Today the idea of creating a flying tank seems quite absurd. Indeed, when you have transport planes at your disposal that can transport a tank from one point of the world to another, you somehow don’t think about attaching wings to a heavy armored combat vehicle. However, in the 1930s of the last century, everything was completely different, aircraft capable of airlifting tanks simply did not exist, so the very idea of creating a full-fledged aircraft tank bothered the minds of many designers in different countries of the world. At the same time, the most famous are the projects of the USA and the USSR in this area.
The First World War presented the military with new types of weapons, among which were tanks and combat aircraft. And if tanks appeared on the battlefields already at the height of the war, then well-known aircraft were able to establish themselves as a fairly effective weapon before. At the same time, the military of many countries acquired a colossal experience of hostilities, which confirmed them in the thought of the mass of negative consequences of trench warfare, military thought was moving towards a war of engines, lightning war, and deep offensive operations. In these conditions, more and more attention of the military was occupied by the issue of transferring the main strike force of the ground forces, which became tanks, to the desired directions of the strike. It was in such an environment that the idea of crossing a tank and an aircraft was born.
At the same time, the primacy of the idea of creating a flying tank belongs to the famous American designer George Walter Christie, who presented his project of a flying tank back in 1932. He created the concept of a new armored vehicle that could travel through the air. American journalists greeted this idea with great enthusiasm; newspapers published schemes of Christie's flying tank, which, according to media representatives, could save America from any attacks. At the same time, the idea was expected to have a huge number of skeptics, and the only person who really did not doubt the project, perhaps, was only Christie himself. The designer always went with fanatical perseverance to achieve his goals, even when he was not on the best terms with the American government.
The first stage in the implementation of his project, George Walter Christie, considered the reckless M.1932 tank he created, which was made of duralumin. The mass of the tank did not exceed 4 tons, while it was planned to equip it with a 75-mm gun. The tank was supposed to receive a 750 hp engine. The speed of the tank on a caterpillar track was supposed to be 90 km / h. The crew consisted of two people, a driver-mechanic and a gunner-commander. According to Christie's project, it was planned to equip the tank with a biplane wing box, to which the tail unit was attached. An air propeller was to be installed on the front of the upper wing. The distance required for takeoff was about 200 meters. The first half of the journey, the tank had to accelerate under its own power on tracks, after which the drive switched to the propeller, takeoff had to occur when a speed of 130 km / h was reached.
But what looked simple enough on paper in the form of a project was very difficult to bring to life. The big challenge was the implementation of remote switching of the drive from tracks to propeller and vice versa. For that time period, this was a rather difficult problem. Over time, the designer finally deteriorated relations with the US Department of Arms, where they were dissatisfied with his negotiations with the Soviet Union. Ultimately, the project never came to fruition. However, the idea of creating a flying tank flew across the ocean, capturing the minds of various designers in the USSR. It was in the Soviet Union that Christie's high-speed tanks found their real living embodiment in the family of serial and very massive BT tanks (high-speed tank), and the very idea of creating an aviatank turned out to be the closest to full-fledged implementation. At least a tank glider or an A-40 flying tank even took off.
At the same time, in the USSR, various options for transporting armored vehicles by air were considered quite actively. In the 1930s, tests were carried out using heavy TB-3 bombers, which were carriers of T-27 tankettes and T-37A light amphibious tanks, which were suspended under the aircraft fuselage. At the same time, the T-37A could be dropped in this way directly into the water. At the same time, the combat value of these vehicles was extremely limited; by the beginning of World War II, they were considered completely obsolete. At the same time, the capabilities of the TB-3 bomber were extremely limited, which forced the Soviet designers to look at the problem from a different angle, following Christie's path and developing their own tank-aircraft hybrids.
In May 1937, Soviet engineer Mikhail Smalko, on his own initiative, began work on an armored vehicle that could take off, land and participate in ground combat. He took the BT-7 fast tank as a basis, which was going to be significantly modified to improve the aerodynamic properties, which were very important for the flying model. At the same time, Smalko went much further than Christie had planned, his project had significant differences. Mikhail Smalko was going to build a full-fledged flying tank. He hoped to lift a heavy combat vehicle with a steel, and duralumin, body into the sky. In addition, his flying tank was supposed to receive folding wings, a retractable tail and a propeller reinforced in the bow. According to his plan, a Soviet flying tank could fly from one place to another several times, while Christie's American project assumed only a one-time use of dropped biplane wings, dropping their "body kit" Christie's tanks had to engage in battle, while being raised again into the air it was not planned for them.
Mikhail Smalko called his project MAS-1 (Small Aviation Smalko), and another name was also known LT-1 (the first flying tank). The most vulnerable parts of the body of the flying tank MAC-1 were covered with armor from 3 to 10 mm thick. At the same time, the body of the tank was significantly redesigned to improve its aerodynamic properties. The armament of the aircraft tank was to consist of two large-caliber 12, 7-mm machine guns DK in the tower and one 7, 62-mm machine gun ShKAS, which fired through a propeller using an aviation synchronizer, the full tank ammunition consisted of 5 thousand rounds for machine guns. The wings of a flying tank consisted of two halves: outer (armored) and retractable. The armored half of the wing was attached to the hull of the tank and rotated around the axis of attachment 90 degrees backward, while the inner retractable half was pulled outward by a special mechanism. In the unfolded position, the wingspan was 16.2 meters. The retractable tail was planned to be fixed on special carriages inside the tank, it was supposed to move out and retract back into the hull simultaneously with the wings. The propeller installation, which consisted of two metal blades, in a combat situation had to be removed under the protection of special armored shields in the bow of the tank. As a power plant on the MAC-1, a boosted up to 700 hp was to be used. engine M-17. Since the chassis and suspension were inherited from the BT-7, the speed characteristics of the car were at their best. The tank could unleash a barrage of machine-gun fire on the enemy, moving on a wheeled track at a speed of up to 120 km / h. The cruising flight speed was supposed to be about 200 km / h, the planned flight range - up to 800 km, the ceiling - up to 2000 meters.
In the implementation of his plans, Smalko advanced further than many of his colleagues, he managed to create a full-size wooden model, with which he planned to start the first tests. However, things did not go further than the layout and models, and Smalko himself eventually abandoned his idea. At the same time, the idea of transferring tanks by air did not go anywhere, and work in this direction in the USSR continued. In particular, the idea of creating a suspension mechanism for light tanks BT-7 to a long-range bomber was being worked out.
Another Soviet designer and engineer, Oleg Antonov, came closest to a real flying tank. In 1941, after the start of the Great Patriotic War, the team headed by Antonov was entrusted with the task of creating gliders designed to deliver various cargoes to partisan detachments. While working on this assignment, Antonov came up with the idea to combine a light tank and a glider. Work on the creation of a new flying tank, which received the A-40 index, began in December 1941. A serial light tank T-60 was used for testing. According to calculations, its undercarriage, without making changes to it, was supposed to withstand the load during takeoff. It was planned that the flying tank would detach from the towing aircraft at a distance of 20-30 kilometers from the planned landing site, covering this distance like a glider.
Especially for this project, a fairly large wooden wing box of the biplane scheme was designed and built, which most of all resembled the aircraft of the First World War. The wings and tail booms were attached to the hull of the T-60 tank at four points on the lower wing. After landing, by turning just one handle, the entire structure of the airframe was dropped, after which the tank could immediately engage the enemy. To reduce air resistance during the flight, the turret of the tank had to be turned back with the gun. No work was done to improve the aerodynamics of the tank hull. At the same time, it was assumed that the driver-mechanic of the aircraft tank would undergo initial pilot training.
The glider for a flying tank was ready in April 1942 in Tyumen, from there it was brought for testing to Zhukovsky near Moscow. Test pilot Sergei Anokhin took part in the tests. It was decided to use a TB-3 bomber equipped with AM-34RN forced engines as a towing aircraft. At the same time, the total weight of the structure of the A-40 flying tank was approaching 7.5 tons, of which 2 tons fell on the wooden wings themselves. For this reason, before the flight, they tried to lighten the tank as much as possible by removing fenders, tool boxes and other elements unnecessary during the flight. To improve visibility, the pilot was supplied with a special periscope. Standard tank equipment was supplemented with a pilot's control stick, rudder pedals, and a compass, altimeter and speedometer appeared on the driver's dashboard.
The first tests were carried out on the ground. Sergei Anokhin jogged along the concrete strip of the airfield. At this time, a cable was fed to the tank from the aircraft and the takeoff run began. Sparks flew from under the tracks of the T-60, it seemed that a little more and the flying tank would be able to break away from the runway, but the driver and pilot also opened the cable lock and only a heavy bomber rose into the sky, and the flying tank continued to move along inertia, after which it returned to the parking lot on its own.
The first real flight of a flying tank was also the last. It took place on September 2, 1942. Anokhin later recalled: “Everything was bearable, but it was unusual to be inside the tank with a parachute. I start the engine, turn on the speed, clanging its tracks, the tank drives towards the tail of the TB-3. Here the tank is clinging to the aircraft, through the viewing slot you can see dust clouds appear from under the propellers of the bomber, the towing cable is pulled. The long and snake-like cable turns into a steel rod before my eyes. Then the flying tank shudders all over and starts to move, rushing across the airfield faster and faster. A slight roll to the left is felt - the tank is already in the air. I level the unusual aircraft, while the tank gains altitude, the rudders respond to my movements."
This first and only flight lasted no more than 15 minutes. From the high air resistance of the airframe, the motors of the four-engined bomber begin to overheat. At the command from the TB-3, Sergei Anokhin uncouples the flying tank from the plane and lands at the nearest airfield Bykovo. After landing, Anokhin, without dropping the glider from the tank, went to the command post of the airfield, where they were not warned about the appearance of an unusual machine and did not know anything about the tests. The landing of an unusual aircraft provoked an air raid at the airfield. As a result, the calculation of the anti-aircraft battery removed the test pilot from the tank and took him "prisoner". The "spy" was released only after the rescue team arrived at the airfield. So the world's first flight of a winged tank came to an end. The results of the flight made it possible to conclude that the power of the available engines is insufficient for the effective operation of the flying tank. It was possible to try to tow the A-40 aviatank with the help of more powerful Pe-8 bombers, but there were no more than 70 units in their ranks, therefore, no one dared to attract a rare and valuable long-range bomber for testing in towing a flying tank.
