World's largest aircraft from 1930: Giant Russian K-7 flying fortress

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World's largest aircraft from 1930: Giant Russian K-7 flying fortress

By Paul Evans

16:34 April 14, 2009

11 Comments

18 Pictures

Russian K-7 flying fortress

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April 14, 2009 The Soviet aircraft industry really like building big. We recently reported on the Hotelicopter, a converted Soviet Mil V-12 Heavy Lift Helicopter, which proved to be an April Fools prank. The Russians can still claim the title of world's largest aircraft, though, with the Antonov AN-225 heavy lift transport, which has a larger wingspan than the Airbus A380. Both of these modern day wonders have still not eclipsed the Hughes H-4 Hercules or “Spruce Goose” for size and we have just unearthed pictures of something the Russians were working on in the 1930s that may have dwarfed even the Spruce Goose.

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With a wingspan of 132.5 meters – for reference, a Boeing 747's is 68.5 m – and 20 propeller engines, this design is based on a 1932 prototype called the Kalinin K-7, which was a Soviet heavy experimental aircraft. The 3D Computer generated model shown is 2.5 times the scale of the original K-7 but retains the same gigantic elliptical wing of extremely thick airfoil, with two triangle section tail booms. The K-7 was designed as a multipurpose civil and military aircraft. Passengers and payload were housed in the wing, with plans to carry up to 128 passengers. Other designs arranged 16 luxury cabins for 64 passengers, much like the Hotelicopter.

The military version of the aircraft was a real "flying fortress", which emerged 10 years before the American Boeing B-17. It had as many as 12 gunner positions, which included an electric cart running along the tail booms to transport gunners to two tail machine guns. It could carry more than 16 tons of bombs, 112 fully equipped paratroopers or 8.5 tons of parachute drop-able equipment. While no specs are provided for the 2.5-times-larger version, the original K-7 prototype did fly with a take off weight of 38 tonnes, although the aircraft was destroyed when it crashed in 1933, and no further prototypes were built.

Paul Evans

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User Comments (11)

Really cool stuff. Trying to get this figured out here. So this 3D version is 2.5X the size of the prototype? Reading over it sounds like the 2.5X version was planned, never produced, but the K-7 was flown...OK.

Todd Dunning - April 14, 2009 @ 07:53 pm PDT

This immediately made me think of Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind. Very cool.

grakker - April 14, 2009 @ 08:19 pm PDT

I think a little Photoshop was involved. The large naval size guns in some of the photos would have torn the aircraft apart if fired. Check it out on snopes.com.

WH - April 16, 2009 @ 06:53 pm PDT

Come on Gizmag; you've become a science fiction site. You run way too many speculative and transparently false articles.

DrifterToo - January 19, 2011 @ 08:31 am PST

I just looked through the photos and I am shocked! There is no way those photos are real. The K-7 with a UFO? Those Russians are hiding stuff from the people!

Oh, wait, you said that these are COMPUTER GENERATED 3D CAD DRAWINGS are are not pretending that they are real.

Phew, for a minute there I thought that I would have to start using my brain and deciding what was real and what was plausible and what is obviously a pipe dream.

I guess that I can keep reading Gizmag.

And maybe I'll cancel my reservations at the Hotelcopter. I hope my deposit is refundable.

YourMom - February 2, 2011 @ 10:30 am PST

What an amazing concept. Its a shame it never made it off the drawing board.

I agree about the ship guns being way off reality.

However, I would say they could handle guns up to 105mm.(and maybe up to 135mm?) Since our current AC-130 in its gunship format has a semi-auto 105mm that shoots out the side. But that brings me to another point; If I were building this aircraft,(speculating within the limits of 1930's technology) I would outfit it with 12.7mm(.50cal) and 30mm as anti aircraft weaponry, 40mm, 50mm, 88mm and 105mm (in any combination of one or all) as anti ground weapons mounted on the underside with 'shoot down' capability. And aircraft this size would likely be fairly slow, making it perfect as a gunship. Particularly against armor.

Now I have to build this in X-Plane! haha Time to fly!

Eric Bear Nyhof - March 24, 2011 @ 07:03 am PDT

The aircraft had one big problem: Flutter! So the massive twin tail booms simply fluttered to death, resulting in a major crash! So it never got into production!

But it sure looks weird, with the number of engines varying, sometimes even the wheel spats had engines!

Like much Soviet things it was a lot of propaganda and little results! When Tupolev came onto the stage things changed a lot, even if he too had to design a lot in prison!

Tord S Eriksson - March 30, 2011 @ 04:56 pm PDT

Its Gigantic and beautiful

Facebook User - April 18, 2011 @ 08:44 am PDT

So I just went to visit the Spruce Goose last weekend. Sorry to break the news to you, but the only measurement in which the Spruce Goose is bigger than the A380 (or 747, or An-225,) is in wingspan. All three of those other aircraft are longer, and all three have *SIGNIFICANTLY* higher payload capacities (both weight and volume,) empty weight, and loaded weight.

The Spruce Goose is a wonderful aircraft, don't get me wrong, but the belief that it is "the largest aircraft ever built" is not true by any measure other than wingspan.

Ed Hurtley - June 22, 2011 @ 11:16 am PDT

you look at stuff like this and you understand why the soviet union went broke. and then you start wondering about the united states timeline for going broke.

i think the osprey says it all. decades of failure and continous piling on of reasons to defund a project and it still survives. there is no way but to go broke. once there is no money, then we can start asking ourselves how to design a system that is capable of recognizing and accepting mistakes and correcting midcourse.

all successful military battles require scanning for battle field changes and making midcourse adjustments , even at times, retreat. a blind full force ahead approach leads eventually to failure, and this is the clear course the u.s. military is headed for as it railroads the taxpayer base and banking base that funds its activities into bankruptcy.

---you can bleed the cow, but you can't kill it.

Facebook User - July 15, 2011 @ 02:47 pm PDT

The Spruce Goose could only fly on ground effect (or so I hear tell). Maybe you could put a thin fiberglass skin on it and re-engine it with turboprops and it would make a good remote access freight carrier.

Douglas Bennett Rogers - August 18, 2011 @ 12:55 pm PDT