A giant Soviet K-7 bomber. Its designer was sentenced to the death penalty
Today we will talk about the K-7 project, which stood at the origins of the beginning of aircraft construction in the USSR. The designer of the development of the huge flying machine was Konstantin Kalinin, who from his youth decided to devote his life to air flights. He was appointed head of the design bureau, where talented engineers of the Soviet era worked.
At the end of the 20s of the last century, a team of employees headed by Kalinin took up the implementation of the idea of creating an aircraft based on the latest “Flying Wing” scheme. At that time, it was not yet thoroughly worked out and had many shortcomings.
In 1933, the design bureau began testing a new aircraft, which had a wingspan of up to fifty-three meters. At the time, it could take 128 passengers on board and move them up to 5,000 kilometers. Inside the liner there was a kitchen, a place to rest and work, as well as a telephone connection.
The aircraft weighed almost twenty-one tons and could carry up to nineteen tons. Engineers thought not only about the use of the aircraft in the civilian sphere. They hoped that he could be accepted into the Soviet Air Force as a bomber.
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The first flight of the country’s largest aircraft was successful, but the second ended in failure. As a result of gaining maximum speed, it crashed.
Kalinin associated it with a process that occurs in the air at critical speeds and has an impact on the structure. The cause of the disaster was flutter, a phenomenon that was not yet thoroughly understood. Two designs remained in development. But, it was not possible to complete them, as the project was closed in 1935 for political reasons. Kalinin came under repression and in 1938 his life was tragically cut short.
In today’s society, K-7 can be seen in computer games or in movies.