Ilyushin Il-4 bomber crew, date unknown
October 29, 2009, 3:03pm
x planes
experimental aircraft. exotic aeromachines. oddities. sleek silver cigars. pedal-o-trons. soviet hive-mind bombers. aerial joy. the olden days. action shots. propaganda posters. etc
[xplanes] [at] [hotmail] [dot] [co] [dot] [uk]
Designed by Redfield. Icons by Cameron Hunt.
Hero of the Soviet Union Anatoliy Vasilevich Kislyakov
the aircraft behind him are American Bell P-39 Airacobras, obtained through the Lend-Lease program - approximately 4,600 of the 9,500 produced P-39s ended up in the Soviet Union. Although the P-39 was quickly viewed as being virtually obsolete in the west, due to its poor performance at high altitude, it was used to immense effect by The Red Air Force
October 28, 2009, 7:35pm
“Finnish Airforce identification manual for the Russian aircraft in spring 1942”
October 28, 2009, 3:20pm
the Grokhovsky G-38, a Soviet multi-role project, circa 1935. no photos seem to exist of the sole aeroplane that was built, so here is a nice image courtesy of Gino Marcomini
October 28, 2009, 8:40am
The Soviet ‘Fire Hedgehog’
What looks to be an anti-infantry experiment - 88 downward-firing machine guns in the bomb bay of a Tupolev Tu-2, giving a firing rate of about 1,300 rounds per second.
Believed to be flown and tested in 1944, and abandoned due to the problems associated with in-flight reloading of the guns.
October 27, 2009, 12:34am
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21SPS, Netherlands, 2007
“This former German MiG is the centrepiece of a lasergaming dungeon near Amsterdam. A skull is piloting the aircraft, and another one is riding on the pitot tube! Many thanks to the kind people of Silverstone Laser Games for the photo opportunity”
(photo and words by Peter de Jong)
September 26, 2009, 8:21pm
reblog: seditionsgraphiques: >Son of the earth via realussr.com
Reblogged from SEDITIONS.
September 23, 2009, 11:09pm
read about the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine today?
if so, what better way to complement this than some amazing footage of the Domodedovo Air Show of the 9th July, 1967. Rivaling any of the massive May Day parades in Red Square - this was a massive public propaganda display from a secretive society, probably the greatest single display of Soviet air power, and a field day for Western intelligence - the high point for me being the flypast of a single, menacing, completely black Sukhoi Su-15 - (bottom-left in the picture)
the footage can be watched in five parts online, starting here, or can be downloaded here
September 23, 2009, 8:48pm
the Ecolen Science and Production Association became Amphicon - an abbreviation for Amfibeeynye konstrooktsii (“amphibious designs”) - and in 1993 presented a national transportation development programme based on a new generation of WIG vehicles - the so called Ground-and-Air Amphibious Vehicles (GAAV), (Russian abbreviation of NVA).
The programme covered a 15-year period up to 2008. The range of projects envisaged in the programme represented a gradual transition from a 3-tonne (6,610 Ib) vehicle of ‘aircraft layout’ to a ‘flying wing’ vehicle weighing 5,000t (11,022,930 Ib).
Many of the projects envisaged the use of powerful fans creating a static air cushion during take-off, which made these craft a combination of ACV (Air Cushion Vehicle) and WIG (Wing-in-Ground-Effect) vehicles. None of the projects progressed further than the drawing board.
(via)
September 11, 2009, 1:46am
In the early 1990s, the Ecolen Science and Production Association, based in St.Petersburg, produced a set of next generation WIG projects.
Ecolen is an abbreviation of Ekologiya Lenskovo reghiona - “Ecology of the Lena River Region”, indicating that the projects were to be tailored to the needs of that region..
(via)
September 10, 2009, 11:21pm
In the early 1980s, the Soviet military ordered two Lun attack ekranoplans, with plans to build at least another eight by the year 2000. In 1989, the Navy had a change of heart - it was decided there would be no more aircraft to join the sole model in service.
The second Lun was about 80 percent complete before work was stopped. It was saved from the scrapyard by the decision to convert it into a Search and Rescue (SAR) aircraft, named the ‘Spasatel’ (rescue worker). Funding appeared to have dried up - the planned completion date of 1994 did not happen. In 2001 a press release stated that - partly due to the Komsomolets, Kursk and MS Estonia disasters - the Spasatel was approaching completion…
It seems that the Spasatel is still in the assembly shop of the Volga shipyard in Nizhniy Novgorod, awaiting the money required to complete it..
September 10, 2009, 9:23pm
based on the earlier KM/”Caspian Sea Monster” - and only slightly smaller - the Lun (Russian: “Hen Harrier”) ekranoplan was first launched in 1987. It is believed that the sole vessel entered service with the Soviet Navy’s Black Sea Fleet soon after.
It carried six launch containers for 3M80 Moskit ant-ship missiles on the top of it’s fuselage, and defensive armament taken from an Ilyushin Il-76M transport plane.
It was withdrawn from service sometime in the late 1990s, and can now be found here
September 10, 2009, 7:09pm
the KM “Caspian Sea Monster” ekranoplan - it flew reliably for 15 years, until pilot error caused it to sink in 1980
September 10, 2009, 5:09pm
