In an innovative operation during World War II, the Soviet Air Force launched a daring raid on the Romanian city of Constanta using a unique "parasite" fighter-bomber combination, what some akin to a flying aircraft carrier.
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Some unusual cargo.
Here s What You Need to Remember: These special TB-3s were not carrying any bombs at all. Instead, the I-16 Type 24 fighters braced under the bomber’s wings each carried two 250-kilogram bombs.
Early in the morning of August 10, 1941, three boxy Soviet TB-3 bombers took off from the airbase at Yevpatoria in the Crimean Peninsula, bearing a most unusual cargo under their gargantuan wings: two manned, stubby-nosed I-16 fighter planes, their Shvetsov radial engines chortling and propellers spinning to help propel the sluggish four-engine TB-3s they were attached to.
One of the aircraft-carrying motherships had to abort mission due to technical problems. The six remaining aircraft assumed an eastward course across the Black Sea towards the Romanian city of Constanta roughly 250 miles away, cruising at roughly 155 miles per hour.
Yes, Soviet Russia Once Had a Flying Aircraft Carrier
It was not as impressive as it sounds however.
Key point: Bascially, the Soviets rigged up a bigger plane to carry a smaller plane into battle. Here is how they used it against Hitler.
Since their debut of aerial warfare, air arms have struggled to find ways to extend the range of small, agile fighter aircraft optimized for speed and maneuverability rather than fuel capacity. In modern times, airliner-sized in-flight refueling tankers are a favored, though expensive, solution.
But before inflight refueling began to be widely adopted in the 1950s, no one found quite as creative a solution to this problem as Vladimir Vakhmistrov, who tested nine different Sveno mothership bombers designed to carry ‘parasite’ fighters on their wings and fuselage.