K-7, USSR Airplane- Giant of the 30s.

[Milos Sijacki]

Hello

Found this page about this attempt from the Russians in the 30s to build a very large flying wing airplane.

Have a read at it.



Cheers

K-7, Airplane-Giant

[vikingBerserker]

Here are some actual photo's - though the ones with the crew looked doctored to me.




from Index of /image

That must have been really something to see.

Great post, thanks.

[Milos Sijacki]

Amazing isn't it!

[imalko]

Amazing is an understatement. I'v never seen or heard of this aircraft.
Great find Miloš!

[Arsenal VG-33]

It would be interesting to see an RC model of this.

[Waynos]

I don't know if this needs saying, but the last two pictures are not really the K-7, but a fictional aircraft that took inspiration from it. Just in case its not obvious.

[Colin1]

Those modern-looking photographs are impressions, I seriously doubt those naval batteries could have or would have been fitted, the structural strengthening required would have rendered the aircraft unable to leave the ground and even if it did, what chance the recoil stalled the aircraft in its tracks?
Additionally, as turrets, does that imply that they can traverse? Fire those at an angle to the direction the a/c is travelling in and that's a one-way trip!

No mention is made of armour, either for the crew or for essential systems or where the enormous quantity of fuel was kept or how it would be protected. The Luftwaffe would have had a field day with it; 30 and 37mm cannons would have made short work of it.

An impressive feat of aero-engineering for the period but I wouldn't want to go to war in it.

[imalko]

I don't know if this needs saying, but the last two pictures are not really the K-7, but a fictional aircraft that took inspiration from it. Just in case its not obvious.

It's obvious all right.
I was reffering in the first place on that black&white photos and to the text in the link. This aircraft sure looks impressive, but I agree with Colin's opinion - not something to go to war with.

[Milos Sijacki]

Yup those two are fictional, just put them there because they look cool. Especially the one with guns turrets, Jesus man, that is just crazy, but very well done by the way.

The plane itself was just too big to be of any good use in the war.

[Flyboy2]

Amazing nonetheless

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

That was one big Russian aircraft!

The fictional plane based on it is interesting, with it's battleship gun turrets. Would a plane really be able to carry all that weight and reach a good altitude, even one as big as that?

[Colin1]

...with it's battleship gun turrets. Would a plane really be able to carry all that weight and reach a good altitude, even one as big as that?

Absolutely no chance
imagine what the plane weighed anyway

now consider the weight of a naval battery, even one of those barrels. Add bulky feed and extraction mechanisms for the shells and then the shells themselves. The structural requirements would overwhelm those engines which aren't even making the most of themselves with tiny, inefficient, two-bladed, fixed-pitch propellers.

Let's stretch our imagination and get it into the air. Where do the gun crews sit and how do they get to their stations? If they're already there, how do they get out if the plane goes down? Who's directing their fire and how, at aircraft speeds?

What do you think is going to happen to the aircraft the first time it fires a salvo? Even worse, off to one side of the aircraft? Even if it didn't break up and fall out of the sky, all of the windows in that frontal greenhouse would shatter from the vibration, if they were armoured glass then that's a whole lot more weight and we still haven't really accounted for how we'd get the already-existing weight into the sky. On top of that there's armour, fuel protective measures...

It's a cartoon, the size of the aircraft was impressive enough without the fanciful artwork.