Beriev Be-6

The Beriev Be-6 (USAF/DoD reporting name "Type 34",NATO reporting name "Madge") was a flying boat produced by the Soviet Beriev OKB. It was capable of accomplishing a wide variety of missions, such as long-range maritime reconnaissance, coastal and supply line patrols, torpedo/bombing strikes, mine-laying, and transport operations.

Design and Development

The Be-6 was a gull-winged aircraft with twin oval vertical stabilizers on top of a deep fuselage. The aircraft was of all-metal construction except for fabric covering the rudders and ailerons. The fuselage was divided into eight watertight compartments to improve survivability. The engines were installed in the bends of the wings with the floats on an underwing cantilever rack. Each float was divided into four watertight compartments.

Operational history

The Be-6 was built from 1949 to 1957 at the Beriev plant in Taganrog. The aircraft went through 19 variants through its production cycle, and 123 aircraft were eventually built. Since requirements of Soviet naval aircraft did not change rapidly, the reliable Be-6 stayed in service until the late 1960s. Some aircraft ended service as civilian unarmed transports in Arctic regions. One survivor is preserved at the Ukraine State Aviation Museum in Kyiv, Ukraine. Beriev Be-6s operated by the Peoples Republic of China PLANAF proved useful in patrolling the long coastline and huge territorial waters off China's coast. During the 1970s the original Shvetsov radial engines began to wear out with no replacements available, so several aircraft were re-engined with Wopen WJ-6 turboprop engines, in new nacelles, for a new lease of life and were redesignated Qing-6.

Beriev

The Beriev Aircraft Company, formerly Beriev Design Bureau, is a Russian aircraft manufacturer (design office prefix Be), specializing in amphibious aircraft. The company was founded in Taganrog in the 1934 as OKB-49 by Georgy Mikhailovich Beriev (born February 13, 1903), and since that time has designed and produced more than 20 different models of aircraft for civilian and military purposes, as well as customized models. Today the Company employs some 3000 specialists and is developing and manufacturing amphibious aircraft.

Pilots flying Beriev seaplanes have broken 228 world aviation records. The records are registered and acknowledged by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. In November 1989 BERIEV Aircraft Company became the only defense industry enterprise to win the Prize for Quality awarded by the Government of Russia.

In mid-2002, Irkut raised its 40 percent holding in the Beriev Design Bureau to a controlling stake.

Aircraft designed by Beriev

Beriev Be-200

The Beriev Be-200 Altair (Russian: Бериев Бе-200) is a multipurpose amphibious aircraft designed by the Beriev Aircraft Company and manufactured by Irkut. Marketed as being designed for fire fighting, search and rescue, maritime patrol, cargo, and passenger transportation, it has a capacity of 12 tonnes (12,000 litres, 3,170 US gallons) of water, or up to 72 passengers.

The name Altair was chosen after a competition amongst Beriev and Irkut staff in 2002/2003. The name Altair was chosen as it is not only the name of the alpha star in the Eagle constellation, but also because "Al" is the first part of the name of the Beriev A-40 Albatross amphibious aircraft, whose layout was the development basis for the creation of the Be-200, "ta" stands for Taganrog, and "ir" stands for Irkutsk.

Development

The Be-200 was designed by the Beriev Aviation Company, with the Russian Irkutsk Aircraft Production Association (now part of the Irkut Corporation). Beriev are responsible for development, design and documentation; systems-, static-, flight- and fatigue-testing of prototypes; certification and support of the production models. Irkut's duties comprise production preparation; manufacture of tooling; production of four prototypes and production aircraft; and spare parts manufacture. Both companies now fall under the umbrella of the state-owned United Aircraft Corporation.