Polikarpov I-16

I-16
I-16 Type 5 in the Memorial Museum of Valery Chkalov, Chkalovsk, Russia
Role	Fighter Type of aircraft
National origin	Soviet Union
Manufacturer	Plant No. 21 (Gorky), Plant No. 39 (Moscow), Plant No. 153 (Novosibirsk), Plant No. 458 (Rostov-on-Don/Baku)
Designer	N. N. Polikarpov Design Bureau
First flight	30 December 1933 (TsKB-12)
Introduction	March 1935
Retired	1945 (Soviet Air Force), 1953 (Spanish Air Force)
Primary users	Soviet Air Force Spanish Republican Air Force Chinese Nationalist Air Force
Produced	November 1920 – 1942
Number built	10,292 (6,848 fighters and 3,444 trainers)[1]
Developed into	Polikarpov I-180

The Polikarpov I-16 (Russian: Поликарпов И-16) is a Soviet single-engine single-seat fighter aircraft of revolutionary design; it was the world's first low-wing cantilever monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear to attain operational status and as such "introduced a new vogue in fighter design".^[2] The I-16 was introduced in the mid-1930s and formed the backbone of the Soviet Air Force at the beginning of World War II. The diminutive fighter, nicknamed "Ishak" or "Ishachok" ("donkey" or "burro") by Soviet pilots, figured prominently in the Second Sino-Japanese War,^[3] the Battle of Khalkhin Gol,^[3] Winter War and the Spanish Civil War^[4][5] – where it was called the Rata ("rat") by the Nationalists or Mosca ("fly") by the Republicans. The Finns called the aircraft Siipiorava "(flying squirrel)".^[6]