Russia's Forgotten WW2 Flying Boat | Beriev Be-4 [Aircraft Overview #95]

[@RexsHangar]

F.A.Q Section Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both. Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos? A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :) Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators? A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.

[@Тонилед]

Have a good rest. By the way, maybe tell us about the MK-1 (ANT-22) created by Tupolev. Also a flying boat, with a very unusual one.

[@Hugh.Gilbert]

How about looking into the shipbourne versions of the Hurricane and Spitfire? I know of a couple of interesting stories involving the Sea Hurricane being launched from merchant ships. I also like the RN's attitude to the armament, not messing around and putting cannon on their aircraft. Now I'm thinking about it there are quite a few aircraft that could making interesting videos and I wouldn't be surprised if are on your list already; Typhoon / Tempest, IL-2, FW-190 and that US attacker that when asked how many forward firing .50s it needed the the answer was simply "yes". Might be the A26 but I'm not sure

[@egocyclic]

Supermarine Seagull (the Griffon-powered flying boat of the later ‘40s)

[@willefixit]

pbm-3 martin mariner /my dad was a crew chief on one ww2 thankx in advance

[@darrylviljoen6227]

Any chance we could get a video on the "Tsetse" the surprisingly effective de Haviland mosquito armed with a 2 pounder gun Edit: it's a 57mm 6-pounder

[@admiraltiberius1989]

I do absolutely love flying boats. I really wish they'd make a comeback. Or at least that some mad billionaire would commission a new and updated replica of the famous Clippers.

[@AkX1353]

We can dream, right!?! 😉 Gee, I wonder why this reminds me of my favorite plane of all time, the PBY Catalina. Hmm... 🤔 Both designed in the 1930's. Hmmm..... 😚 Could be USSR had spies in America pre-war. Hmmm... 😂

[@mineplow1000]

Amen. And bring back zeppelins too. I'm serious.

[@admiraltiberius1989]

@William Nelson imagine drone blimps hunting submarines together with helicopters. The submarines do the dipping then the blimps carry the weapons.

[@AkX1353]

@Marc van den Boogaard You and me both. Carbon fiber, double hull, with high pressure foam to give both rigidity and flotation which would also be light weight. Keep the pressure bulkheads. Keep and heighten the engineer's/wing mount of the PBY. Turbo props, with a third engine (probably electric motor there) draft distributed down for a hovercraft effect to break suction on take off. I could go on. I might have thought about this already 😉 Including the camper conversion.

[@hughgordon6435]

Sunderland pretty pkease!

[@Vinemaple]

All of those old Beriev flying boats just looked gorgeous. Such flair and sense of style, in the least likely of places. And the modern ones are really impressive, even if they don't have the same nice lines.

[@airmakay1961]

Russian/ Soviet aviation history is fascinating and delightfully obscure. Keep the star-birds coming!

[@markfryer9880]

An interesting aircraft that we wouldn't normally hear about in the West. Thank you Rex for adding to our knowledge of WWII aircraft. I hope that you have enjoyed your holiday away from your channel and have recharged your batteries. Mark from Melbourne Australia

[@nickcook2775]

Finally, more Soviet flying boats are getting their long overdue coverage!

[@CAP198462]

Hope the Soviet Rocket planes are coming soon. They built some adventurous designs.

[@SKILLED521]

This one is beautifully Russian and strange.

[@jesuschrist2284]

Look out for them being deployed to ukraine soon

[@WindFireAllThatKindOfThing]

I need more hot Flying Boat on Flying Boat action in my life You almost have to wonder if the both the German and Russian pilots were laughing at the absurdity of it at the time, but neither were noted for their humor

[@ridleymain9234]

I love weird seaplanes and I’m glad you cover them all the time. It’s makes me happy for seaplanes to be covered in such detail because other than the PBY most of them go unappreciated.

[@cottond62]

Oh my, you've picked a good one. I love all the Beriev aircraft. Please do more. Be 6, Be 12, mbr-2. Bring it on!

[@petesheppard1709]

It's a great example of 1930s aircraft design. My first visual impression was a baby PBY, and the photo at 10:00 illustrated how small the plane was.

[@zachsmith1676]

When the “turret” was mentioned I was thinking a turret akin to the patrol bomber consolidated’s blister turrets

[@matthewlok3020]

I share your view on being a baby PBY

[@paulwoodman5131]

Grumman Duck

[@davef.2329]

A bit of Widgeon in that hull's profile, too...

[@konstantinriumin2657]

Smol

[@cxcgamer1603]

I will always love the looks of flying boats Unsurprisingly porcco Rosso is May favourite aviation movie

[@JosephKano]

Great movie.

[@ヒロシ-s7z]

I think so too.

[@billwebb5256]

I love the models! They really let you see the airplane better than the old photos of the same plane! Keep up the good work!

[@kkang2828]

I just love seaplanes in general. Thanks for covering this one.

[@jaws666]

A great day when a new video from Rexy lands

[@stevekirk8546]

Another fascinating piece on an obscure subject and I agree it's a good looking aircraft, and as ever the 3D model is brilliant. Thank you.

[@jonathan_60503]

That is a neat looking little plane. I'd be a bit nervous about having having that prop so close to the cockpit - reminiscent of the Italian one that had that tendency to prop strike the hull on hard landings), but still a nice looking plane. (I do wonder if/how the crew was expected to bail out if one got disabled though)

[@johnladuke6475]

Bail? Nyet, comrade. Parachutes are for cowards and traitors.

[@scrubsrc4084]

You should see the Italian ones that if you landed too hard the propncutnin to the nose and could remove pilots legs.

[@Arhpeco]

That is a feature. Prop is conveniently at arms lenght from the cockpit. If it stops, the pilot can easily manualy restart the engine by turning the prop.

[@jamespfp]

Yes, I kept thinking about Howard Hughes as well. Had to look it up online to verify it, but I thought I recalled he used an amphibious 1 engine; now the Internet tells me it was a 2-engine Sikorsky S-38 and danged if Hughes didn't later crash an S-43 on a checkout flight in Lake Mead, killing 2 other people.

[@Snake-ms7sj]

Well the engine placement definitely blocked the pilots upwards vision.

[@Mishn0]

Beriev made/makes some nice looking aircraft. I've always thought they shared a lot of their good looks with some of the Japanese maritime aircraft of the war. One thing though: Tell your talented model maker that he's made the water rudder on his Be-2 look like a giant iron hook. He probably misunderstood what the object was.

[@scottfw7169]

Looking at Be-4 images, primarily pics of real ones, plus a few plastic model kits, there seem to be 3 different water rudder shapes used, certainly at least 2 different shapes. Are photos of actual aircraft having a water rudder very much that shape in a 2019 on a forum named massimotessitori in its Sovietwarplanes section -- difference being the actual airplane has a hinge in what is that vacant notch on this video's model. Looking at this video's 3:35 point, position water rudder a bit higher relative to fuselage, where that notch is at existing lower hinge and make notch a hair smaller, & it looks like there is a rudder shaft from top of rudder up in to fuselage, that should do it.

[@Mishn0]

@@scottfw7169 And maybe not so thick. But I really have no place to talk. I couldn't draft up a model as nice as that if my life depended on it.

[@dpeter6396]

It's called a "balanced" rudder with the part forward on the hinge line providing a force to offset the larger part of the rudder, thus greatly reducing the effort to move the rudder.

[@goatflieg]

I'm amazed at the level of research done on this aircraft (and many others) and that's what really hooked me on your channel. I wish I could be a Patreon supporter as I am with a few other aviation content creators, but I'm now flying the RV-8 I spent seven years building and the incurred debt is keeping me cash-poor for now. BTW I flew the RV-8 to the Kalamazoo Air Zoo recently and thought of you when I visited the Curtiss-Wright XP-55 Ascender in their collection. You mentioned hoping to visit the museum in the future; it would pretty cool to get a chance to meet you there and give you a tour. Thanks for all your hard work and great content; now I got to get back to the Rex Rambles episode... Oops, just found out your trips are on hold for the house. Makes sense. Maybe someday...

[@BrockvsTV]

I don’t need sleep, Rex is worth my sanity

[@jaws666]

Mine too.

[@cliffmcilwee9123]

Lovely small float plane......up there with the Kingfisher. Thx for the video!

[@Parocha]

Flying boat, not floatplane

[@plasmaburndeath]

Wait Data has another Brother, BE-4? Doctor Soong's penchant for whimsical names seems to have no end.

[@IgnatSolovey]

M-62 engine, with certain alterations, exists and is being used to this day, as ASh-62IR on The Eternal Biplane, the one and only An-2.

[@benjaminbarrera214]

Did they all get scrapped? I can't find any recent pictures of these planes on the internet.

[@thestrangegreenman]

This is really fascinating! I'm looking forward to learning more from your channel!

[@kevintemple245]

Pretty little plane. I'd love to have one. Looks like a scaled down PBY Catalina

[@anarchopupgirl]

My absolute favourite plane is the Beriev MBR-2. Single engine seaplanes are a magical kind of beautiful

[@slavasandsglam]

Excellent presentation and information! Very professional. Thank you very much

[@Rabbit_AF]

Neat flying boat. In War Thunder, I find the MBR-2 a joy to fly. It's dual turrets have surprised quite a few fighter pilots.

[@anarchopupgirl]

It's so good in naval oh my god 😭 You just fly level 10m off the water and hit PT boats with the gunner view

[@Rabbit_AF]

@@anarchopupgirl Are you trying to get me to play WT naval!?! 😛

[@anarchopupgirl]

@@Rabbit_AF just. Try capping a point with a seaplane once. It feels real nice

[@spikeyflo]

What a really beautiful aircraft. Thanks for digging this one up.

[@deepwoods_dave7368]

What a gorgeous machine! Great job as always Rex.

[@garyhooper1820]

This one was unknown to me , Thanks Rex

[@JosephKano]

That is a nice looking plane. Seaplanes/flying boats generally look goid however this looks nice.

[@Abdullah-mn6sw]

Just when I wondered what a baby Catalina would look like, I see this thing.

[@GaldirEonai]

I've always loved the WW2 flying boats. As a kid I dreamed about travelling around coastlines and islands in one...and that was before encountering Talespin, even :D.

[@Parocha]

I’ve always loved the Goose

[@billpostscratcher2025]

Probably the most attractive single engine Flying Boat of the War.

[@maciek_k.cichon]

It is very slick. Right there with Fairchild 91.

[@anarchopupgirl]

MBR-2 wants a word

[@marckyle5895]

I was going to reply with the Curtiss Seahawk, but then I remembered that was a 'seaplane' and not a flying boat.

[@Kurogumo]

​@@anarchopupgirl MBR 2 is uglier.

[@pissedoff-is1mt]

Great stuff mate!

[@alexandergustafsson4245]

you have a very pleasant voice, perfect for audio books and such

[@pavelrak8906]

Thx for another very good video and mostly enjoy recharging 😊

[@nilo70]

Thank you for sharing this with us ! And CHEERS From California 😊

[@xcharke3126]

wooo great video!! keep them coming, as long as it isn't at your expense!!

[@TheDkeeler]

I see there a 1/48 scale kit of it by Mars. Looks a lot like the Fairchild F-91 which only 7 were produced . It has a interesting history as well. Thanks another fine video.

[@skydive1424]

Excellent review!

[@Mephistopholies]

It looks like a wicked sweet boat! Good show!

[@DanetteScheel]

I think it’s a really nice looking flying boat!

[@crabby7668]

Reminds me of one of the grumman offerings. Nice looking aircraft. It's a lot smaller than it first appears. The photo with the rowing boat was quite a surprise!

[@b1laxson]

Front view looks like a Corsair with a boat underneath! lol. love it!

[@MrFlintlock7]

It's a nifty looking craft! Kinda looks like a Widgeon and Catalina got it on.

[@datathunderstorm]

😂😂😂😂👍🏾

[@Rincypoopoo]

Fantastic. Thanks matey.

[@steveanderson9718]

Great Video... what aircraft is the seaplane @ 14:06 .!! ?

[@maxshep2829]

Be-10 "Mallow", it's a beautiful twin jet creation!

[@johnforsyth7987]

Thank you for another informative video about an aircraft that I did not know about.

[@maxhill7065]

I agree, it actually looks really good!

[@jacksavage4098]

Really enjoy the new aircraft visuals in 3D.

[@hugobloemers4425]

It looks like a mini Catalina.

[@MrCenturion13]

I have a model of this. I love the looks, as well as the Be-6.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

​@RexsHangar >>> 👍👍

[@motorbikemuso]

Almost the perfect combination of the beauty of boats and aircraft. One niggle regarding the commentary; (t makes sense because it's correct,) it's compare with/contrast to. Over and out!

[@LostShipMate]

I love how anything to do with the Soviets has words like "supposedly", "Unknown", "Lost", etc. It gives the impression of slapdash production, with little care given too recording anything.

[@petergray7576]

Next, do the "Flying Mullet" that was the Sikorsky S-38. It's probably the most awkward looking flying boat ever to be built, and yet it was the plane that put Sikorsky on the map.

[@kevintemple245]

That is a really cool plane

[@123qwe171]

Great video, I love your attention to detail and really appreciate almost perfect pronunciation of Russian surnames and localities. I'd like to add my 2 cents: other sources list the crew as 2 and, interestingly enough, the second set of controls as removable. The difficulty of landing with flaps closed was not the high speed in itself, but 2-step construction that caused the plane to jump 1-1.5m after the first touchdown.

[@carmenopramolla5262]

'Do believe that the M. Rex would perform well as a elegantly sarcastic defense barrister. 'Would be wonderfully entertained by usage of obscure, oblique and re-searchable wordage. Cheers

[@johnstirling6597]

It is very reminiscent of the Grumman Widgeon , but with a single central engine.

[@chriskortan1530]

I'm hoping this "break" means another collaboration with Drachinifel. Rex recently spoke of airships. I think not so coincidentally, Drachinifel in a recent Dry Dock, laid out a plan for a multi-video( or long format) coverage of Naval airships. Hmmmm....

[@joshstanton267]

Hell yes that's exactly what I thought, big collab with drach!

[@MothaLuva]

There is a beautiful model kit of it in 48 scale from Mars Models.

[@davydatwood3158]

This is like the airplane version of mini-discs: small, sexy, and coming along just as the technology gets superseded.

[@daveyoder9231]

Very nice!

[@ABrit-bt6ce]

Beriev, yum. Beriev Be-200 has been on my wish list for a long, long time.

[@sadwingsraging3044]

Nice looking aircraft.

[@cheesenoodles8316]

Excellent....

[@ヒロシ-s7z]

It wouldn 't look like a Soviet aircraft without the Red Star. It looks so stylish (^^♪

[@IdeasBox]

Great video, thanks, and keep them coming. One quick thought... is it just me or, from the front view, does it look like an F4 Corsair mounted on floats.👍

[@fredbloggs5902]

It looks like the result of a Stuka mating with a Catalina 😂

[@AkX1353]

Gee, I wonder why this remi.nds me of my favorite plane of all time, the PBY Catalina. Hmm... 🤔 Both designed in the 1930's. Hmmm..... 😚 Could be USSR had spies in America pre-war. Hmmm... 😂 I agree with you. My 1st thought was PBY.

[@JGCR59]

I totally expected to see the Omsk bird when Omsk was mentioned :)

[@bengrindell7693]

I agree with you. I think she looks rather slick!

[@jameslawrie3807]

'Pintle' in Russian is frequently translated as 'trestle'.

[@brianoneil9662]

It looks...intriguing

[@usa3526]

Best aircraft historian on KZbin. Keep it up rex

[@williamlloyd3769]

Wonder if design was an inspiration for flying boats in Studio Ghibli - Porco Rosso (1992), the Japanese animated adventure-fantasy film by Hayao Miyazaki?

[@ArmedIvan]

Little PBY Catalina. I love it.

[@wehrabooslayer419]

The aircraft looks gorgeous.

[@Ian-mj4pt]

I agree that it looks good 👍

[@Hugh.Gilbert]

The Royal Navy's reaction to the shipbuilding plan can probably be summer up pretty well by that Spiderman meme with the fellow laughing.

[@ianbell5611]

I agree a nice looking plane

[@kenwebster5053]

Somehow it reminds me of the Catalina model that I built as a kid in the 60s.

[@warhawk4494]

I won't lie. Flyboats are pretty awesome and I wish the coast guard would get a new one for Air/sea rescues and patrols. In some ways they are way better then helos and in others not and helos are better. But but sea planes would be a handy asset.

[@landak136]

Another beauty of the sea, please: Dornier Do 26

[@jillatherton4660]

Sweet lines.

[@joeyjojojrshabadoo7462]

As with most Soviet interventions the answer is yes.

[@solarflare623]

Can you talk about the laGG-3?

[@glypnir]

I never thought I’d see a Beriev in person, but in 2011 I visited the China Aviation Museum outside Beijing and saw a BE 6. I recommend visiting the museum.

[@Hcb37]

Thanks, enjoyed this history on an obscure Soviet seaplane and it’s significance in Soviet seaplane development!

[@William_Bryant]

Russia: America can I have Catalina? America: I gave you Catalinas. You’re going to have to make your own. *Later* Russia: America I made Catalinas! America: Good job Ru-what the *F*CK* is that thing?!

[@AkX1353]

Actually PBY's were license built by Russia during the war. That's why no one has a clear idea of how many PBY's were built. USSR has never admitted how many they built. They might simply not know.

[@JorisKoolen]

What a beauty!

[@roelantverhoeven371]

what a beauty

[@ricardokowalski1579]

The radial engine looks👀a little too large, but that was the state of the art then. Wonder if the propeller wash at idle affected the elevator /rudder control effectiveness

[@AN2Felllla]

Suggestions vor your videos, when you show the 3 views, could you please, instead of cropping the top and bottom off, instead show the whole picture uncropped and add filler on the sides? and when you're showing us around the model, could you please increase your FoV by like 15 degrees, and pan a bit slower? Other than those, your vids are great, keep up the good work 👍

[@wlpaul4]

@2:09 I love your ability to dryly deliver hilariously terrible characteristics.

[@deptusmechanikus7362]

That is the most gorgeous flying banana I ever did see

[@Squirrel200]

The Be 4 is a Beautiful aircraft.💓💓

[@River1955]

Just plain beautiful. The Anita Ekberg of aircraft.

[@collinmccallum]

nice

[@bigemugamer]

AWESOME! looks like a mini PBY Catalina! from the front it looks like a fighter plane had a second hull strapped to the bottom of it like a large manned bomb. =P love that gull wing design, would have been cool if those floats on the wings folded up like on the Catalina or if it had a balancing lower hull like on the newer Icon a5 float plane. Great plane, GREAT review. Can't believe I haven't subscribed yet. SUBSCRIBED! =D