Not a Pound for Air to Ground certainly comes up with interesting and informative material. Commentary is brisk factual and where appropriate dry humour is inserted. Excellent videos and pretty darn good research make you a must watch when I'm alerted.
4:38 Good lord, it's like an alternate universe, dieselpunk MiG-15/17. I'm not sure if I love it or hate it, but my life is certainly improved by knowing that this...thing...existed
Lavochkin had some really underrated jet designs, including the 174 which was the first soviet production jet to go past mach 1 in level flight. Greatly underrated designer
I've got the A-Model kit of the Tu-128 in the stash. I taped up the kit's parts to compare it to a Phantom. It's HUGE. I'd love to see a video on its development and service history.
@@Corey_Brandt From the defunct Dilbert comic strip. Elbonia is a fictitious communist country in the Balkans that Dilbert would have to visit every now and then.
Soviets and their strategic bomber size interceptors, this is about the time Americans were making the 102 so Soviets were not doing bad for the time actually...
It was a time of very rapid advancement on both sides of the pond, but the Soviets were willing to go places and turn things into steel that the Americans would have scrapped in the early design phase.
I am slowly realizing the late '50's and early '60's were probably the best time to fight kaijuu, especially flying kaijuu. Giant monster? No problem. We have jets with 300-lb warhead AAMs. Heck, we have NUCLEAR AAMs, if the critter doesn't stay in the remote Pacific!
All problems aside, its a beautiful, and even modern looking design. You could've told me this was some kind of Mirage prototype and I'd have believed it.
Love it! These late 1940s through 1950s and early 60s Soviet designs were often the case (for me anyway at least) a mixture of innovation and crudeness all rolled into one (like the tires!) Which is what makes them so cool! Great episode thank you!
Anakonda is an appropriate name for such a scary plane, at least to the pilots, anyway. If this thing had been any more of a horror show, I would expect J.Lo and Ice Cube to make an appearance.
Outstanding and really interesting video mate 👍 i was wondering if you had considered sticking the audio for these videos on somewhere like spotify or googlepodcasts? I say that as you tube ties up the phone many people use to watch these videos, in a podcast format it would be much easier to listen too, so might increase your engagement. Just a wee idea not a criticism or anything. Please keep these videos going mate.
It would be nice to get some videos on the cold war Sukhoi jets mentioned here. Such as Su-7 and Su-17 / 22. Especially since they would end up being the backbone of many nations' attack jet inventory for quite awhile.
That were wild years in aviation world. Many new designs, and many failures too... Lack of computers and supersonic wind tunnels had something to do with that...
I didn't even know the Yak-25 existed, and a short mention has now informed me of it. All the soviet interceptors are quite odd compared to those of the west.
Impressive effort on their part considering they went from p47's jet cousin and beam riders to badly proportioned f4-ish looking plane with the course set for SA/A radar missiles in such short time.
Would you care to do a video on the McDonnell F-101 Voodoo at some point? For whatever reason, it seems to be the least discussed Century Series fighter, and I'd love to learn more about it.
The i-250 looks to me like a 1950s Soviet F4 Phantom, same seating arrangement, and designed around missiles, rather purely guns like the other Russian planes of the time. It's quite a good looking plane
I love your videos. I’m BEGGING you, can we get a video on the Sud Aviation Vautour II? It’s one of my favorite aircraft of its period and information on it is scarce despite some manuals I got my hands on, but they’re in French and about only the IIN. Pleeeease?
You could probably make a decent length video on airframes that were capable or better than their contemporaries but were passed on because they weren't "pretty enough".
The centrifugal-flow turbojet, a clone of the Rolls Royce given to the Soviets by England after the war, was just too large diametrically to serve. This machine was too early. A waist-reduction by way of axial-flow turbojets was a future-solution.
The airplane was getting so long, that it was almost able to reach the enemy without ever leaving the runway. Its pilot most probably needed a bicycle to perform a pre-flight walkaround.
To name your airplane after a colossal, swamp-dwelling snake, doesn't sound like a good idea, even though I must say the pics of crashed prototype definitely do it justice. Lessons learned: never name an airplane after something which cannot fly.
7:48 This iteration looks like a tailed Russian version of a Fairey Delta 2, with missiles in the Red Dean/Red Hebe size and weight category. Although unlike the Delta 2, at least this made it into metal. For what that's worth. ETA: That missile weight seems way too heavy for an 8 inch diameter. Do you want to check that figure?
But yet, interestingly the Sukhoi OKB probably took the general shape of the Anakonda and turned it into the Su-15 _Flagon_ , which was the mainstay of Soviet PVO Strany interceptor forces during the Cold War (the Su-15 was the plane that unfortunately shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in 1983).
it really makes you wonder what compartmentalisation shenanigans were going on to stop the Lavochkin engineers from implementing the most basic advances in jet fighter design
I find it interesting that the La-250 didn't get a NATO reporting name. It isn't like a lot of other random prototypes that never got anywhere near useful operational service got names: for example Bounder, Clam or Felon
The Soviet Union was a collection of numerous smaller states with a massive military they drained their economy to sustain, vs one state that is Russia. Although that's a stupid statement. Which Soviet Union? 1950 USSR with T-34s? 1965 with 10,000 T-55s? 1991 Soviet Union? Where are they fighting? Who attacks and who is defending? Are they going to go nuclear? That's basically like saying "The US would totally defeat California if they ever fought a war". Because California is only one state, yes that seems likely. Although old tanks are extremely vulnerable to modern missiles. But way to talk shit because you don't like someone. That is always very effective.
@@justforever96 "The Soviet Union was a collection of numerous smaller states" Not really. The Russian empire was simply just divided up into arbitrarily big or small SSRs when the USSR was created. Belarus and Ukraine had never been independent nations before it. Finland managed to become an independent state for the first time. Baltic states also, though their history is kinda messy, all the way from "effectively never independent before" to "used to be a regional superpower". The Sibirian and far eastern SSRs however, they too were never independent states in modern times. Similarly, the central Asian SSRs were leftovers from the Mongol khanates as well as some other nations and pseudonations. Armenia, Georgia and the other S. Caucasian states, they were distinct nations before the Russian empire.
"The Soviet Union would have no difficulty defeating today's Russia." *lol* They would get torn apart ridiculously fast. Unless you're referring to when USSR was at its absolute strongest and with the most up to date tech of the 80s. Then they would have a decent chance because that includes lots of systems that are still used today with only lesser upgrades.
Modern Russia is currently winning against the second largest SU state, which is currently on NATO life support. If Russia can counter modern NATO, it can easily take the former SU.
Wait, aren't tandem engines like one in front of the other? Like the Lighting is partly a tandem installation. That looks like a normal side by side mount.
ANAKONDA looks a lot like some concepts of Chinese fighter bombers from 1970's and 80's. Though again these were never built, but you can see the obvious influence, which makes sense.
I remain baffled by the fact that so many early missile-only interceptors carried *only 2 missiles.* Even if such missiles had been 100% reliable (and 1st-gen AAMs were far from that), it seems like 4 missiles should've been the *absolute minimum* acceptable load. *Especially* since the main role of these interceptors was to prevent nuclear-armed bombers from penetrating the homeland.
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension - a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.
Not a Pound for Air to Ground certainly comes up with interesting and informative material. Commentary is brisk factual and where appropriate dry humour is inserted. Excellent videos and pretty darn good research make you a must watch when I'm alerted.
Unlike another channel with cool graphics and everything Russian is automatically bad.
Is this chat GPT, or something else?
Here here! Well stated! 👍
4:38 Good lord, it's like an alternate universe, dieselpunk MiG-15/17. I'm not sure if I love it or hate it, but my life is certainly improved by knowing that this...thing...existed
The Long/THICCBOI version of the MiG-15 😂
It looks like a caricature version of F-86K
Ummm, Jetpunk? Is that a thing??
@@scottgiles7546 If it's not already a thing, it certainly needs to be!
'Tis a fugly looking beastie to be sure.
Tandem centrifugal flow engines, wild.
Good show as always, thank you.
Lavochkin had some really underrated jet designs, including the 174 which was the first soviet production jet to go past mach 1 in level flight.
Greatly underrated designer
Everyone: Its HUGE !
Tu-128: ...oh is it now ?
We need a video on that beast as well
and it looks surprisingly similar to the Tu-128...
I've got the A-Model kit of the Tu-128 in the stash. I taped up the kit's parts to compare it to a Phantom. It's HUGE. I'd love to see a video on its development and service history.
@@mikepette4422 it was huge, it's just the TU-128 was gargantuan.
Best aviation channel by a country mile..
what type of mile? nautical? Imperial? Roman?
how many feet? what type of feet? whose feet?
Are they smelly?
@@simon199418 Alright, chill, no feet for you.
@@Unionthewizard but how will I get my inches?
I'll add Rex's Hanger and Greg's Airplanes & Automobiles to that list. Greg's done like 8 vids on the P-47 alone
I work nights. I love that you release videos at 5am
I'm in the same position; between 2am and 3am is the best part of my day, or night, as it were!
East coast of USA? 6 pm for me in Queensland Australia
Me too, night brother.
@@xgford94 US West Coast, here, specifically the Pacific Northwest
Happens. Scotland.
Glory to Elbonia!
?
@@Corey_Brandt From the defunct Dilbert comic strip. Elbonia is a fictitious communist country in the Balkans that Dilbert would have to visit every now and then.
This is sure to impress the generalissimo! Just look at the size of that air intake!
Bespoke tires no less. Nothing but the finest for the greatest airforce in the world.
@@Corey_Brandt”?”..oh the sign of the most famous villain of Elbonia. Yess, masterr ?
0:45 - Stalin was dead by then, so at the likelihood of ending up in Siberia, was much less reduced.
so you were more likely to end up in Siberia?
@@michaelmoorrees3585 not by much. Brezhnev was no saint nor Krushchev.
Soviets and their strategic bomber size interceptors, this is about the time Americans were making the 102 so Soviets were not doing bad for the time actually...
Pretty ambitious, I like the spirit. If only the Sovs weren't so constrained by corruption and alcoholism this would've been much cooler
& if it weren't for whiskey...the Irish would be ruling the world 😅
Whisky is why the Scots invented just about everything.
Including whisky😁
They called it "Anakonda" because it was big and long, and moved around on its belly.
man they were all in - so many crazy designs from that time period
It was a time of very rapid advancement on both sides of the pond, but the Soviets were willing to go places and turn things into steel that the Americans would have scrapped in the early design phase.
I am slowly realizing the late '50's and early '60's were probably the best time to fight kaijuu, especially flying kaijuu. Giant monster? No problem. We have jets with 300-lb warhead AAMs. Heck, we have NUCLEAR AAMs, if the critter doesn't stay in the remote Pacific!
All problems aside, its a beautiful, and even modern looking design. You could've told me this was some kind of Mirage prototype and I'd have believed it.
Absolutely first rate. Thank you.
Fascinating to compare this with its (very) near contemporaries: the Avro Arrow and the Gloster Javelin.
The mighty Avro Arrow. Canada's last hurrah.
Love it! These late 1940s through 1950s and early 60s Soviet designs were often the case (for me anyway at least) a mixture of innovation and crudeness all rolled into one (like the tires!) Which is what makes them so cool!
Great episode thank you!
oh wow that looked fairly modern for 1954
Very interesting and well done, thank you.
Boxy and yet slick looking plane. Like something from popular comics series in US.
I quite like it.
Splendid, thank you.
Indeed, fascinating.
I applaud your work - it is excellent and commentary is superb - and there is NO stupid, tasteless, annoying music!
I knew nothing of this aircraft.
Thank you.
☮
Yay! New video!
Love the channel, and am eagerly awaiting the eventual video on the Skyray
Love this channel! A video on the YF-12 and its GAR-9 missiles or the cancelled XF-108 Rapier would be amazing.
GREAT VIDEO AS ALWAYS!!!! never heard of this aircraft before 😊😊😊😊
Great info on a rather obscure aircraft. Very cool!
Great content as usual. Thank you!
I was waiting for this video, your channel is amazing and I'm so glad I've watched it grow! You deserve it!
The La-250 looks as clean as a whistle. The lines are good.
I guess all that glitters isn't gold.
But a very attractive design.
Anakonda is an appropriate name for such a scary plane, at least to the pilots, anyway. If this thing had been any more of a horror show, I would expect J.Lo and Ice Cube to make an appearance.
Perhaps Sir Mixalot as well...'Caus that Anakonda? Don't want none!
Judging by the plans and photos, Lavochkin had never entertained thoughts around "area ruling" his aeroplanes.
You forgot.
In Russia you do not rule area, area rules you.
Had they discovered the area rule by ~1950?
@RoaminngAdhocrat no
Except that was a capitalist duscovery.
@@RoamingAdhocrat yes
4:39 "Unattractive"? I'm in love!
Quite the colourful narration..
Jesus Christ. That is an impressive first flight.
La 7 secured his legacy along with, as they call it, dying in his traces hard at work.😔
Good work
Outstanding and really interesting video mate 👍 i was wondering if you had considered sticking the audio for these videos on somewhere like spotify or googlepodcasts? I say that as you tube ties up the phone many people use to watch these videos, in a podcast format it would be much easier to listen too, so might increase your engagement. Just a wee idea not a criticism or anything. Please keep these videos going mate.
great video as always. would love to see one on the tu-128 or la-200
Great stuff 👍👍👍
great videos as always, would love to see some videos on more missiles such as sraams and firestreaks
Wow historical coverage
It would be nice to get some videos on the cold war Sukhoi jets mentioned here. Such as Su-7 and Su-17 / 22. Especially since they would end up being the backbone of many nations' attack jet inventory for quite awhile.
Good god, that thumbnail looks metal as fuck.
That were wild years in aviation world. Many new designs, and many failures too... Lack of computers and supersonic wind tunnels had something to do with that...
Geez the la200s, I am amazed they flew so hideous its like a crime against physics I would believe the borg cube is more aerodynamic.
Ironically, in war thunder the La200 is pretty decent with great energy retention and decent power to weight for its rating
A crime against physics, I hope? ;-)
@@SatumangoTheGreat thank you, apparently it also has the amazing ability to cause my spelling to be worse than usual!
"Comrade, we were charged with making a bomber interceptor, but I think instead we have created the world's fastest tractor!"
I didn't even know the Yak-25 existed, and a short mention has now informed me of it. All the soviet interceptors are quite odd compared to those of the west.
Please do dig on the MiG-19 and the Su-15. Great videos.
Impressive effort on their part considering they went from p47's jet cousin and beam riders to badly proportioned f4-ish looking plane with the course set for SA/A radar missiles in such short time.
Engine placement. How interesting!
Would you care to do a video on the McDonnell F-101 Voodoo at some point? For whatever reason, it seems to be the least discussed Century Series fighter, and I'd love to learn more about it.
*“We the unwilling, led by the unqualified to kill the unfortunate, die for the ungrateful.” -John Hart.*
Typical Soviet sleekness; big and lumpy.
Thanks for digging this up!
i saw this one in monino! its quite a sight in real life
The i-250 looks to me like a 1950s Soviet F4 Phantom, same seating arrangement, and designed around missiles, rather purely guns like the other Russian planes of the time. It's quite a good looking plane
I love your videos. I’m BEGGING you, can we get a video on the Sud Aviation Vautour II? It’s one of my favorite aircraft of its period and information on it is scarce despite some manuals I got my hands on, but they’re in French and about only the IIN. Pleeeease?
You could probably make a decent length video on airframes that were capable or better than their contemporaries but were passed on because they weren't "pretty enough".
The La-200 and the 250 are up there for ugliest bucket ever built. Good work on this rarity.
4:34
A nose that only a mother could love.
Looks like a Proboscis monkey...
The centrifugal-flow turbojet, a clone of the Rolls Royce given to the Soviets by England after the war, was just too large diametrically to serve. This machine was too early. A waist-reduction by way of axial-flow turbojets was a future-solution.
The airplane was getting so long, that it was almost able to reach the enemy without ever leaving the runway. Its pilot most probably needed a bicycle to perform a pre-flight walkaround.
YEAH NEW VIDEO!!!!
To name your airplane after a colossal, swamp-dwelling snake, doesn't sound like a good idea, even though I must say the pics of crashed prototype definitely do it justice. Lessons learned: never name an airplane after something which cannot fly.
To me, this aircraft looks like the designers were drinking Vodka while they worked!
It has its merits.
who said they weren't?
If they had a Coke bottle as chaser, perhaps they may have given it pinched waist.
It pawed the way for better designs later on, it gets its merits based on the research alone which is important enough.
When you keep working at your F-89 equivalent so long it turns into your F-102 equivalent.
7:48 This iteration looks like a tailed Russian version of a Fairey Delta 2, with missiles in the Red Dean/Red Hebe size and weight category. Although unlike the Delta 2, at least this made it into metal. For what that's worth.
ETA: That missile weight seems way too heavy for an 8 inch diameter. Do you want to check that figure?
she never did catch the Dragon Lady.
Could you put on screen performance data in metric? At least engine thrust?
But yet, interestingly the Sukhoi OKB probably took the general shape of the Anakonda and turned it into the Su-15 _Flagon_ , which was the mainstay of Soviet PVO Strany interceptor forces during the Cold War (the Su-15 was the plane that unfortunately shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in 1983).
15km? That's like tennis ball range. So it's basically Sidewinder range with a Sparrow method of operation.
4:34 When Pixar draws a Russian fighter for the next sequel to 'Planes'.
it really makes you wonder what compartmentalisation shenanigans were going on to stop the Lavochkin engineers from implementing the most basic advances in jet fighter design
The Anakonda is still on display at the Central Air Force Museum in Monino. Egad, what a mess of a program.
The museum of horror...
4:38 "This was a pretty ... unattractive aircraft ..." :D
The resemblance to the Fiddler is palpable. I always wondered what happened to Lavochkin.
I find it interesting that the La-250 didn't get a NATO reporting name. It isn't like a lot of other random prototypes that never got anywhere near useful operational service got names: for example Bounder, Clam or Felon
Majestic
The Soviet Union would have no difficulty defeating today's Russia.
The Soviet Union was a collection of numerous smaller states with a massive military they drained their economy to sustain, vs one state that is Russia. Although that's a stupid statement. Which Soviet Union? 1950 USSR with T-34s? 1965 with 10,000 T-55s? 1991 Soviet Union? Where are they fighting? Who attacks and who is defending? Are they going to go nuclear?
That's basically like saying "The US would totally defeat California if they ever fought a war". Because California is only one state, yes that seems likely. Although old tanks are extremely vulnerable to modern missiles. But way to talk shit because you don't like someone. That is always very effective.
@@justforever96 "The Soviet Union was a collection of numerous smaller states"
Not really. The Russian empire was simply just divided up into arbitrarily big or small SSRs when the USSR was created.
Belarus and Ukraine had never been independent nations before it.
Finland managed to become an independent state for the first time.
Baltic states also, though their history is kinda messy, all the way from "effectively never independent before" to "used to be a regional superpower".
The Sibirian and far eastern SSRs however, they too were never independent states in modern times.
Similarly, the central Asian SSRs were leftovers from the Mongol khanates as well as some other nations and pseudonations.
Armenia, Georgia and the other S. Caucasian states, they were distinct nations before the Russian empire.
"The Soviet Union would have no difficulty defeating today's Russia."
*lol*
They would get torn apart ridiculously fast.
Unless you're referring to when USSR was at its absolute strongest and with the most up to date tech of the 80s.
Then they would have a decent chance because that includes lots of systems that are still used today with only lesser upgrades.
I am actively dumber for having read your comment
Modern Russia is currently winning against the second largest SU state, which is currently on NATO life support. If Russia can counter modern NATO, it can easily take the former SU.
Some people can't see the forest for the trees... pronunciation & measurements don't make or break it for me
I so agree
Wait, aren't tandem engines like one in front of the other? Like the Lighting is partly a tandem installation. That looks like a normal side by side mount.
Still looks much better than its western counterparts.
the amount of lives, time and money spent on machines for inflicting death
is mind-boggling.
I feel a Sir Mix A Lot song coming on...but I don't know how to sing it in Russian!
Oh god not this thing!!!
Comrade cut hole, vibrations gone, is no problem
I bet very few people know about this project indeed.
By sheer looks alone it's no wonder why the Tupolev 128 won the contest.
I always wondered why more aircraft didnt have that downwards thrusting engine like on the la-200
4:55 nice...
ANAKONDA looks a lot like some concepts of Chinese fighter bombers from 1970's and 80's. Though again these were never built, but you can see the obvious influence, which makes sense.
I remain baffled by the fact that so many early missile-only interceptors carried *only 2 missiles.* Even if such missiles had been 100% reliable (and 1st-gen AAMs were far from that), it seems like 4 missiles should've been the *absolute minimum* acceptable load. *Especially* since the main role of these interceptors was to prevent nuclear-armed bombers from penetrating the homeland.
You might consider that more weapons mean more weigh and drag, which equates to less range, altitude, and speed.
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension - a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.
Looks a lot like TU128. I wonder it Tupolev used LAG's research.
Reminds me of the SU-15.
2:30 has the left main undercarriage collapsed..?
In other words, the Soviets sucked at radar integration. America had F-4 Phantoms flying circles around these POS.
The F-4 could barely respond to export Mig 21s, how could it respond to this interceptor?
Never heard a jet engine called a "motor" before.
Quite common in non English languages.
Wasn't Edison that said I learned 2000 ways not to make a light bulb
Then copied Mr Swans vacuum based version and found out how to do it so it worked.
@@andrewallen9993 the 50s aviation seems like a parody of the light bulb 2000 plus ways of not making an Airplane
@@Archie2c With Russia finding out how to make reliable jet engines from Rolls Royce rather than BMW?
Look modern for 1950s design