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In 1941, during the war....

On their entry into the war, in 1941, Russia was offered 400 fighters to replenish the devastated Soviet Air Force. It was agreed that they would be serviced, maintained and flown by Russian personnel, but sufficient RAF personnel would accompany the first consignment of planes to train the ground forces and operationally fly the hurricanes until the Russians were proficient.

The fighters provided were the ubiquitous Hurricane and, on 12th August 1941, 151 Wing was formed and comprised of two new Squadrons 81 and 134. The very first "Russian Convoy" to Murmansk was assembled and left Iceland, at the end of 1941, with the 151 Wing ground and aircrew personnel. Some 15 crated Hurricanes were also onboard but, significantly very little aviation fuel.
Twenty-four additional and fully operational Hurricanes were flown to Vaenga airfield at Murmansk, from the convoy protection aircraft "Argus", on 7th September. The remainder of the convoy carrying the Wing personnel were diverted to Keg Ostrov airfield near Archangel, because of enemy action at Murmansk.

The disaster....

Within 4 days of arrival at Vaenga airfield, it was discovered that the available Russian fuel was of a lower quality than that acceptable to the Merlin XX engine powering the Series II Hurricane. During their first operational flight, two pairs of 134 Squadron Hurricanes suddenly lost power at altitude and their engines subsequently cut out. By frantic hand pumping, the pilots were able to restart their engines and averted disaster. A team of Russian scientists was assigned to investigate and solve the problem. In the meantime, the Hurricanes were obliged to operate below 16,000 feet, and limited to ground attack and bomber support.
This near disastrous first sortie can be attributed to the differing Western and Russian oil production industry philosophies. The bulk of Russian oil output, second only to the USA in the 1920s and 30s, was used for heating, lighting and heavy industry. Their use of fractionation refining produced only small quantities of petrol and inconsistent quality. In contrast, Western technology used catalytic and thermal oil refining to produce higher quality petrol and in 1923 incorporated tetraethyl-lead as a performance booster. In 1941, so called high-octane Russian aviation petrol contained certain compounds which caused "waxing" at low temperatures, and the addition of lead-tetraethyl was not a solution.
The problem was unfortunately not limited to the Merlin XX, since the Russian?/FONT>¯s equally powerfully fighters were limited to 20,000 feet and operated at 15,000 feet. Solving the fuel problem became a priority.

The born of Tin alloy catalyst....

With the Russians being a leading authority in fields of Organic Chemistry, Catalysis and Metallurgy, they firmly believed that a solution was possible. They proved competent in assessing the use of metal catalysts for stabilizing and improving the characteristics of lubricating oil and fuels; in particular, the improved oxidation and combustion of hydrocarbon fuels. Whilst low cost lead based compounds were widely used, tin featured highly in this work.
Russia was, and still is, one of the world's leading tin producers. Tin was known to have outstanding stability and vastly superior catalytic properties, compared to lead based alloys and compounds, for the reduction of fuel degrading reactions between various hydrocarbons and other fuel contaminating compounds, which in turn have an adverse effect on combustion efficiency. These degrading reaction products also contribute to the "waxing" effect. A number of different tin-alloy electro-catalysis reactions, in fuel hydrocarbons mixtures, which benefit combustion performance as well as fuel stability were already documented.