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Old 31st Jan 2004, 11:44
  #43 (permalink)  
pigboat
 
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: CYZV
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The big airplane was an ANT-20, called the "Maxim Gorkii."
It was built as a propaganda machine by the Soviet government. It had eight engines, three tractor units fitted conventionally on each wing, and a tractor/pusher tandem arrangement on the cabin roof. The airplane carried a crew of twenty and up to fifty passengers. It also had an onboard kitchen, photo lab, printing press, radio studio and a cinema.
It crashed in May of 1935 when it was hit by one of its fighter escorts who attempted a loop around one of the aircraft's wings.
The fighter pilot's name was Nikolai Blagin. His name, as RBF says, has entered the Russian vocabulary as synonymous for -up.
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