Robert Bartini
14 May 1897 - 6 December
1974
Born in Fiume, 14 may 1897
 Son of an married man and an
unmarried 17 year old girl who
drowned herself after his father
didn’t want to recognize him as his
son


The girl’s aunt, impoverished
aristocrat, granted custody of him to
a peasant family

After receiving excellent family
education, he graduated from
gymnasium in 1915 and was drafted
and sent to school of officers' reserve
in Banska Bystrica where he
graduated in 1916
He attended flying school in 1921
and Politecnico di Milano in 1922
 He soon became a member of Italian
Comunist Party and, after the Fascist
takeover in italy, was secretly
transferred to the USSR as an
aviation engineer

In 1930 he designed Stal-6 aircraft
which established Soviet speed
record
 However, because of the problems
with cooling system and bad view
from the cockpit only one aircraft
was built


In 1934 he constructed Stal-7, a
twin-engined transport aircraft that
showed high efficiency in speed,
range and load but, during full load
testing, it crashed which resulted in
Bartoni being sent to Syberian gulag

In 1939, Vladimir Yermolaev, who
replaced Bartini, repaired Stal-7 and
transformed it to Yermolayev Yer-2,
a long-range Soviet medium bomber
which was used to bomb Berlin after
Operation Barbarossa in 1941

He continued his work on new
aircraft designs as a prisoner and
was released in 1946

During the 1970s Bartini, in
collaboration with the Beriev Design
Bureau designed VVA-14 (vertical
take-off amphibious aircraft), aircraft
that was supposed to be used
against United States Navy Polaris
missile submarines, but after his
death the project was closed

As a versatile person, Bartini also
published papers concerning aviation
construction materials and
technology, aerodynamics, dynamics
of flight, and even theoretical physics
Because of his noble descent he was
named Red Baron ( NOT Manfred
Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen,
famous German World War I fighter
pilot!)
 In the literature on aerodynamics
there is a term (definition) "Effect of
Bartini"



Hed died in Moscow, 6 December 1974
"Bartini was fertile, exceedingly fertile in
ideas and therefore generous. His ideas
surpassed by far contemporary time and
that is why only small part of them had
been realized in metal, in aircraft. But
even those ideas that were not realized in
metal acted as a catalyst for the progress
of our aerotechnics" (O. K. Antonov)
QUIZ
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Where was Robert Bartini born?
How did his mother die?
Why is Stal-6 so special?
Which aircraft did Yermolaev use
for constructing Yer-2?
Why was Bartini sent to gulag?
What was his nickname?
Where did he die?
THE END