Check it out...a flying tank.

The first association with "Flying tank" would be Soviet WWII close support aircraft: Il-2 Sturmovik. It was hard to kill and it was efficient tank buster. However, in this case I mean literally: flying tank.

In late 30's idea of an airborne insertion of combat vehicles behind enemy lines appealed to the military commanders of several countries. Light tanks "falling" from the skies would be unexpected and nasty surprise for enemy and perhaps that little extra push which make a difference between a victory and defeat. Russians were experimenting with large bombers: combat vehicles were embedded into bomb bay of the aircraft, so it has enough clearance to take off. German approach was different: they were building large gliders, capable of hauling small combat vehicles and even light tanks.

An original idea came from A. N. Tupolev Bureau: a T-60 light tank was fitted with wings and control surfaces, so that body of the tank was a backbone of the resulting glider.Amazingly, this project advanced beyond paper and was flown in 1940.

aeroweb.lucia.it...

www.lizdas.lt...

We had weird and crazy designs back many many years ago. Should be glad this one didn't come to fruition.

They were showing this on the History Channel (doc. created a few years ago). The program was called "Secret Russian aircraft of WWII".

Pretty cool. I remember in the show they said that the pilot that tested it had a really rough landing.

If you know where to look, you can watch the whole show on your PC. (torrents)

Now that is wonderful, great engineering to get a tank, light but still a tank to fly. Very cool that the wings were able to hold the pressure.

reasons why it would not work [ IMHO ] - in no particular order

1 CoG [ centre of gravity ] the t-60 light tank weighs 5.8 tons , and this :



is not a balanced airframe

2 rolling resistance - tank tracks do not make good aircraft landing gear - i would defy a 1930s tug to pull that boondoongle @ take off speed

3 " avionics " - the claimed control mechanism for this contraption was " moving the turret " - yeah right t-60s had a hand cranked turret and less than stellar rates of azimuth

what is more amazing is that people still lap up stalinist era propaganda .

I would agree with ignorant_ape; it is a good idea, but poorly designed. If the design here actually did work, it would not be very efficient at all.

Holy. I Never seen this before.

OMG, Did that Thing fly ever before?

I also tend to agree with ape.
Was this thing supposedly a glider only, I see no engine on it. How did they get it airborne in the first place? The only way I can think of would be off the back of a train flatbed freight car moving at 80 or more mph with a tug line from an aircraft to pull it once airborne to the desired release altitude. I am also thinking its propaganda.