That's one Ivan Bigplaneovitch
While Hooniverse likes to focus on those things that have four wheels and fit in an average garage, sometimes we like to point upward and shout there, up in the sky- it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s too much vodka and national pride!
You're back in the USSR, boy, you don't know how lucky you are.
Check out English Russia for more on these Potemkins of the skies.
I've always felt that, as a culture, the Russians are compensating for something.
What leads you to believe that? <img src=http://www.roadtransport.com/blogs/big-lorry-blog/08MZKT.jpg>
I'm not sure what's more outlandish: the airplane itself, or the renderings where it's bringing its considerable weapons to bear on a Nazi German flying saucer.
It would make sense as to where the whole anal probe thing started.
Somehow between the extreme right wing and the extreme left wing, the Russians took all the wing and the Germans didn't get any.
They soooo had flying saucers… the government doesn't want you to know man!!!! [gets tinfoil hat]
So that's where all of my aircraft aluminum went!
http://media.englishrussia.com/long_range_aviatio...
This.
Seriously. I've been trying to write an alternate-reality fiction story where WWII never quite happens and the Jet Engine never comes to fruition. I've been trying to imagine shit like this monster and the plane I posted and have been having trouble coming up with anything more unconventional looking than the seaplane from Talespin, and here you go and dump this in my lap…
I am amazed by what the Russians have actually built. I really, really would like some of whatever drugs Russian aeronautical engineers were using. Seems like good stuff.
You've read stuff by Harry Turtledove, I assume? I like his writing. Being a serious history buff, his alternate history ideas are fascinating. I imagine I'm preaching to the choir here, but just saying.
Who precisely is this Harry Turtledove fellow?
Hey, I just realized that nobody referred to the Ekranoplan here. What's the deal with that? Somebody link to it. It's somwhere on English Russia. I'm too lazy to do it and I have to go get more beer anyway. OK, vodka. Whatever.
Speaking of Russia, I'm reading a book about the Soviet biological weapons program. My God. It's the scariest book I've ever read. Luckily, all their top scientists now work for the USA.
Yeah, that book is still scary for everyone else though.
Jesus-God! That center section looks like the Intensive Care Wing of the local hospital in my town. I really want to know if it actually had the ability to fly, or if it collapsed from the extreme weight of all the ugly that they packed into that thing.
According to the Internets… it did fly a time or two, then crashed and killed everyone aboard. REALLY expensive to build I believe.
The interpretations that include naval guns are my favorites. I'm not real clear on how much force is involved in firing a battery of those, but I envision involuntary inside rolls galore. Gotta figure targeting those things would be a real bitch, too—not to mention finding a target without putting the aircraft into a dive it could not possibly recover from.
/Obligatory "In Soviet…."
Yeah, the recoil would just stop it in midair. It would drop. Instead of a dive, I propose more of a maple seed spiral into Siberian tundra.
I love these improbable Art Deco steampunk style hallucinations. At least the Spruce Goose got airborne for a few seconds, and I love the "Flying Fortress" reference in the copy. The real one did just fine, and resembled late '40's American cars.
Oops, got that one twisted around backwards.
I really hope this was turned into an apartment block somewhere rather than sold for scrap. Plus, it'd sort of double as a carport, so that'd be pretty sweet.
This looks like something out of the film version of HG Wells' Things to Come or perhaps Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow.
I'm going home and finding my copy of the Rocketeer. Anybody got one of those things that plays tapes?
Where is Engineerd when you need him?
I really hope this was turned into an apartment block somewhere rather than sold for scrap. Plus, it'd sort of double as a carport, so that'd be pretty sweet.
Paging Howard Hughes. Howard Hughes, please go to the nearest white courtesy telephone.