Aerial Warfare Enigma: How Russia s Parasite Airplanes Succeeded nationalinterest.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nationalinterest.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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.