Ink,
AVIKO-press has a booklet in Russian on the VVA-14. The whole development and cancellation of it is described, if you might stumble across it – get it!
Since it’s in Russian and years ago since i read it, here’s a posting by a guy called ‘Don’ at the airbase.ru forum, http://airbase.ru/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=9&t=14212:

Like they called it in Soviet Republics – “The Beriev’s Cow”

Terms required to know:
Ekran (Screen) phenomena – change of lift-generating properties
of a wing at extremely low height flights – discovered by aviators.

In the early 1950s (correct me if I’m wrong) R.L. Bartini working for OKB Beriev introduced new idea of using Ekran phenomena for improving take off/landing properties of an aircraft. According to N.A. Pogorelov, primary assistant designer of R.L. Bartini, the main aim was to realize ideas of contactless take-off and landing: an aircraft lifts itself above the ground or waterbody a little bit and then begins its take-off run leaning against the “ekran”. If this would ever come true, a revolutionary aircraft technology would’ve been invented which would require no runways and
gave considerably greater performance advantage over the average VSTOL jets.

According to the above concept, two technology anti-submarine
testbeds were built under VVA-14 designation. VVA stands for “Vertikal’no Vzletaushaya Amfibia” or Vertical Take-off Amphibious aircraft. Due to contactless take-off and landing, a better marine performance was achieved, the dream
of takeoff and landing on sea under any kind of weather conditions became a reality. Vertical take-off ensured special gas-pillow which magnified itself within the fuselage using two air compressors (so basically a huge balloon was formed inside of that plane). In 1976 one of these prototypes was rebuilt into
ekranoplan. It was designated 14M1P (see illustration). Designers placed to additional D-30M engines on the nose of the aircraft for the purpose of increasing airflow under wings, rubber landing gear was replaced with more durable one made out of metal.

Some time after R.L. Bartini passed away in 1974, and all works
on the project were cancelled under great pressure of OKB Beriev which was developing A-40 and A-50 anti-submarine amphibians and wanted no competition.
One of remaining prototypes, VVA-14 #10687, crippled after a fire accident, without a tailplane, engines and wings was delivered to Monino where it slowly, but surely grows a thick layer of rust up to present days. The sight is awful I must say.

I’m not sure how many VVA-14s were actually built: sources range from one to three. However, the sources mentioning that more than one were built state that another one should be rusting away at the dump of the Beriev OKB at Taganrog. Having been on that dump, between all the wonderous and absolutely never-seen pieces of unidentifiable wrecks and parts, i did not see anything resembling a VVA-14. Plenty of other weird stuff though (unfortunately, the pics of the dump are now with the FSB :rolleyes: ).

I have only been to about four or five (R)IATs in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Back then the price of the event wasn’t as astronomically as it is today, but after the great impression it gave me in the early years, the massality of the whole thing made me loose appetite for such events.

Also, and i’m going to sound like an arrogant SOB here, i think the IAT can be blamed for ‘aircraft devaluation.’ It’s an anorak-thingie, but i do think there is a difference in having seen a Ukrainian Backfire while sogging up some extra vinegar with your chip and drinking a can of warm Foster’s, or having seen that very same Backfire while hoping your Lada doesn’t get stuck in the raspu****a (=the stickiest, soggiest, heaviest mud imaginable) near Poltava. Sure, it’s absolutely great to see rare aircraft for real. But for me, the whole atmosphere surrounding a certain aircraft is lost when put on a massive show like the (R)IAT. A Jordanian Mirage is great – but it would be even greater with a sandstorm in the background.

Equally, i can imagine that piston-people prefer to see a Hurricane in the background of that Blenheim, in stead of an F-117.

Again, don’t get me wrong: i think the RIAT does a great job in bringing large numbers of aircraft to a public event, some of those aircraft being particularly interesting/rare/exotic. And i definately love it that i have seen an operational Skywarrior (yes it’s a parrafine thing, but it’s old too) at Fairford in 1991. In hindsight, i would have preferred seeing it at Rota, a carrier, or just as an odd surprise when boring myself do death during some lame day spent planespotting.

An-225 obviously.

Don’t know if the guy still lives there, but in the French village of St. Péravy-la-Colombe (between Chateaudun and Orleans), a guy lives in the pod of a Noratlas.

Paul: you mean the Bartini VVA-14.

It certainly looks strange, but what else would you expect from a VTOL amphibian which can fly both as aircraft and as ekranoplan?
I absolutely love it, it’s a shame it is in such bad shape at Monino.

Better days at Taganrog…

And the sad remains at Monino… the wings should still be there, but they have never been fitted ever since the aircraft went to the museum in the late 1970s. Watch these pics by the resident Flanker Man and weep…

A small loss for the Hussein family, but one giant gain for humanity.

I didn’t learn about the US from watching Hollywood movies or Dallas.

Nope.

I watched America’s Funniest Home Videos once.

Since then, i’m a French muslim-fundamentalist commie, singing praise to Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden, Charlton Heston and Henry Ford (no matter how much some people admire OBL for killing Americans, the tally on Charlton Heston’s NRA and the averagely unskilled American driver is much higher), wiping my butt with the American flag only when i’m having diarrhea, and just sit back and watch the show of self-humiliation that country provides…

😀

This is definately the funniest thread ever. Keep trolling, US Ag, keep trolling!

Interesting read – love those macrocultures.

But indeed, an over-zealous Greek interest in them for being of possible Alexandrian descent could really choke the original culture. Sending out anthropologists not to research the Kalash themselves, but to prove their Greek heritage is not the way to go – it will choke their own indigenous culture, especially if the society itself is as small as 4000.

Icarus, would you perhaps have some linguistical info on them and make me really enthusiastic?