Kalinin K-7

These first four photos were e-mailed to me by a relative.  They appear to be "artist's conceptions", rather than photos of the one actual prototype K-7 (see the Wikipedia photo below).  Moreover, they don't even agree with each other!  Note that photos 1 and 4  are different  from photos 2 and 3, with lots of improbable big guns in photo, 2 and 3 but not in photos 1 and 4.  Also, the 12 propellers are lined up exactly the same improbable vertical way, and the truck and people are the same in each photo.  So these are clearly pictures of models, or paintings of some demented Stalinist pipe dream for propaganda purposes.

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

Photo 4

Now consider the photo below from Wikipedia, presumably a photo of the actual prototype K-7.  It is a typical heavily retouched Soviet Photo, but some things are obvious: (a) There are apparently only four wheels instead of the 24 shown in the other photos; (b) only six engines instead of the 18 shown in the other photos, and the shape of the engine nacelles is different; and (c) no guns.  Furthermore, with all the heavy cannon shown in photos 2 and 3, no airplane ever built could get off the ground!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Kalinin K-7 (Russian: Калинин К-7) was a heavy experimental aircraft designed and tested in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s. K-7 was of unusual configuration with twin booms and large underwing pods housing fixed landing gear and machine gun turrets. In the passenger version, seats were arranged inside the 2.3 meter (7 ft 7 in) thick wings. The airframe was welded from KhMA chrome-molybdenum steel. The original design called for six engines in the wing leading edge but when the projected loaded weight was exceeded, two more engines were added to the trailing edges of each wing, one right and one left of the central passenger pod.[1] However V.Nemecek states in his book "The History of Soviet Aircraft from 1918" that there was only one further pusher engine added - this agrees with the specification supplied below.

K-7 first flew on 11 August 1933. Then on 21 November 1933 the aircraft crashed due to structural failure of one of the tail booms, killing 14 people aboard and one on the ground. Although two more prototypes were ordered in 1933, the project was canceled in 1935 before they could be completed.[1]

 Specifications (K-7)

Data from Shavrov 1985[1]

General characteristics

  • Capacity: 120 passengers in civilian configuration
  • Length: 28 m (91 ft 10 in)
  • Wingspan: 53 m (173 ft 11 in)
  • Height: ()
  • Wing area: 454 m² (4,886.8 ft²)
  • Empty weight: 24,400 kg (53,793 lb)
  • Loaded weight: 38,000 kg (83,776 lb)
  • Powerplant: 7× Mikulin AM-34F V-12 piston engines, 560 kW (750 hp) each

Performance

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