It was thought that an attack aircraft would be useful not only as a land aircraft, but that it could be used on board the Soviet aircraft carriers that were just beginning to be projected in the early 1930s. In particular, it was planned to convert the training ship “Konsomoliets” into an aircraft Carrier, for training with a crew of 26 fighters and 16 attack aircraft.
In parallel with the works on the Grigorovich TSh-2 and based on the LSh-1 attack aircraft, the ShON (Russian: ЦКБ ШОН) light two-seat attack aircraft was created. The initials of its name correspond to Attack Plane for Special Missions (ШОН – Ш турмовик О собого Н азначения) and number 23 corresponded to it in the TsKB production plan (TsKB-23). In its development, apart from SA Kochierigin and NN Polikarpov, DP Grigorovich participated.
A development of the Polikarpov R-5 the ShON was to be armed with a four PV-1 machine gun installation located in the lower part of the gunner’s cabin and capable of firing forwards, downwards and backwards, in addition to a capacity of 400 kg of bombs. The defensive armament was made up of a PV-1 machine gun to defend the rear hemisphere.
The aim was achieving a cheap and simple production aircraft. A feature of the design was the use of armor only on the underside of the engine and cockpit.
The motor mount was made of welded steel tubes and was fixed to the rest of the structure by means of four screws. The fuselage was made with welded carbon steel tubes and from the cabin to the end of the tail was covered with fabric.
The wings were designed in wood. Its structure included two stringers and had a textile covering. To facilitate the operation and the location of the ShON on the deck of the aircraft carrier, the wings were retracted to the rear. Modifications were made to the landing gear, which was reinforced to allow embarked operations.
The prototype was built in 1931 and on April 1 of that year it was ready for testing, which lasted until the summer of 1932.
During the first test flights it was found that at an outside temperature of 21°C the water in the cooling system soon began to boil. For this reason it was decided to replace the cooling liquid with one based on alcohol-glycol. The oil temperature would also get quite high.
Despite the fact that the evaluations of the model were generally positive, the ShON did not go to the stage of serial production, since the need for this type of aircraft disappeared with the decision not to produce aircraft carriers.
ShON
Powerplant: 1 x 680 hp BMW-VI
Wingspan of upper plane: 14.20 m
Wingspan of lower plane: 13.00 m
Wing area: 36.52 m²
Length: 8.64m
Empty weight: 1820 kg
Normal takeoff weight: 2670 kg
Wing loading: 66 kg/m²
Power load: 6.4 kg/hp
Top speed: 226 km/h
Cruising speed: 194 km/h
Practical range: 500 km
Practical ceiling: 4000 m
Armament: Five 7.62 mm PV-1 machine guns
Bombload: 400 kg
Accommodation: 2 crew
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