Friday, November 19, 2010

Flying Youth

By Gustav Klutsis, 1934

Not so happy picture as at seems, considering the fate of both the artist and the 8-engine plane pictured above (and below):
ANT-20 Maxim Gorky smaller brother, the ANT-20bis aka PS-124, flew in 1938. After four years in service, on December 14, 1942, it too crashed after the pilot allowed a passenger to take his seat momentarily and the passenger apparently disengaged the automatic pilot, sending the ship into a nosedive from an altitude of 500 m (1,500 ft) and killing all 36 on board.
Poster via x ray delta one @ Flickr

2 comments:

-Warren Zoell said...

One of the cool things about the Ant 20 is that it had its own printing press, cinema and film laboratory. My favorite Tupolev aircraft would have to be the ANT-25 though.
http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/aircraft/Tupolev-Ant25.html

Lord K said...

ANT-25 is a machine of unsurpassed beauty.