This is one of the weirdest exhibit of the Air Force Museum in Monino, the Moscow Region: a Bartini plane that was turned into an ekranoplan. There is pretty much chances you have never heard of this type of planes “Ekranoplanes”. They are unique to Russia and today you’ll become a bit more smarter by seeing something truly unique which is a less known part of our civilization.

Sadly the plane today is in a poor condition.

The wings and the empennage are dosmantled, no engines are left. VVA-14 was made on the basis of an amphibian project MVA-62 developed in 1962. The main constructor – R.L. Bartini. Both the amphibian and its creator were quite unusual for their time.

Heavy “pits”

The cab’s nose, we can see mounts for auxiliary lift engines which were used in the attempts to make an ekranoplan from VVA-14.

MVA-62 became a basis for designing a bigger anti-submarine vertical takeoff amphibian VVA-14.The plan gave lots of reasons for doubts but was too revolutionary not to give it a try.

The back view, do you sea a hatch?

The right end of the aft body, someone tried to bite it off?

The left was bitten off

VVA-14 had to become a part of an aviation anti-submarine complex consisting of the plane itslef, target search and track system “Burevestnik”, anti-submarine weapon and the afloat fuelling system. The complex was intended for search and destruction of submarines located 1200-1500 km away.

The left side

Wings attaching point

Pontoons

VVA-14 represented the whole complex of unusual technical solutions and each of them demanded a lot of engineering efforts before test flights.

Basically, Ekranoplanes didn’t fly high. They were supposed to glide not higher than a few meters above the sea level.

The cabin’s view from the portside.

For the tests of the control system, there were made two piloting stands: with a movable and a stationary cabins.

Another view.

A fuselage of a semimonoqoque structure turning to a center-section. In the forebody is a three seater cabin.

Before turning into an ekranoplan

Various hatches

The attaching point of the right empennage group

Part of the cowling shutter

Pontoon – the rear view

Another rear view

Looks like a mount attachment for transportation and wings dismantling

The cowling shutter from the outer side of the pontoon

Some devices under the cabin

The view from under the cab

A ready ekranoplan

A rear view from the left side

Cowling shutter

The cabin

The pontoons and their retraction-extansion system is just filled with various unique devices.

The forepart chassis

Its rear view

The cavity for forepart chassis retraction

Main gear

The cavity for its retraction

Side gear

The left one

The right one

Looks fragile

Cavity for their retraction

Ekranoplan layout

The tail hatch

The bottom view from the rear

Cavities in the pontoons

The hatch inside of the pontoon

The hole in the left tail-end

Main engines frame

Here how it looked like in the past.

Lift engines frame

Left main wing

Ports inside

Empennage

Another one

The results of VVA-14 tests gave a huge experience and important data that were further used for the development of the largest amphibian A-40 “Albatros”.

Thanks for reading this piece! We have hundreds of more stories on our main site! Just click our “Hammer&Sickle” EnglishRussia logo on top of this page and enjoy tons of more unique Soviet stuff!

via igor113