Ilyushin Il-32

The Ilyushin Il-32 was a Soviet heavy military glider developed after the Second World War to deliver 7,000 kg of cargo. The Soviets put considerable effort into heavy transport gliders for airborne assaults, and the Council of Ministers ordered the Ilyushin design bureau on 20 September 1947 to build one able to carry 7,000 kg, including 60 troops or a 122 mm cannon with its prime mover, ammunition and crew. It was an aluminium-bodied, high-wing cantilever monoplane with a fixed tricycle undercarriage and a square-section fuselage, and it was regarded as expendable and built very simply for large-scale manufacture. The nose and tail sections swung sideways to ease loading. It first flew on 20 August 1948, towed first by an Il-12 and then by the four-engined Il-18 prototype, and was cancelled because no suitable four-engined tug was available.