The sukhoi Kr-860. Sukhoi design buerau is more famous for it’s military fighters and attack aircraft throughout the Cold war and in modern day Russia,but this wasn’t the first time they strayed into the crazy aircraft territory, having worked before on the somewhat famous T-4 bomber project and less famous, but even more impressive T-4MS.
source/image(PrtSc): Found And Explained
Kr stands for Krilya Rossii, which in engish is “wings of Russia” and the 860 refers to the total amount of passengers this aircraft was built to carry. Which was more than both the western competitors to boast. The idea was for the plane to come in 3 variants: The specs listed at the Paris air show were bonkers and the real aircraft would be 80 meters long, with a wingspan of 88 meters, with the wings folding up to allow access to airport gates much like the Boeing 777X.//Found And Explained
Compared to a Boeing 747 and Airbus A380, the aircraft was over 12 meters longer than a 747 and 15 meters longer than an A380. So it was positively huge! It would have been powered with either GE engines, Pratt and Witnee, or with eight Kuznetsov NK-93 engines and would have a range of around 15,000 km. There were actually three different models of the KR-860 proposed.
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The first was your standard passenger version that could carry 860 passengers across two levels in three classes, or over 1000 if the whole aircraft was economy. The 2nd type of aircraft was your standard freighter version. But unlike other designs thrown about in their era it could carry full containers. The third type was a liquid petroleum gas variant, and this is the variant that would’ve been the most interesting for Russia itself.//Found And Explained
