Danny
but never in my wildest bindaloo-induced nightmares have I seen such monstrosities !
Well what about this one then?
TURD U-14 (дерьмо U-14) Military Transport
The bent fuselage of the Turd U-14 stood for many years as a Soviet military secret. The Germans after invading Russia in 1941 found the wreck of a Turd U-14 on an airfield and examining it speculated that Russia had discovered a unique and new aerodynamic principle by bending the front of the fuselage downwards. It was only after the last example of this little-known type had safely crashed and details became known following the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989 that its true origins were revealed.
It seems that during the design stage in 1938, a blueprint had been wrinkled accidentally when sent to the Kremlin for authorisation and it was this wrinkled blueprint that was authorised and signed into production by Stalin. Because of this none of the designers would own up to responsibility for the wrinkled blueprint — since according to the Soviet penal code, altering documents signed by Stalin was a treasonable offence that carried the death penalty — so the mistake went unchecked and it went into production as authorised by Stalin complete with wrinkled fuselage.
As a work-horse transport aircraft, this behemoth of the blue, with its four Kapodny-Gifk engines, each producing 400 hp, and its vast cargo capacity, “had everything” according to the state media. Unusual features were tiny cockpits on each wing, where an engineer sat supervising the engines in front of him, and solid iron wheels. These last ingeniously got over the acute Russian rubber shortage, but caused another problem; reports claim the railway locomotive-style cast-iron wheels so badly chewed up even paved landing strips that bringing a Turd to earth meant maximum risk to plane, crew and all nearby buildings and collective farms. Obliquely, this may explain the Soviet insistence that a Turd had set a world record for nonstop flight in 1941 — staying aloft over 64 hours while travelling nearly 3500 miles and averaging over 54 mph — and also why the pilot and navigator although awarded the Order of Heavy Industry immediately after landing were then transported to a Siberian Gulag to keep them quiet.
Unfortunately none of the Turds, with their unique examples of Russian ingenuity have survived — mores’ the pity.
Image Copyright © 1982 by Bruce McCall
WT