ZIL PEU-1

The PEU-1 (search-and-evacuation unit) was a six-wheeled amphibious vehicle developed by the ZIL special design bureau at the personal request of Sergei Korolev. Its job was to find and recover returning Soviet spacecraft capsules and their crews. The prototype was tested in 1966 and the vehicle entered service with the air force search-and-rescue service at the end of the 1960s. It was built until 1979.

Design

A watertight glassfibre hull sits on the frame. The navigation and radio equipment and the driver's cab are at the front, the engine behind the cab, and a cargo bay at the rear with a crane of about 3-3.5 tonnes for lifting the descent capsule. Power came from a modified ZIL-375 V8 of 7 litres and 180 hp, through the automatic hydromechanical gearbox of the ZIL-135. Each side is driven separately, as on other Grachev designs. The front and rear wheels steer and have independent suspension, and the three axles are equally spaced 2,500 mm apart. A central tyre-inflation system is fitted. In the water a waterjet drives the vehicle, and without it the wheels alone could move it. The PEU-1 weighed 8,320 kg empty and 11,720 kg loaded, carried four crew and 3 tonnes of cargo, reached 68 km/h on the road and had a 560 km range. It could be carried by air-force transport aircraft.

Variants

The PEU-1M replaced the cargo bay with a comfortable passenger cabin for the three cosmonauts and accompanying doctors, and a larger fuel tank raised its range to about 700 km. A version with a longer crane jib followed in 1977. In 1984 the experimental PEU-1R was fitted at the rear with an AI-25TL jet engine giving 1,720 kgf of thrust. It could climb out of the water onto any bank and, on skis, cross deep snow at high speed near Vorkuta, but a planned successor was never funded. The larger ZIL-5901 (PEU-2) of 1970 was based on the PEU-1. The ZIL-4906 Blue Bird family replaced the PEU-1 in the early 1980s, and a surviving PEU-1 is preserved in the Avtorevyu museum.