S! all
The I-16 Ishak ("little Donkey") was one of the most innovative aircraft of its time. The plane was called a 'Rata' (Rat) by the Fascists in the Spanish, that name was not used by the pilots who flew it. When it was first operational in the mid '30's, it was the first monoplane fighter with retractable gear and was miles ahead of the competition. During the Spanish Civil war it was the equal of the 109B's which were up against it.
It went through a very long developement, culminating in the I-16-24 which was used in 1941 in greater numbers than any other Russian fighter.
Its performance at low altitude was excellent, its major failing was a poor high altitude performance due to a lack of supercharging. It had a 1,000 horsepower Radial.
Top speed for I-16-Type 24: 326mph at S.L., 286mph at 14,765ft. Climb to 16,400ft, 5.8mins. (Average of nearly 2830 feet per minute, with the climb at S.L. around 3200ft/min) Wing loading: 26.18lbs/Sq. Ft. (109G2 ran around 36 lbs per Square foot) Armament: 2 X 7.62 ShKAS Mg and 2 X 20mm ShVAK Cannon.
A model of the Ishak was rebuilt and has been test flown by an experienced World War II era plane pilot. The test is at this location:
http://www.nzfpm.co.nz/articles/ratacwd3.htm For all you Late war, "gotta have the latest", you don't know what you are missing. The I-16 would be a ton of fun to fly. In fact I think it would be much more interesting to have more early war planes, than these "oh, 2 models were built in April of 1945, and experimentally flown, so I wannit, I wannit, I wannit!", kinda dweebs.
