This should be made into an official vehicle concept. High-seated driver in the rear, low-seated passengers in the front. Because you know, Early WW1 "fighter" plane design where the gunner(s) sits in front of the pilot!

I've only seen that technique once... in Shaun the Sheep...

I share the same sentiment! I particularly fear for structural failures as major airframe components shearing off without warning pretty much meant certain death in the days before ejection seats.

These wacky planes are however tremendous fun in games covering the early jet age. I remember trying out a few Russian…

Thanks for the photos, I lol'd at the turbos reaching up at the sky, and the cockroach-like extreme chopped top!

When I tried to do this in GRID once, I got shunted into a stack of tires and then the car barrel rolled over the pack and crashed down heavily destroyed and without its wheels.

Suffice to say, I suck at racing games :)

I used to ride with a small club that primarily rode little Asian mopeds and miniature cruisers for fun.

This is what the Dear Leader looks like in an alternate universe.

In 1961 Donald Reid designed and built a single-seat craft (32.83 ft length) capable of flight and underwater movement. A 65 hp (48 kW) engine mounted on a pylon provided propulsion for flight; a 1 hp electric motor in the tail provided underwater propulsion. The pilot used an aqualung for breathing underwater. The…

Every little micro-Newton of thrust counts!

Except this isn't deep space and a starship on a constant-acceleration flight plan.

Forget the salvage and recovery company, let's just get many, many passengers to go outside and push the ship upright.

My first thought on seeing the title was "How many hundred tons does a subway car weigh?"

Cool commentary though!

Here's another interesting "hybird" prop/jet fighter prototype by the Soviets!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-G…

They were! They were called mixed-propulsion aircraft... or hybrids :) There were a few more hybrids from the same time period listed on Wikipedia you can read up on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-gen…

Hilarious. It looks like it could work... in Kerbal Space Program.

OMG. My first thought with the Su-25 video is that of Lock On: Modern Air Combat. Loved flying the simulated Su-25.