than 10 minutes after the take-off of our planes, a Do-215 appeared over the airfield. "MiG" Bakhchivandzhi directly from the parking lot rushed into the air. He went into the tail of the enemy and opened fire from 50 meters. The enemy plane, engulfed in flames, crashed on the outskirts of the airfield.

At this time, another Dornier fell out of the clouds. Noticing the collapsed colleague, he rushed away. Bakhchivanjdi, having made a combat turn and forcing the motor mode, quickly overtook the enemy and opened fire. Thick black smoke erupted from the Do-215's right engine, then burst into flames. Rolling over over the wing, the enemy plane rushed to the ground ... Further events are described in detail by Stefanovsky:

"... Our joy was taken away. Even from the ground it was clear that the MiG propeller had stopped. Now a corkscrew will follow and ... But this did not happen. A masterful turn followed. The plane with an idle engine began to land. Landing gear extended , flaps, the car is gliding. This is a MiG-3, is it gliding? Yes, it is gliding and landing classically. Everyone who was at the airfield is running to the plane.

Even from a distance I see the pilot's flushed face, his white silk scarf is pierced by a bullet, there is a burn on his neck. Gregory is squeezed in a friendly embrace - not everyone is destined to win 2 brilliant victories in the very first sortie. Then we examine his plane. The engine, both radiators, wing spars, even the pneumatics of the wheels are riddled with bullets. Indeed, only a tester was capable of landing such a "dead" car ... "

MiG-3 fighter from the 402nd Fighter Aviation Regiment. July 1941.

In the following days, Bakhchivandzhi won several more air victories: for example, on July 6, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe city of Nevel, paired with Captain A. G. Proshakov, he destroyed a Ju-88 bomber. On July 10, in the same area, together with Lieutenant K.F. Kozhevnikov, an Hs-126 spotter shot down. He also has victories over the Me-110 and Me-109 fighters. In total, for the period from July 1 to August 10, 1941, the senior pilot of the 402nd Fighter Aviation Regiment (57th Mixed Aviation Division, 6th Air Army, Northwestern Front) Captain G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi made about 70 sorties, in air battles destroyed 7 enemy aircraft [ some sources give other numbers: 5 + 5 and 5 + 10; M. Yu. Bykov in his research indicates 2 personal and 3 group victories. ]

In mid-August, Grigory Yakovlevich was recalled from the front to test an experimental BI-1 rocket aircraft. Here is the description with which the personal file of Captain G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi was sent to Sverdlovsk:

"He showed himself at the front of the fight against German fascism as a courageous, fearless fighter pilot. When performing combat missions, he showed exceptional initiative and valor ... During his stay at the front, by August 1941, he made 65 sorties and flew 45 hours 05 minutes "Held 26 air battles, destroyed personally and in a group of 5 enemy aircraft. Strong-willed and demanding commander. Confidently drives aircraft in clouds and difficult meteorological conditions. As a pilot, he is balanced, calm, strictly observes the discipline of flight, flies willingly."

The right to the first test flights was granted to Bakhchivandzhi. (Later, the commander of the 402nd IAP ON, K. A. Gruzdev, joined this work.) The appointment turned out to be extremely successful. This man happily combined such character traits as courage and shyness, simplicity and charm, love of life and fearlessness, and most importantly, an active life position. It manifested itself in him back in the Civil War, when, as a 9-year-old boy, for several days he hid his father and 5 sailors of the Sevastopol flotilla from the White Guards under the terrace of his house. He brought them food, talked about the situation in the city, and carried out instructions from his father in connection with his comrades.

When executions began in the city, he found the right fisherman, and he transported the sailors and Yakov Ivanovich to Mariupol at night. But there they fell into the hands of the whites. Then Bakhchivandzhi also crossed to Mariupol and in one of the transfers he managed to give his father 2 hacksaws. After waiting for the time when the head of security left for the neighboring station, Grisha's father and his comrades sawed through the prison bars. The escape was successful. Thus, a 9-year-old boy saved his father and the sailors from inevitable death...

Work on a new machine was difficult and quite dangerous, because both the pilot and the engineers had to constantly discover something new, still unknown. Anything happened. So, on February 20, 1942, when the engine was started on a test bench, despite the competent actions of Bakhchivandzhi, there was ... an explosion. A jet of nitric acid under pressure doused the face and clothes of engineer Arvid Pallo. During the explosion, the engine head broke off the mounts, flew between the nitric acid tanks, hit the armored back of the pilot's seat and tore off the mounting bolts. Bakhchivandzhi hit his head on the instrument panel and cut his forehead. But he did not refuse to continue the tests, but, returning from the hospital, he got involved in the work with even greater perseverance.

On May 15, 1942, Grigory Yakovlevich performed the first flight on the BI-1, thus opening a new era of jet aviation (for a detailed story about this flight, see the article "Jump into the unknown ..."). Flights on this aircraft were fraught with difficulties of a special order. They consisted not only in the unusualness of the engine and aerodynamics of the machine, but also in the great imperfection of design solutions. As a rule, it was necessary to land on the BI-1 after the fuel was completely exhausted, the proximity to nitric acid was unpleasant, which was under high pressure and sometimes burst out through the walls of tubes and tanks. These damages constantly had to be repaired. But the main difficulty was that at that time there were no wind tunnels with high-speed scavenging of the aircraft. And therefore, the experienced BI-1 took off "with many unknowns."

Grigory Yakovlevich was well aware of the difficulties he had to overcome. So, at one of the parties, in response to the congratulations of friends on a successful flight, he uttered unusual words that caused amazement and disputes of all those present: “My friends, thank you for everything, for your work, for wishing you health. But I know that I will break on this plane! I am of sound mind and account for my words. We are at the forefront of a technical battle, and there will still be casualties. I go into this with full conscience of duty." Unfortunately, he was right in his premonitions...

Bakhchivandzhi raised the plane to safe flights 4 more times. These were the 2nd and 3rd copies of the machine, equipped with skis (the first "BI", damaged during landing in the first flight, was already decommissioned). The second flight was made only on January 10, 1943, that is, with a break of almost 8 months, caused by the difficulties of building a second copy of the aircraft and engine, as well as the need to install a ski chassis on the machine.

The third flight, January 12, 1943, was performed by Lieutenant Colonel K. A. Gruzdev. In this flight, a speed of 630 km / h was achieved, but when the landing gear was extended, one ski came off before landing. Gruzdev, showing restraint, managed to safely land the plane on one right ski, while not even damaging the experimental car.

Answering the question of his comrades, what feelings he experienced in flight, Konstantin Afanasyevich answered this way: "... And quickly, and scary, and the fire behind ... In a word, you fly like the devil on a broomstick! .."

The next 3 flights were performed by Grigory Yakovlevich on March 11, 14 and 21, 1943. The flight on March 27 was the last for Bakhchivandzhi. When performing a task to achieve a maximum flight speed of 800 km / h, at an altitude of about 2000 meters, the aircraft suddenly went into a dive at an angle of about 50 degrees. The car, together with the pilot, fell 6 km south of the airfield.

At first, they decided that when the engine was stopped at full thrust under the action of an overload directed forward, Bakhchivandzhi hit his head on the optical sight and lost consciousness ...

Another reason was the possibility of spontaneous release in flight of one of the skis, which violated the controllability of the machine. The true cause of the disaster became known only after the construction of a new wind tunnel at TsAGI, which made it possible to conduct research in high-speed air flows. It was found that on an aircraft with a straight wing, which was the BI-1, at transonic speeds there is a huge dive moment, which is almost impossible for the pilot to cope with ...

Already after the tragic death of G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi, on the BI-6 aircraft of an improved design, in January - May 1945, the oldest test pilot of the country, Boris Nikolaevich Kudrin, flew, and a little later, the rather well-known pilot Matvey Karpovich Baikalov.

In 1946, test pilot Alexei Konstantinovich Pakhomov joined the tests of the modified BI-1bis.

However, it soon became clear that, despite the advantage in speed, the BI aircraft as a fighter-interceptor could not be put into service due to the short duration of the flight (the engine running time did not exceed a few minutes) and operational difficulties.

Grigory Bakhchivandzhi is buried in the cemetery of the village of Maly Istok, located near Koltsovo Airport. His BI-1 testing partner Konstantin Gruzdev, who died in February 1943 on the Aerocobra, and Trofim Chigarev, who died in October 1941, are buried next to him. Only in February 1963, representatives of the Civil Aviation Institute of the Air Force Research Institute installed an obelisk on the grave of Bakhchivandzhi, until then nameless.

In the village of Brynkovskaya of the Krasnodar Territory, in the homeland of Grigory Bakhchivandzhi, a majestic memorial was opened to their fellow countryman - the Hero; at the Sverdlovsk airfield Koltsovo, at the site of the BI-1 crash, a memorial stone was laid; one of the craters of a volcano on the Moon, one of the railway stations of the Yaroslavl road and one of the streets of the village in which the tester spent the last years of his life are named after him; a memorial plaque has been opened on the house where Grigory Bakhchivandzhi lived.

Many years after the death of Bakhchivandzhi, in 1962, when his flights were studied in more detail, the question arose of worthy perpetuating the memory of the pilot, of conferring on him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. But this decision had to wait for many years. An obstacle to this was the fact that on October 17, 1942, for testing the world's first combat fighter with a rocket engine, G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi was already awarded the Order of Lenin ...

However, many prominent statesmen and military leaders continued to insist on their own. Finally, on April 28, 1973, Grigory Yakovlevich Bakhchivandzhi was awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously for his courage and heroism in mastering new jet technology and in battles with enemies during the Great Patriotic War. He was awarded the Orders of Lenin (twice) and medals.

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