Why The Soviets Never Built Their Darkstar DSB-LK?

this video is brought to you by morning brew [Music] meet the ultimate bomber a secret soviet project from the late 50s that could have been the fastest military aircraft ever built so fast that even the sr-71 couldn't catch it flying at hypersonic speed this plane would have been unstoppable and could bring destruction to any western city without them even realizing it or blow apart an entire us carrier group before it even appeared on radar was this russian design something completely crazy or a feasible design that would have changed the world forever today we're going over mac5 with the dsb lk format [Music] this week on my other channel i have a video about the nazi sun gun a super weapon that the nazis designed to evaporate new york check it out after this video link down below let's face it the late 50s and 60s were probably the coolest period in cold war aviation history engineers on both sides of the iron curtain were being given carte blanche to create the ultimate weapons which could carry nuclear bombs to the targets on the other side these bomber designs would bring both tactical and political advantage in any potential conflicts or proxy wars between america and the ussr but there was one major problem with many of these bomber projects interceptors both the west and the east were in a constant game of rock paper scissors each trying to develop a faster bomber and in turn a faster interceptor to beat it the united states would eventually turn their sr-71 into an interceptor called the yf-12 the fastest of its kind but it would still struggle to catch up with what the soviets were making a nuclear bomber that could fly as fast as the hypersonic nuclear missiles it carried when you're flying at hypersonic speeds you don't have time to watch boring traditional news just like this innovative aircraft you want something that's new and fresh just like morning brew that's right morning brew is a free daily newsletter that's delivered monday to sunday at 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none other than alexander maskaliov as opposed to the bigger engineering firms famous for aircraft such as mig or sahoy mascaliev was a interesting figure and aerospace engineer who designed his first aircraft when he was only 26 and his first flying prototype when he was 29 truly an engineering prodigy by his 40s he was a prominent aerospace engineer and had started working on a new concept for a supersonic seaplane bomber some of which that you can see here and they're quite frankly ludicrous various different shapes were used from the duck design to the tailless and of course the flying wing and it's this last design that he thought that held the most potential hearing of the constant one-upping between the home soviet bureaus and the capitalist americans he thought it was time to end the fight of the interceptors once and for all and thus the design of the dsb lk was born but it was also the wrong place at the wrong time the dsb lk stands for long range strategic bomber flying wing and was a concept for a new futuristic aircraft which would allow the soviets to have a complete domination over u.s air defenses one that puts speed above all else first of all mascarliov was going for mach 2 up to mach 4 maximum speed let me remind you that the sr-71 wasn't even built at this time and even then there would have been a fighter variant like the yf-12 concept to counter this new soviet threat so talk about planning ahead but this wasn't the end of his mad dash for unlimited speed combined ram jets and after burning turbo jet engine options were also explored which would have pushed the maximum speed beyond mach 4. we're talking hypersonic here these speeds would have been achieved at an extremely high altitude over 30 kilometers or a hundred thousand feet and the expected range of this aircraft was around 16 000 kilometers this would allow the dsb-lk to strike almost anywhere in the world depending of where it takes off from within the ussr the fuselage of the aircraft would have been blended with the wing hence the flying wing part of the name and this would allow for minimal drag during flight and a maximum payload capacity for combat but i'll get to its insane weapons in a minute but you're probably wondering to yourself how would they even construct such an aircraft one word titanium titanium was chosen as the material of choice as it was able to handle extreme speeds and this beast was to be powered by six engines in total separated by pairs of three in two gondolas that construction material wouldn't be a problem to acquire for the soviets because unlike the sr-71 which had to use shell companies to get it the ussr actually was the main producer of the material at the time and boy this thing was massive 50 meters in length and with a 37 meter wingspan here you can see it against both the b2 as the largest flying wing aircraft and the 2160 as the largest bomber in the world for comparison on board it would have a crew of three to four situated in two different compartments likely they would have the role of two pilots and one to two weapon officers or navigators but buckle in because now we're gonna talk about weapons [Music] size of the aircraft and its powerful engines would allow for anywhere between 15 to 20 tons of ornaments compare again with the b2s 18 to 23 tons this was quite impressive the standard payload would either be nuclear or extremely large fob 5000 bombs but here's the interesting part do you remember those ha-45 hypersonic missiles that were being developed for the t4 sotka not far into the future well they surely would have been adopted by the dsb lk which would also make this aircraft into the perfect aircraft carrier killer and with a nuclear option on board the ha-45s that would mean they could annihilate a whole us carrier group in one go there would be no defense against it but we're not done yet speaking of defense you might have also noticed these small turrets scattered over its surface these remote controlled turrets two of which on the top and two on the bottom had 1200 rounds each the jet could also be fitted with air-to-air missiles for an added layer of security against anybody who tried to sneak up on it seriously this aircraft really was overkill and there was even talk of an electronic warfare version and a spy version just like the sr-71 it could fly as fast as its missiles drop out of a high altitude and be almost undetectable or before the sr-71 was a twinkle in the eyes of the lockheed skunk works truly horrible stuff so the big question is why did we never see this plane that was so clearly ahead of everything in the world in the late 1950s it was also the start of the space race and the soviets with their intention to make an icbm got a great head start with the creation of the r7 semiorca this was also the nail in the coffin for many prospective supersonic bomber projects throughout the ussr while in the early 1960s the project got the green light to move forward to wind tunnel tests it was abruptly cancelled only six months later there was simply no more need for a super or even hypersonic bomber if you could simply launch an icbm and hit the target on the other side of the globe mascoliov was working with the zaghi institute and other important institutions within the ussr on this project but they simply never got the funding to get into prototype phase even though the concept received high praises from officials and was actually thought to be incredibly feasible it was both futuristic and also outdated at the same time because nuclear warfare was changed forever some of the findings made of this project were eventually used down the line in the construction of new soviet bombers but it's interesting to see how the us's x47b design resembles the dsb lk in its flying wing configuration what a coincidence if you want to support the channel jump onto patreon like these people to see other videos early and behind the scenes hey don't 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Channel: Found And Explained

Views: 1,456,196

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Id: Ed5CYLk6B5Y

Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 22 2022