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  • 2021-03-20 (xsd:date)
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  • Did the Kalinin K-7 Heavy Bomber Appear in Actual Color Photos? (en)
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  • Since at least 2010, a set of awe-inspiring pictures have been shared in email forwards and on social media. The color photographs purportedly show the Russian Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber. One of the pictures was even displayed in a paid online advertisement: However, while the Kalinin K-7 was once a real aircraft from the 1930s, the color pictures in question showed 3-D artist renderings. We were able to find the original website that hosted the original images, but it wasn't easy. At first, we thought it might be a fan-created 3-D model for the Battlefield V video game, as one of the color pictures appeared in the /r/BattlefieldV/ subreddit. However, this was incorrect. Lots of reading of old blogs and message boards, combined with reverse image searching, finally led us to the original source. Thanks to a tip from englishrussia.com, we found the source to be a person using the handle Levin. On the original page, which appeared to be from 2007, Levin wrote that his work had been misunderstood: Levin also confirmed that Adobe Photoshop was not used in the process to make the renders. This is not Photoshop. This is 3-D, three-dimensional models. WarHistoryOnline.com published the history of the real Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber, which was smaller than what was displayed for the 3-D renderings. The Kalinin K-7 was a heavy experimental aircraft designed and tested in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, the website read. It was of unusual configuration with twin booms and large underwing pods housing fixed landing gear and machine gun turrets. Unfortunately, the aircraft had a brief history. On Nov. 21, 1933, the aircraft crashed. According to WarHistoryOnline.com, the accident killed 14 people aboard and one on the ground. The project was eventually scrapped in 1935. No known color photographs of the aircraft exist today. Levin, the 3-D artist, published more of his computer-generated work on his old website. One of them showed quite the battle in the skies: In sum, the Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber was real. However, color pictures that appeared in email forwards, social media, and ads were nothing more than 3-D renderings. (en)
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