The Most Amazing Airplane In History
Built in Russia during the 1930's, it flew 11 times before crashing and killing 15 people.
The designer, Konstantin Kalinin, wanted to build two more planes but the project was scrapped.
Later, Stalin had Kalinin executed. Evidently, it was not good to fail on an expensive project
under Stalin.
It's got propellers on the back of the wings, too. You can count 12 engines facing front.
The size would be equivalent to the Empire State Building on its side, with cannons.
And you think the 747 was big ... not only a bunch of engines, but check out the cannons the thing was carrying.
In the 1930's, the Russian army was obsessed by the idea of creating huge planes.
At that time they were proposed to have as many propellers as possible to help carrying those
huge flying fortresses into the air - jet propulsion has not been implemented yet.
Not many photos were saved from those times because of the high secrecy levels of such projects and because a lot of time has already passed.
Can you imagine what it would be like sitting in this thing when those cannons go off?
