Only in Russia would they dream up something like this

[Fengist]

[vger]

I was completely blown away the first time I saw that image.

...but, it's fake. Just a CGI rendering inspired by similar (but much smaller) aircraft. No such thing was ever developed or even planned to be developed.

[kerbiloid]

It's a fake.

The real one had a triple gun mount on bottom.

[DBowman]

This one is a real Russian plane:

if only they'd combined it with Project Pluto nuclear ramjets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto)

[Harry Rhodan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_A-40

[Shpaget]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea_Monster

[TUKE]

The aircraft in question is the Kalinin K-7, built during the 1930's as either a passenger liner or bomber with either housed in the thick wings. The prototype had the equivalent wingspan of a current day B-52 bomber. However it was crashed and destroyed during its third (?) test flight with a seventh engine installed between the tail boom (At the time Russian engines had very little power), the crash was caused by the vibrations caused by the seventh engine breaking part of the tail boom, locking elevator control during a shallow dive as part of a speed test.

[SemiaCloud]

Wow. Those guns though...

[Guest]

It's render and it's fake.

Real plane

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinin_K-7

[Beowolf]

This one is a real Russian plane:

Technically not a plane; more of an... um...

• Ship with negative draft?
  
• Hovercraft that can't hover?
  
• Ground-effect vehicle that can't go over ground, only sea?
  
• Flarecraft, because it does what aircraft do after they flare, but not during?
  
• Ekranoplan, because nobody but the Russians needed a name for this thing?
  

Ah, Sea Skimmer. This name I like!

Edited July 21, 2015 by Beowolf
spelling

[zekes]

Technically not a plane; more of an... um...

• Ship with negative draft?
  
• Hovercraft that can't hover?
  
• Ground-effect vehicle that can't go over ground, only sea?
  
• Flarecraft, because it does what aircraft do after they flare, but not during?
  
• Ekranoplan, because nobody but the Russians needed a name for this thing?
  

Ah, Sea Skimmer. This name I like!

yes, it uses ground-effect to "fly" just under radar while at better than water speeds.

[Moesly_Armlis]

Skimming Sea Birds

A flock of sea ducks, pelicans, or sandpipers skimming low over the water's surface is a common seashore sight. Far from shore, shearwaters often closely follow the contours of the waves, and gaggles of auklets fly rapidly just above the water. Skimming permits the birds to take advantage of an aerodynamic phenomenon known as "ground effect." The patterns of airflow around a wing that is operating close to a surface are modified by that surface in a manner that reduces drag, the resistance of the air to the progress of the wing. Sometimes overloaded airplanes are sometimes incapable of climbing out of the ground effect even though they can maintain flight close to the ground.

Thus, everything else being equal, it is more efficient to fly close to a surface than far from it. But things are rarely equal, which is why birds most often tend to take advantage of the ground effect when the "ground" is water. The ground effect only occurs when the flying object is much less than a wingspan from the surface -- and at such an altitude over land a bird would be continually flying among obstacles, through grass, and so on. Only water is sufficiently uncluttered to permit such close safe passage.

Learn tricks from nature's toolbox.