Belly of the Beast: Illicit Photos from Inside the Soviet GEV Plane “Ekranoplan”

rferl.org

42 points·Osiris30··10 comments

Amazing pictures! I hope this machine can be preserved and made visible to people: engineers and children will be amazed!

However, I don't believe their story of a guard sleeping while they were walking through metal frame and taking pictures with flashes. Bet that they paid the guard and agreed on the story he was sleeping to not put him in trouble...

> Bet that they paid the guard and agreed on the story he was sleeping to not put him in trouble...

Nice call.

I remember we went to a illicit rocket gambling site after hours on the Thai Cambodia border and took some photos, the same, except he was also rotten drunk, I'd guess possibly the same here, bored and keen to see people :)

What is rocket gambling!?

Exactly that. Fire up a rocket, bet where it lands. Multi billion $ off books industry.

Wouldn’t a guard be in trouble for being asleep anyway?

Sleep could be a mistake, an accident, and bribery could be a crime, but ymmv

Here's a great video to accompany this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVdH_dYlVB8 The rest of this guys channel is equally as good, the animations are fantastic.

While I loved reading about it, it's curious someone felt the need to do this weeks before it was presented to the general public. I mean what's the point not waiting a bit more?

They failed because the efficiency was theoretical and never tested before in practical terms on real cargo sea routes.

I think the big issue was that they were tricky to take off and land in less than perfect sea conditions, their main advantage in efficiency getting mostly erased by cheap and abundant air travel infrastructure.

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