In 1946, after the end of the war, by decision of the Soviet government, several groups of German aeronautical constructors began to work in the occupied German territory in the continuation of investigative and constructive works.
On 17 April 1946 the Council of Ministers of the USSR issued resolution No.874-366ss that, along with instruction No. 228ss of the minister of aviation industry MV Jrunishev of the, approving the development in the USSR of aeronautical projects with the use of the reactive technique and the German specialists.
These documents not only established the work prospects of the reactive technique, but also defined the equipment transfer processes, the relocation plan of the German specialists and their families in the USSR and the execution schedules of these processes.
In October 1946 a group of aeronautical specialists from Junkers in Dassau and Siebel in Gall was transferred to the USSR and located on the territory of Factory No. 458, located in the small village Ivankovo, Kimrski region in the Kalinin district (current city Dubná). Two OKBs were created in this factory with the aim of continuing the projection and testing tasks of work begun in Germany in the final years of the war, the development of new jet aircraft and the study of the possibilities of supersonic flight.
Among these special OKBs, OKB-2 was directed by Hans Rossing, and Alexander Yakovlevich Bereznyak as his replacement. This OKB was created in order to design and study experimental aircraft with liquid reactive rockets (ZhRD).
The OKB-2’s first task was the study, construction and development of the tests of the aircraft “346” with a two-chamber liquid reactive engine. The “346” was a development of the German DFS-346. A single copy of this model, almost in the final phase of construction, was destroyed in 1945 so that it would not fall into the hands of the Soviets, but a large number of components and mechanisms were preserved that facilitated the construction work.
The working group under the leadership of Hans Rossing, on September 29, 1946 completed the construction of a DFS-346 in the workshops of the Sieble firm’s aeronautical factory in Gall. After some tests on the ground the plane was shown and sent to the USSR. In a joint OKB-2 – TsAGI project, a program was developed to use the “346” as a flying test bed, with the aim of achieving speeds close to those of sound and studying the behavior of the aircraft in this environment, defining the loads, and its distribution throughout the fuselage and wings of the aircraft.
The “346” was successfully tested and despite the accident of the third prototype, the tests were deemed to have yielded the expected results. During the preparation for the flights with the reactive engine 109-510, a high deterioration of the tanks was observed due to the action of the acid used as oxidant. The OKB-2 carried out important works aimed at studying the causes of corrosion in ZhRD and the search for technological solutions to deal with it.
In 1949 OKB-2, on the basis of the “346”, developed the project for the supersonic interceptor fighter “486”, designed by the German aeronautical manufacturer Günter, who worked at Heinkel until the end of the war.
A model without an engine was built which, under the designation “466”, was tested in the wind tunnel of the TsAGI. In June 1951 the MAP closed the project.
In April 1951 the OKB-2 was transferred to the Factory No.492 in Savielov. At the end of 1953 the OKB-2 was closed. All the German specialists were repatriated to the GDR and the Soviet workers were distributed in other departments of the factory.
