The Tupolev Tu-124 is a 56-passenger short-range twin-jet airliner built in the Soviet Union. It was the Soviet Union's first operational airliner powered by turbofan engines.
Umberto Nobile was an Italian aviator, aeronautical engineer and Arctic explorer.
DOSAAF, full name Volunteer Society for the Assistance to the Army, Aviation, and Navy, was a paramilitary sport organization in the Soviet Union, concerned mainly with weapons, automobiles and aviation. The society was established in 1927 as OSOAVIAKhIM and from 1951 to 1991 carried the name of DOSAAF.
The Norge was a semi-rigid Italian-built airship that carried out the first verified trip of any kind to the North Pole, an overflight on 12 May 1926. It was also the first aircraft to fly over the polar ice cap between Europe and America. The expedition was the brainchild of polar explorer and expedition leader Roald Amundsen, the airship's designer and pilot Umberto Nobile and the wealthy American adventurer and explorer Lincoln Ellsworth who, along with the Norwegian Aviation Society, financed the trip, which was known as the Amundsen-Ellsworth 1926 Transpolar Flight.
The Italia was a semi-rigid airship belonging to the Italian Air Force and designed by Italian engineer and General Umberto Nobile who commanded the dirigible in his second series of flights around the North Pole. Returning from the pole in May 1928, the Italia crashed with one confirmed fatality, another fatality from exposure while awaiting rescue, and six missing crew members who were trapped in the envelope, which was blown away. At the end of the rescue operations there were a total of seventeen dead and eight survivors, including General Nobile.
The G-Class Blimps were a series of non-rigid airships (blimps) used by the United States Navy. In 1935, instead of developing a new design airship, the Navy purchased the Goodyear Blimp Defender for use as a trainer and utility airship assigning it the designator G-1. Defender was built by the Goodyear Aircraft Company of Akron, Ohio and was the largest blimp in the company’s fleet of airships that were used for advertising and as passenger airships. Goodyear built additional G-class airships for the Navy during World War II to support training needs.
Roma was an Italian-built semi-rigid airship, designated by its designer as the Model T-34. Purchased by the United States from the Italian government in 1921, Roma was operated for three months by the United States Army Air Service from November 15, 1921 to February 21, 1922, when it crashed in Norfolk, Virginia, killing 34 crewmen and passengers aboard, with 9 survivors. As a result of this accident, Roma was the last hydrogen inflated airship flown by the US military; all subsequent US Army and Navy airships were inflated with non-flammable helium.
A semi-rigid airship is an airship which has a stiff keel or truss supporting the main envelope along its length. The keel may be partially flexible or articulated and may be located inside or outside the main envelope. The outer shape of the airship is maintained by gas pressure, as with the non-rigid "blimp". Semi-rigid dirigibles were built in significant quantity from the late 19th century but in the late 1930s they fell out of favour along with rigid airships. No more were constructed until the semi-rigid design was revived by the Zeppelin NT in 1997.
The Red Tent (Russian: Красная палатка, translit. Krasnaya palatka; Italian: La tenda rossa is a joint Soviet/Italian 1969 adventure drama film directed by Mikhail Kalatozov.
Aeroflot Flight 411 was an international scheduled flight from Sheremetyevo Airport, Moscow to Freetown, Sierra Leone via Dakar in Senegal. Early on 6 July 1982, the four-engined Ilyushin Il-62 crashed and was destroyed by fire after two engines were shut down shortly after take-off. All 90 passengers and crew on board died as a result of the accident.
The Tupolev MTB-2, also known as the ANT-44, was a Soviet four-engine flying boat built in the late 1930s. Two prototypes were built; performance was satisfactory, but the design was overtaken by the fielding of long-range, land-based bombers by Soviet Naval Aviation and cancelled in 1940.
The Polikarpov DI-1, also known as 2I-N1, Russian: Поликарпов ДИ-1 (2И-Н1), was a prototype Soviet two-seat fighter designed during the 1920s. The sole prototype built crashed on its ninth flight, due to manufacturing defects, and the program was cancelled.
Heroic Deed Among the Ice is a 1928 Soviet silent documentary film. It is also known as Exploit on the Ice and Ice-Breaker Krassin. This film is the first collaboration between Georgi Vasilyev and Sergei Vasilyev.
This article outlines some of the non-rigid and semi-rigid airships used in or built in Russia and the Soviet Union.
Aeroflot Flight 6551 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight on an Ilyushin Il-18B from Baku to Novosibirsk with a stopover in Tashkent that crashed on 11 May 1973 over Semipalatinsk in the Kazakh SSR, killing all 63 people aboard.
The Goodyear RS-1 was the first semi-rigid airship built in the United States. The dirigible was designed by chief aeronautical engineer and inventor, Herman Theodore Kraft of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company for the United States Army Air Service in the late 1920s. Goodyear built only one airship of this type.
Aeroflot Flight 5484 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Odesa to Kazan with a stopover in Kyiv that experienced loss of control followed by breaking up in the air on 29 August 1979 over the Tambov Oblast, killing all 63 people on board. It remains the deadliest Tu-124 crash and regular passenger services with the Tu-124 were permanently suspended after the accident, but the Tu-124 was still used by the Soviet military after the accident.
The Grigorovich MR-2 was a long-range reconnaissance flying boat designed by the Grigorovich Design Bureau for the Soviet Navy in the late 1920s.
Vera Fedorovna Demina née Mityagina was a Soviet airship pilot. At the age of 28, Mityagina became the first woman to command an airship. In 1937, she commanded a female flight crew on the Soviet USSR-V1 airship.
The Zeppelin LZ 5, tactical number Z II, was a German experimental military rigid airship constructed under the direction of Ferdinand von Zeppelin. After having made numerous successful trips, LZ 5 broke loose from its moorings in a storm and subsequentely crashed on 25 April 1910.
