{"id":23216876,"date":"2026-09-18T11:49:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T09:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/sukhoi-su-17-1949-aircraft-r-separating-nose-prototype\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T15:17:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T13:17:37","slug":"sukhoi-su-17-1949-aircraft-r-separating-nose-prototype","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/it\/sukhoi-su-17-1949-aircraft-r-separating-nose-prototype\/","title":{"rendered":"Sukhoi Su-17 (1949): The Fighter Whose Nose Ejected"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\n\n<style>\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid #0F1720;background:#fff;color:#0F1720;font-family:inherit;font-size:14px;font-weight:700;line-height:1;letter-spacing:0;text-transform:none;cursor:pointer;box-shadow:none;transition:background 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If things went badly, the pilot would not leave the aircraft. The front of the aircraft would leave with him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The Sukhoi Su-17 never flew. It was not flown once, by anyone, and the single example built was eventually shot to pieces on a range as a target. Almost nobody has heard of it, partly because Sukhoi later gave the same designation to a completely different and very famous swing-wing fighter-bomber.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px 22px;margin:24px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px;color:#1a1a1a\">Quick Facts<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Aircraft:<\/strong> Sukhoi Su-17, internal designation &ldquo;Aircraft R&rdquo;<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Year:<\/strong> 1949<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Built:<\/strong> One, which never flew<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Escape system:<\/strong> Separating nose section, plus a conventional ejection seat<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Wing:<\/strong> 50 degrees of sweep, with air brakes and boosted controls<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Engine:<\/strong> One Lyulka TR-3 turbojet of 45.1 kN<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Design speed:<\/strong> 1,209 km\/h at sea level, limiting Mach 0.985<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Guns:<\/strong> Two 37 mm Nudelman N-37 cannon with 40 rounds each<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Fate:<\/strong> Cancelled before first flight and expended as a gunnery target<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Designed to Match the Theory<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The Su-17 was not designed to a squadron requirement so much as to a set of numbers. TsAGI, the Soviet central aerodynamics institute, had produced theoretical calculations for supersonic performance, and Sukhoi set out to build the aeroplane those calculations described.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>That produced a 50-degree swept wing, which in 1949 was aggressive. It also produced air brakes and, more remarkably, boosted flying controls. Hydraulically assisted controls were still a novelty anywhere in the world at that point, and they are precisely what the Hawker P.1081 lacked when it killed its test pilot in a transonic dive two years later.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>On paper the aircraft would reach 1,209 km\/h at sea level and run up against Mach 0.985 as its limit. It would climb to 10,000 metres in four minutes and carry two 37 mm cannon. It would also, if required, come apart on purpose.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Nose Came Off<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>This is the part worth pausing on.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The Su-17 had an ejection seat like any other fighter. But Sukhoi also arranged for the entire nose section, with the cockpit and the pilot inside it, to separate from the rest of the airframe.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;A unique feature was that in addition to an ejection seat, the entire nose section of the aircraft could separate from the rest of the airframe.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Standard reference accounts of the Su-17<\/strong> &mdash; Describing the aircraft\u2019s escape arrangement, after V. B. Shavrov\u2019s history of Soviet aircraft construction<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The logic is sound and it is the same logic that produced escape capsules in the West more than a decade later. At very high speed, a pilot ejected into the airstream is hit by a wall of air that can break limbs, strip off a helmet or kill outright. A pilot inside a sealed structure is not. He keeps his cockpit, his pressurisation and his oxygen, and he descends inside a box rather than exposed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/sukhoi-su-17-1949-why-it-never-flew.jpg\" alt=\"Diagram summarising the three reasons the Sukhoi Su-17 of 1949 never flew\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The three reasons the aircraft never flew. Only one of them was about the aeroplane itself.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>American aircraft got there in the 1960s. The B-58 Hustler received encapsulated seats, and the F-111 was built around a crew module that separated from the fuselage and came down under its own parachute. Sukhoi&rsquo;s draughtsmen had sketched the same principle in 1949, on an aircraft that never started an engine in anger.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/o5aNlNc8c9c\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em style=\"font-size:14px;color:#777\">Period test footage of an American bomber escape capsule, the concept Sukhoi had drawn more than a decade earlier.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Three Ways to Kill an Aeroplane<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The Su-17 died of three separate causes, and only the first was about the aircraft.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The wing structure did not work. Designing to TsAGI&rsquo;s theoretical figures produced a wing that could not be built strongly enough at an acceptable weight, which is a problem that has killed a great many promising aircraft since.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The engine was late. The Lyulka TR-3 was in prolonged development trouble, and an airframe without a working engine is a very expensive model.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>And then, in November 1949, Stalin closed the Sukhoi design bureau altogether. Pavel Sukhoi&rsquo;s team was folded into Tupolev as a subdivision. There was no bureau left to finish the aircraft, no matter how the wing or the engine turned out.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/mig-15-fagot-soviet-fighter.jpg\" alt=\"A Soviet-built MiG-15 fighter parked on an airfield\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">While Sukhoi\u2019s bureau was being shut down, Mikoyan-Gurevich\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/mig-15-fagot\/\">MiG-15<\/a> was going into mass production and to war in Korea. Photo: U.S. Department of Defense.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Sukhoi did not get an independent design bureau back until after Stalin died. The team regrouped in 1953 and was renamed OKB-51 in 1954, and went on to produce the Su-7, the Su-27 and everything that followed. But the four years in between cost the bureau an entire generation of aircraft, and the Su-17 was one of them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;From 1949, Sukhoi fell out of Stalin\u2019s favour and was forced to return to work under Tupolev, this time as Deputy Chief Designer. In 1953, the year of Stalin\u2019s death, Sukhoi was permitted to re-establish his own Sukhoi Design Bureau.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Biographical accounts of Pavel Sukhoi<\/strong> &mdash; On the closure of the bureau<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/taqcwk5lQGM\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em style=\"font-size:14px;color:#777\">A documentary history of Sukhoi, the bureau that spent the early 1950s not existing.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zu34AGVzd6U\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em style=\"font-size:14px;color:#777\">The longer Sukhoi story, from the bureau\u2019s early struggles to the aircraft it is known for.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Name Came Back<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>If you search for a Sukhoi Su-17 you will find a variable-geometry fighter-bomber that first flew in 1966, served with a dozen air forces, and is still flying in a few places today. That aircraft has nothing to do with this one beyond three characters of designation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Soviet designation practice reused numbers freely, and by the 1960s there was no reason to protect a number attached to an aircraft that had never flown and had been shot at on a range. The 1949 Su-17 had been comprehensively forgotten, which is roughly where it remains.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>That seems a slightly unfair ending for the first fighter anyone designed with a detachable front end. The idea was right. Everything around it, from the wing to the engine to Soviet politics, was wrong.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em>Sources: V. B. Shavrov, Istoriia konstruktskii samoletov v SSSR 1938-1950; Bill Gunston, The Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft; Antonov, Gordon et al., OKB Sukhoi; Britannica<\/em><\/p>\n\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\n\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\n\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\n\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\r\n\r\n\r\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>What was the Sukhoi Su-17 of 1949?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">A Soviet prototype fighter, known internally as Aircraft R, designed to match TsAGI theoretical calculations for supersonic performance. One was built. It never flew and was eventually used as a gunnery target. It is entirely unrelated to the later swing-wing Su-17 Fitter.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Did the Su-17 really have a detachable nose?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Yes. In addition to a conventional ejection seat, the entire nose section of the aircraft was designed to separate from the rest of the airframe, giving the pilot an escape capsule rather than exposing him to the airstream at high speed.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why did the Sukhoi Su-17 never fly?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Three reasons. The swept wing structure could not be made to work, the Lyulka TR-3 engine was stuck in development, and in November 1949 Stalin closed the Sukhoi design bureau entirely, folding the team into Tupolev.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>When did Western aircraft get escape capsules?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">In the 1960s. The B-58 Hustler was fitted with encapsulated ejection seats and the F-111 used a crew module that separated from the fuselage and descended under parachute. Sukhoi had drawn the same principle in 1949.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How fast was the Su-17 meant to be?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Design figures gave 1,209 km\/h at sea level and a limiting Mach number of 0.985, with a service ceiling of 14,500 metres and a climb to 10,000 metres in four minutes. None of it was ever tested in flight.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why is there another aircraft called the Su-17?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Soviet designations were reused freely. The variable-geometry Su-17 Fitter first flew in 1966 and became a widely exported fighter-bomber. By then the 1949 aircraft had never flown, had been expended as a target and was forgotten.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>When did Sukhoi get its design bureau back?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">After Stalin died. The Soviet government allowed Pavel Sukhoi to regroup his team as an independent bureau in 1953, and it was renamed OKB-51 in 1954. The bureau went on to produce the Su-7, Su-27 and their descendants.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was the Sukhoi Su-17 of 1949?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"A Soviet prototype fighter, known internally as Aircraft R, designed to match TsAGI theoretical calculations for supersonic performance. One was built. It never flew and was eventually used as a gunnery target. It is entirely unrelated to the later swing-wing Su-17 Fitter.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Did the Su-17 really have a detachable nose?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Yes. 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Sukhoi had drawn the same principle in 1949.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How fast was the Su-17 meant to be?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Design figures gave 1,209 km\/h at sea level and a limiting Mach number of 0.985, with a service ceiling of 14,500 metres and a climb to 10,000 metres in four minutes. None of it was ever tested in flight.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why is there another aircraft called the Su-17?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Soviet designations were reused freely. The variable-geometry Su-17 Fitter first flew in 1966 and became a widely exported fighter-bomber. By then the 1949 aircraft had never flown, had been expended as a target and was forgotten.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"When did Sukhoi get its design bureau back?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"After Stalin died. The Soviet government allowed Pavel Sukhoi to regroup his team as an independent bureau in 1953, and it was renamed OKB-51 in 1954. The bureau went on to produce the Su-7, Su-27 and their descendants.\"}}]}<\/script><div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/ilyushin-il-102-jet-shturmovik-tail-turret\/\">Ilyushin Il-102: The Jet Attacker With a Tail Gunner<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/hawker-p-1081-australian-fighter-trevor-wimpy-wade\/\">Hawker P.1081: The Australian Fighter Australia Never Bought<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/aerfer-sagittario-2-ariete-italy-supersonic-fighter\/\">Aerfer Sagittario 2: Italy\u2019s Forgotten Supersonic Fighter<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1949 Sukhoi drew a fighter whose entire nose section could separate as an escape capsule, a decade before the West tried it. One was built. It never flew.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":23216322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[676],"class_list":["post-23216876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation","tag-priority-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sukhoi Su-17 1949: The Fighter With a Detachable Nose | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The 1949 Sukhoi Su-17 had an escape capsule made of its entire nose section. 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