The Makhonine MAK-10 Was Wanted By The Luftwaffe (Even If It Wasn't Very Good)

The Makhonine MAK-10 was a curious, yet brilliant aircraft. It featured a sliding wing that increased the size of the aerofoil for take off and landing, and decreased it for high speed flight. Although its size and the low power of its engine made performance less than impressive, it still demonstrated the potential of variable geometry wings more than 20 years before the idea became mainstream.
As far as I know, there are no books on the Mak-10. This video is therefore a collection of information found on the internet. Interesting sources:
Foundational information: www-airwar-ru....
Typically excellent Secret Projects Forum post on Gourdou Leseurre variable span concepts: www.secretproj...

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

*_"And now, for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...."_*

[@JTA1961]

He was definitely winging it...but ima let it slide

[@JohnSmith-pl2bk]

Please retract that comment...

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

*BA DUM TSSS...😊*

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

The first _"grower"_ aircraft...😉

[@davidjamessandling]

I'm gettin' wheel tired of these airplane puns. they need to be more well grounded.

[@guaporeturns9472]

cringe

[@maxsmodels]

OKAY, I have theorized a telescoping wing for decades. I had no idea someone had actually done it. Amazing. Great work NAPFG.

[@HighlanderNorth1]

I've theorized a telescoping mechanism for a telescope.

[@larslarsman]

@@HighlanderNorth1 I've theorized an anti gravity flying machine with a cute French girl crew.

[@jtjames79]

With modern materials this isn't a bad idea. I'm thinking more for storage though. Like an ultralight.

[@craigwall9536]

Everyone thinks of these things. ALL of these things. But words are cheap. The Russians, OTOH, try EVERYTHING. Usually someone involved has a gun pointed at them.

[@vasopel]

theorized for decades? and never cared to search the internet to see if it has ever been done? :-D look for "Ellingston Special" too, a plane made in the 30's and "Akaflieg Stuttgart fs29" made in the 70's

[@zenlizard1850]

How far down the aviation rabbit-hole did you have to go to find this one? Splendid job!

[@mitchelloates9406]

I believe they missed the mark, by concentrating on speed and combat aircraft. A developed design, with similar gliding abilities, could have made an excellent long range recon and maritime patrol aircraft, and would have been of extreme interest to the major navies of the time. Also, the short takeoff abilities and potential cargo carrying capacity, would have been highly prized in remote areas like the Alaskan Bush country. In essence, with the sliding wing, he was trying to achieve what was later done with swing-wing aircraft such as the F-111, the F-14, MIG-23, and others.

[@justforever96]

Assuming it was even possible to get it to work, which is doubtful. Just because it flies doesn't mean the other drawbacks don't make it unfeasible. All these people working on various designs to meet these requirements you mention, they had access to information that this existed, yet they didn't repeat it. Probably for a reason. If you can meet the requirements with lighter, cheaper, safer methods, you don't need to resort to the crazy crap.

[@oxcart4172]

Omg. Why isn't this more well-known?

[@keithmoore5306]

because it didn't amount to anything!!! more than few examples of that out there!!!

[@LeCharles07]

Because flaps had already been invented and would take their maiden flight a mere year after this and would be put on the first prototype production aircraft 4 years later followed full scale production 2 years after that. Weight is a major factor in flight so hauling around effectively a second set of wings that you only use for take off and landing is not as desirable as having one set of wings you can change the shape of. It was a dead end technology despite being innovative and interesting.

[@LeCharles07]

The swing wing of the interwar period. Amazing. Thanks for sharing this gem with us.

[@gort8203]

When I was in middle school my study hall notebook contained sketches of airplane designs with telescoping wings. I was wondering why nobody had tried it. Now I know.

[@MrSpringheel]

Same here. I was in elementary school when I talked about such a design. Everyone laughed. I am avenged with this video

[@jnharton]

FWIW a good design on paper can turn out to difficult to construct or not as reliable as desired in operation. Some historical aircraft standout as being particularly elegant in those two respects (easy to build, reliable in flight) even if they are hardly perfect in other respects.

[@shengyi1701]

Maverick would love this plane for the US Navy! MAK 10 huh? Let’s give them MAK 10!

[@mikeholland1031]

Put the pipe down

[@marktuffield6519]

What a fascinating concept and something I had not heard about before, really well done 🙂

[@bluetopguitar1104]

Very cool looking like a 1930s comic book.

[@JTA1961]

Well put

[@MartinSheckelstorm]

You made I video I never expected to see. Great work my man 👏👏👏

[@theprojectproject01]

Looking at the world now, it's easy to forget just how far out in front the French were in terms of engineering prowess. Yes, this guy was originally Russian, but France provided the ground in which the seeds of his ideas could grow.

[@dziban303]

I love this channel. sometimes the algorithm just nails it

[@yes_head]

Interesting. He predicted the idea behind the variable sweep wing, but with a more... interesting approach.

[@scroggins100]

Amazing, I suppose the next one was swing wing! Love your work by the way. Thanks for your efforts

[@majorbloodnok6659]

Thank you for this; I'd come across pictures but knew nothing more.

[@Thankz4sharing]

Well researched. Well presented.

[@corvanphoenix]

Best outro on YT. Prove me wrong.

[@Ob1sdarkside]

Interesting concept, another what if in aviation history

[@Danger_mouse]

Would love to see the wing mechanism drawings, but I'm not sure I'd trust a flight critical system like the wings to pneumatics. You could easily achieve this with cables, pulleys and a small electric or hydraulic winch system.

[@russellwaterson3304]

it is a very interesting proof of concept. I wonder how such an aircraft would go with carbon fibre?

[@philipsharpe6905]

Wow; I’ve never heard of this aircraft before!

[@Momo_Kawashima]

"The french copy nobody, and nobody copies the french" I feel like this rule applies extremely well here

[@janmale7767]

What a creative idea!?? I had no idea this was out there,it could also have worked as a high altitude interceptor, look at the marked features of the Fw Ta 152 H great wingspan for high altitude capability!

[@TheBullethead]

Fascinating. I'd never heard of this. Also, I appreciate your narration style, with the odd bit of wry sarcasm )

[@jehb8945]

Interesting little side note and another cool video from you

[@ThePlayerOfGames]

Machanine predicted Tornado swing-wing and Harrier/Quadricopter/Osprey! Damn genius

[@redguard2946]

Great “find”. I had never heard of this plane, or designer!

[@TheScoundrel70]

OK, Mike Patey needs to see this... 😁

[@ces4399]

One could say this was the spiritual father to the F-14 Tomcat.

[@Rom3_29]

That’s very innovating concept. I suspect complex wing tractor gear and cables were a jumble and heavy. This’s something Darkwing Duck might fly on Saturday morning cartoons.

[@eivindlunde7772]

Definitely interesting concept. Similar to the Soviet NIAI RK-1 and theoretically similar to NASA's Ames-Dryden AD-1 design.

[@classicforreal]

The only reason why I'm willing to accept this is real and the thumbnail isn't AI is because it's June 17 and not April 1.

[@robertguttman1487]

Today they would characterize this as a "variable geometry wing".

[@kenanfurcle786]

Great video, though weird to have imperial units in a video about a probably purely metric plane.

[@user-mp3eq6ir5b]

The Final Sketches of the Recessed AutoGyro looked interesting.

[@barfuss2007]

looks awsome

[@firefox5926]

1:45 he got shut down ..in the 1920s ... for environmental reasons ..in the 1920s ..... wh...what was he doing/? what could he have possibly be doing

[@ronaldbyrne3320]

I don’t think it would have made for a very nimble fighter and I doubt it would have had a good rate of turn. Still, a very fascinating aircraft and I wish somebody would make a 1/72 or 1/48 scale model of it. 😊

[@LastGoatKnight]

I'm gonna be honest, I like the Soviet version of telescopic fighter better

[@alan-sk7ky]

I wonder how he prevented asymetric wing extension

[@luizfernandolessa1889]

Interessante. Pelo que li, por motivos principalmente políticos, a França não desenvolveu adequadamente suas forças armadas, entre a primeira e segunda guerra.

[@OathTaker3]

He's the original Mak Daddy... 🤔😎

[@89volvowithlazers]

The Mak 10 looks cool😊 at 5:55 the prop looks mercedes esque huh ...dont it?

[@GeneralPadron]

So, essentially this does the same thing as the swept wing on an F-14 or a B-1 Bomber.

[@jimsvideos7201]

This is definitely one of those ideas that makes you wonder how it would have gone with carbon fiber and a PT6...

[@johnhudghton3535]

Oh my goodness a fuel plant closed down in 1927 for environmental reasons??? Must have been really bad.

[@CAP198462]

Talking about the Mac 10? Isn’t that a job for Jonathan Ferguson keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal Armouries museum in the UK which houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons from throughout history? Oh it’s a different Mak 10, and its transliterated from Russian so should be мах-10 got it.

[@leeboy29680-ol7gf]

he was a brainfart away from thinking up the swing wing

[@robertcombs55]

wowza

[@kiereluurs1243]

Interesting. But seems overly complicated, with too much overhead of weight, and no space for fuel or weapons in the wings.

[@RemusKingOfRome]

or .. or .. use leading wing slats and flaps. jkl

[@roo72]

Two in a week now?! Yikes!

[@pencilpauli9442]

They don't MAK em like they used to.

[@ShamanActual]

Ye olde f14

[@mblaber2000]

Le Prepuce

[@charlestaylor253]

Very attractive and innovative, but underpowered and ultimately unsuccessful design that went nowhere...😢

[@CZ350tuner]

Makhonine- "I have created a beautiful aircraft for the French Armie de la Aire". Armie de la Aire- "Make it ugly!! We French have a reputation of always having ugly aircraft to uphold!!".

[@johnstirling6597]

1 yay😁😁

[@salvagedb2470]

How Daft could you get , no wonder it was to Heavy carrying Extending Wings , it Actually looked Good if you removed them .Good vid.

[@MM22966]

Nice. Never heard of this guy. He's like a French Sikorsky who always had not quite enough luck.

[@jmi5969]

Maybe. To me, he was more of a Malcolm Bricklin type. Always pushing "brilliant" proposals that normally won't even reach the drawing boards. But Russia of 1920 or France of 1935 were anything but normal.

[@MM22966]

@@jmi5969 Truth. I am still having nightmares from the Rex's Hangar episode: "The Development of French Interwar Bombers Pt 1 - When Greenhouses Go To War".

[@thethirdman225]

Except he was a Russian/Soviet emigre.

[@RCAvhstape]

@@thethirdman225 Yes, like Sikorsky, who wound up in the US instead of France.

[@thethirdman225]

@@RCAvhstape It was a small correction for the OP who said he - Makhonine - was French.

[@Scott11078]

For the first split second after seeing Mac 10. "Wow never thought forgotten weapons would cover that one..." Then immediately "Oh it's our favorite forgotten aviation guy...."

[@unclejohnbulleit2671]

Now I'm wondering if "Gun Jesus" has a leather aviators helmet in his hat collection.

[@justforever96]

FW did the MAC-10 years ago dude.

[@nivlacyevips]

The French copy no one, and no one copies the French

[@guaporeturns9472]

Smokeless gunpowder , stethoscope , Pasteurization , braille , hot air ballooning , parachute , photography, movie theaters… ever hear of any of those things?

[@nivlacyevips]

@@guaporeturns9472 It’s a phrase taken from Ian McCollum, the gun historian. He’s a Francophile and means it with love

[@guaporeturns9472]

@@nivlacyevips Yeah I know , I own several of his books…. still it’s an invalid statement.

[@RextheDragon881]

Gun Jesus is valid to me

[@guaporeturns9472]

@@RextheDragon881 So cringe. How does it feel to be a 🌈simp?

[@artcamp7]

A career of what ifs and maybes. That's my epithet

[@sohrabroozbahani4700]

Does that count as the first variable geometry wing design???

[@flyingsword135]

Hmm...the geometry is the same, just longer.

[@sohrabroozbahani4700]

@@flyingsword135 😄 it's like saying Tomcat wings are just sweepier... the long rectangle and the short rectangle are still two different shapes, i would still count them as two different geometries...

[@keithmoore5306]

it doesn't change it's angle so nyet!!!!

[@bilalsadiq1450]

Apparently Wikipedia (on the "Variable-sweep wing" page) lists a plane called the "Westland-Hill Pterodactyl IV" as the first sweep-wing as of 1931, with the prototype of the Mak-10 being from '29 according to NAPFATG's video above, so I think you may be right (although in the former's case, it was used as a way to trim the aircraft for level flight as it was a wing design that lack a separate horizontal stabiliser, so it was present for a vastly different reason than most variable geometry aircraft).

[@greghardy9476]

Not geometry, wing area.

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

As a concept demonstrator this is pretty good. Potentially useful for operating of short improvised runways.

[@alepaz1099]

easier to give your high performance aircraft a high speed wing design and then put high lift devices on it 🤷‍♂ points for effort

[@budwhite9591]

Well like most French things (pre islamification): it’s pretty, but it doesn’t do much more than just stand there

[@garethbarry3825]

A piston powered f14 tomcat....

[@danpatterson8009]

Interesting concept, but a fundamental problem of achieving strength in the inner wing sections, which must remain largely hollow. Handling the loads at the wing root would be a particular problem, unless there were telescoping spars that remained continuous throughout wing movement (and thus heavier than necessary when retracted). Still, you could reduce the area of the extended wing to where it effectively becomes a set of spanwise flaps, again with a weight penalty on the outer section of the wing.

[@manuwilson4695]

...imagine the visibility of the pilot on take off or landing! 😱

[@goddepersonno3782]

stowable rotors is the coolest most out of pocket idea I've heard in quite some time If you could gear it to a turbofan engine it would probably not add too significant a bulk that the idea would be unusable, but the drawbacks in fuel storage would simply be too great I'm afraid. Designs like this always lose in a trade study, they're just too mechanically complex and space-hungry

[@thurin84]

interesting idea.

[@nicholasbell9017]

Somebody please build a RC model of this. It's so French! We love French ingenuity. I kiss you on both cheeks for this video!

[@stevecastro1325]

1:33 If you can get shut down due to environmental concerns in the 1920’s, you are really doing something horribly wrong.

[@johndyson4109]

LOL.. I think the Three Stooges had it better with the Buzzard.. oh I mean the Wrong Brothers.

[@mykolatkachuk7770]

It was smart of him to escape ussr. He would not avoid being purged in 1937 for sure

[@WilliamStreiff]

It's almost steampunk,,the plain is a Trainwreck

[@markgarin6355]

Pilot would not see much on landing. Ha. But we all need what it's and maybes.

[@flickingbollocks5542]

Could it have flown at high altitude with the wings extended?

[@jmi5969]

If the structure can stand it, sure - albeit at unpractically slow speed (wing drag). But can it?

[@JohnSmith-pl2bk]

If it could glide for an hour after the engine was shut off at 13,000ft altitude... So yes...high altitude could have been reached IF the engine had been at least 2 stage supercharged and or turbocharged? At least his wing retraction mechanism worked well..... It just needed engine technology for power and altitude to be available to make it as a great spy plane (the SR71 of it's day)

[@keithmoore5306]

if it could take off with them out you could fly at any altitude with them out!! you'd bring the wings in for turning ability and leave them out for lift and fuel savings!!!

[@DaveSCameron]

😂😂😂 quite brilliant and thanks again..

[@mikeholland1031]

I heard Stalin loved this concept.

[@Alexander-_GregMashaba]

Very very insightful

[@jfan4reva]

"In a way the solution was brilliantly simple" If you're an engineer of any kind, your eyes are probably rolling back in your head right now. "Brilliantly simple" means the speaker is unaware of, or purposely hiding the hideously complex reality hiding underneath. "Brilliantly simple" also tends to apply to general, undeveloped ideas, and rarely to the engineering needed to make them into functioning reality. Someone mentioned below developing it into an aircraft for long range patrol, which could make use of the heavy extra span when extended.

[@bullettube9863]

A fascinating story and a big "what if?", if it had been developed and there had been more government support. Is his system better then swing wing technology? I can see where a sliding wing would necessitate a thicker wing profile thus producing more drag and limiting the room needed for landing gear and machine guns. But surely the decrease in drag when the wings were reduced in size would have cancelled out this disadvantage? Swing wings like in the American F-111 and F-15 worked quite well and their designers got around the same problems and further development of the MAK-10 could have also have been successful.

[@jonathansteadman7935]

Wow, i thought i was nerd when it came to aircraft of ww1 to ww2, specifically Luftwaffe '46' what ifs, along with modelling. Finally, here's one ive never heard, or read about. Im impressed, and genuinely pleased to find it, especially for the quirkiness of the aircraft.Judging by the comments, im not alone in never hearing about this before either.

[@jirivorobel942]

The cockpit configuration made sense at the time - just a windshield for the pilot, a greenhouse for the observer. Most pilots were used to wearing flight suits, estimating airspeed from the sound of the turbulence around the windshield, and sticking their head out when taxiing. The guy doodling on a map needed the glass much more.

[@jlvfr]

*_Telescoping wing_* ? Never heard of this! Thank you!

[@thibaudduhamel2581]

the French magasine "fana de l'aviation" had an entire issue about this particular plane and his designer a dozen years ago. I remember reading it as a teen.

[@mattheide2775]

You gotta try everything once in aviation, if you can try again then maybe it is a viable idea. Thank you for the video

[@johnking6252]

Bit large don't you think? 🌍✌️🌎

[@johnhudghton3535]

Another excellent account. Thank you.

[@Jon.A.Scholt]

Wait, is it Friday?

[@michaelmorley7719]

It's a clever idea, but one that doesn't really have a use case. The one place I can think of where you need a high speed aircraft with a really short takeoff run is an aircraft carrier--but in that situation you don't really have the deck space to allow the plane to double its wingspan. More powerful engines, better airfoils, and, ultimately, catapults get to the same end result much more efficiently.

[@JanoTuotanto]

Extending wingspan on carrier deck is like taking a highway to the danger zone