Ilyushin Il-54

The Ilyushin Il-54 was an experimental Soviet transonic bomber of the 1950s, built to a 1954 Council of Ministers directive for a prototype to be ready for state acceptance trials. Its very thin wing was swept at 45 degrees with anhedral and mounted on the shoulder of the fuselage, and two Lyulka AL-7 turbojets sat in slim pods about a third of the way along each wing. Because the wings and nacelles were too small for ordinary landing gear, it used a bicycle undercarriage that knelt to set the angle for take-off. Test pilot Vladimir Kokkinaki began flight trials in April 1955. Only two were built; production was not pursued because of competition from Yak-25 derivatives and the belief that missiles would replace crewed aircraft. The NATO name Blowlamp was assigned after it had stopped flying.