Merging the two engineering disciplines together proved difficult. They come with completely different training, knowledge and talents. However, tank engineers are quite a different lot than aeronautical engineers. Nonetheless, for every engineering challenge, one can find an engineering solution. Where an airplane must be streamlined, a tank is typically the least aerodynamic shape imaginable. Where an airplane has to be lightweight, a tank has to be heavy. The key problem facing designers is that tanks are in many ways the very opposite of airplanes. ![]() Although he developed a working example of the lightweight tank vehicle, it never flew. The flying tank was originally proposed by an American engineer named John Walter Christie. The Christie flying tank considered in Modern Mechanics and Inventions Magazine - USA. Today in history on September 2, 1942, marks the 70th anniversary of the first and only flight of the Soviet Union’s Antonov A-40 Krylya Tanka, the most ambitious of the designs and the world’s only true flying tank. Of those, only the Soviets would bring prototypes to the flying stage - and they did it four times with four separate vehicles. It is no surprise therefore that four major nations engaged in flying tank research during the 1930s and 1940s, including the Soviet Union, the USA, Japan and England. It offers a means to deploy heavy combat units unexpectedly and quickly where the enemy least expects it. ![]() Although seemingly laughable on first look, the flying tank solves a major problem in airborne warfare by providing heavy weapons and armored support to airborne troops. On paper, the idea seems simple enough - just put wings on tanks so that they become a tank-gliders, then tow a fleet of them into the air, fly deep into the enemy’s vulnerable rear area, cut them loose, and their crews can glide them down to land, ready for battle.
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