1956 was a year that made the Soviet Union's top leaders sleepless, because the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance of another major country began to be put into use, and this kind of aircraft flying at an altitude of more than 20,000 meters made it difficult for the Soviet Union's active fighters to reach, and the domestic air defense missile system had not yet formed combat effectiveness, which meant that the Soviet Union had a loophole, and it was obvious that the Soviet Union would be the focus of the U-2 in the follow-up "care" object.
However, the Soviet Union was not without a solution, it had developed a rocket-powered fighter before this, relying on the powerful thrust of the rocket engine, which could temporarily and violently improve the performance of the fighter, as if it had been stimulated, but the fuel consumption of the rocket engine was too fast and the duration was relatively short. So the plan to select a suitable active fighter to install a rocket engine began to be implemented, which is the Ye-50 high-altitude fighter developed by OKB-155, also known as E-50.
The aircraft was based on the MiG-2 fighter in development at that time, belonging to an early branch of the MiG-21 fighter technology line, the first prototype (Ye-50 1) was prepared in early 1956, it was somewhat similar to the MiG-21, the fuselage is relatively slim, with a large swept wing angle, and the wing knife is installed above the wing, but its nose air intake is smaller, and the air intake is longer.
The maximum take-off weight of the Ye-50 1 is 8500 kg, the length of the aircraft is 1362 meters, wingspan 811 meters, its main engine is an RD-9YE turbojet engine, open the afterburner can produce a maximum of 3800 kg of thrust, a few months later it was installed with a liquid rocket engine with a thrust of 1300 kg, located above the main engine, with full power can reach 2With a maximum speed of Mach 33 and a maximum flight altitude of 23,000 meters, this fighter does not carry **, it is mainly used for technical verification.
The Ye-50 2 made some modifications to the tail part of the fighter without much change, and the Ye-50 3 made significant changes, increasing the length of the fuselage to 1485 meters, mainly to increase the fuel capacity of the rocket in the aircraft, this change can make the ye-50 3 "doping" time extended to 20 minutes, which is already a pretty good performance, you must know that the rocket fighter equipped by the German army in World War II also flew for ten minutes, and the Ye-50 can also rely on conventional engines to extend the range, in addition to the rocket fuel consumed by climbing, there is indeed a chance to intercept the U-2 in the case of early warning radar prediction in advance, but its combat ** is only 2 30 mm guns.
Only these 3 prototypes were built for the Ye-50, and if the Ye-50 3 succeeded, it is likely to be put into service, this prototype made 10 flights in 1957, 6 of which used a rocket engine as an auxiliary, it had an accident on its last flight, and the post-mortem investigation was due to the delay in the take-off time of the fighter, which caused the oxidizer of the rocket engine to accumulate in the combustion chamber, causing a fire after takeoff and ** , crashed by destroying the flight control system of the fighter, the pilot ejected and escaped without successfully deploying the parachute and fell to his death, after which the Ye-50 project was no longer developed, and the SAM system replaced it.