Inside the graveyard of an abandoned and rusting Soviet 'Sea Monster' megaplane bigger than a Boeing 747 with eight huge jet engines

ALTHOUGH now abandoned and rusting, the 300-foot Soviet megaplane Caspian Sea Monster was once a force to be reckoned with.

The formidable ekranoplan, bigger than a Boeing 747 and armed against the teeth with rockets, is more than unique with eight enormous jet engines.

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The hybrid naval aircraft, officially called Korabl Maket, was built by the Soviet Union during the Cold War and weighed 240 tons empty, was 22 meters high, had a wingspan of 30 meters and a top speed of 500 km/h.

It was an experimental vehicle developed in the 1960s and intended for attack NATO nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers.

The machine was first put into service in 1966 and was continuously tested by the Soviet Navy until it crashed in the Caspian Sea in 1980.

It was decommissioned when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s and lay dormant for more than thirty years at the Kaspiysk naval base, about 60 miles up the coast from Derbent.

But in July 2020, the Sea Monster was towed by three tugboats and flanked by two escort ships through the shores of the Caspian Sea to a stretch of coast near Russia's southernmost point, on what would likely be its last voyage.

The enormous ship's plane is now beached as a “museum” in Derbent.

The fire-breathing water beast may be one of the weirdest machines ever built, with four engines lined up on each of its wings.

It carried six anti-ship missiles in launch tubes at the top of the fuselage, which could travel up to 60 miles at three times the speed of light.

American spies were once convinced that the ekranoplan – or ground effect vehicle – could be used for mine-laying, as well as anti-submarine and search and rescue operations.

In the 1980s, the Soviet Union wanted to build eight of these machines US Navy warships, according to naval warfare expert HI Sutton.

He said the Sea Monster was “impressively fast and heavily armed”, which was “a classic Cold War superweapon”.

Ekranoplans like the Korabl Maket move over water without actually touching it, usually skimming the surface at a height of between three and six meters.

Their proximity to the water surface while flying makes them difficult to detect by radar; it's an aerodynamic advantage called “ground effect.”

The Sea Monster was able to take off and land in storm conditions, with waves up to 2.5 meters, and never flew 9 meters above sea level – meaning it was technically considered a ship.

In its heyday, the Lun-class naval aircraft was manned by a crew of fifteen: six officers and nine sailors.

The US feared at the time that this would “add a new dimension to surface warfare at sea”.

A second Sea Monster was designed for rescue and supply missions and was almost completed in the early 1990s, but the project was scrapped when the Soviet Union collapsed and at the same time the existing ekranoplan was withdrawn from service.

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