Aircraft, Awful and Awesome:

***image1***In the 1950s a supersonic intercontinental bomber was not only a priority of the United States but also of the Soviet Union.

In 1955, several Soviet design bureaus began work on a large, supersonic bomber with an unrefuelled range of 1,600 miles and a dash speed of Mach 2. It was capable of carrying a sizeable weapons load, consisting mainly of air launched ballistic missiles. The result was the Myasishchyev M-50, given the NATO name of Bounder.

The M-50 had a delta wing and used four pod mounted, afterburning jet engines. The M-50 was not aerodynamically sophisticated, but relied on the brute force of its engines: as a result, the M-50 never exceeded Mach 1 and its range was well under 1,000 miles.

The delta wing generated so little lift on takeoff that in the middle of the take off run the nose gear had to “bounce” up 10 degrees to provide the proper takeoff angle, and even then the takeoff run was almost 10,000 feet – which is nearly the entire length of the runway at Ramstein. The M-50 landed so fast that to slow it down four steel skids were dropped down and brought it to a stop in a shower of sparks.

The M-50 was wildly unsuccessful in every way except as a propaganda tool. Only one M-50 was built, but each time it flew in public the Soviet propaganda machine had a different number painted on the nose. The M-50’s shining moment came at the 1961 Moscow air show when the lone M-50 (with a new number) made a high speed fly-by over a crowd of western observers.

The world’s aviation press speculated the M-50 was in mass production, but in fact that was its last flight. The M-50 never flew again and today sits at the Russian air museum at Monino, where it is still a public affairs tool – a stylized picture of the M-50 is featured on the museum’s home page (http://monino.ru/).