These jaw-dropping aerial and internal shots show a top-secret Soviet military craft bigger than a jumbo jet lying abandoned on a beach where it will be converted into a museum.

The futuristic-looking MD-160 Lun-class ekranoplan was towed by tug across the Caspian Sea last month as part of a 14-hour journey from Kaspiysk naval base to Derbent, Dagestan.




https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8665541/Gigantic-1980s-Soviet-vehicle-MD-160-dwarfs-Boeing-747-lies-abandoned-Caspian-Sea.html?ito=social-facebook&fbclid=IwAR0Fi_YwsyQxCNaKN17mr84I4xXyUe_zMJZ8nvpf1bOV1RpSeFuKkOguZIo

The non-operational ground-effect vehicle, which was designed by Rostislav Evgenievich Alexeyev in 1975, used a cushion of air beneath its wings to speed above the sea's surface at 13ft making it difficult for enemy forces to detect.

It had been sitting unused at the naval base since it was retired in the late 1990s but it has now been beached amid plans to turn it into an ocean-side tourist attraction.

Nice

The vehicle was designed for sustained low flight over a level surface (usually over the sea without being detected by radar) by making use of 'ground effect' the aerodynamic interaction between the wings and the surface.

The cushion of air between the wings and the surface reduced drag allowing the WIG to carry significant payload over long distances at speed whilst keeping low to the ground.

This made a WIG equipped with missiles difficult for opposition forces to detect and thus posed a significant threat to any enemy warship


Six missile launchers were mounted in pairs on the dorsal surface of the Lun's fuselage with advanced tracking systems mounted within the plan's nose and tail.

The Soviet ground-effect vehicle, which had a maximum cruising speed of 550 kilometres per hour (340 mph), cruising up to 10meters above water.

It was manned by a crew of 15 consisting of six officers and nine enlisted (cockpit pictured)

The programme was shut down over the lack of funds despite being 90 per cent finished.

Explorers:
.

Explorers dey book space.


Back to wetin him post; this one big ooo

The MD-160, also known as an Utka, (pictured shortly after it was built) is bigger than a 747 jet and was built as part of the Soviet WIG programme.

The top-secret Soviet military craft, which was bigger than a jumbo jet, was able to carry significant load over long distances at speed whilst keeping relatively low to the ground - around four metres (13 feet).

beautiful... nothing less ...pure beauty

see abandoned money abeg

russians make sense.

Explorer again? We dey do party today?

Big bird

Very nice bird, we should send it to Mali or Cameroon

Omihanifa:
Big bird

Birdfish

Nice

THey designed this in 1975! Shame to Africa

Truly jaw dropping. . .

Africa

dem too like war

Explorers ni, Mtheew bike drop me here.


Drabeey was here

Scary looking machine. Human dey create (minus blacks off course)

FP worthy thread unlike that AlexReports IMO universe pageant nonsense

See tech in 1970s while down here only tech will know is to embezzlement tech

some time u just wonder if the black race is cursed. imagine this was built in the 70s.