Winged tank Tanks with glider wings were the subject of several unsuccessful experiments in the twentieth century . It was intended that these could be towed behind ; or carried under an airplane , to glide into a battlefield , in support of infantry forces . In war , airborne forces use parachutes to drop soldiers behind enemy lines to capture and hold important objectives until more heavily - equipped friendly troops can arrive . Military planners have always sought ways to provide airborne troops with combat support equipment in the form of light armoured vehicle s or artillery which can be dropped by parachute or military glider . The biggest problem with air - dropping vehicles is that their crews drop separately , and may be delayed or prevented from bringing them into action . Military glider s allow crews to arrive at the drop zone along with their vehicles . They also minimize exposure of the valuable towing aircraft , which needn ' t appear over the battlefield . An improvement would be a tank which could glide into the battlefield , drop its wings , and be ready to fight within minutes . In the early 1930s , American engineer Walter Christie experimented with flying tanks . Later , the Royal Air Force tested the Baynes Bat , a flying wing intended to carry a light tank — the one - third scale prototype flew well , but no suitable tank was available . Soviet experiments . In the early twentieth century , parachute silk was rare in the Soviet Union , so the military conducted dubious experiments with air - dropping soldiers into deep snow without parachutes . In 1930 , the Grokhovskiy Special Design Bureau experimented with dropping " air buses " full of troops : the bicycle - wheeled G - 45 onto land , and the amphibious " hydro bus " into water . When the hydro bus disintegrated on landing , the chief designer and his assistant were strapped into the G - 45 for a test drop ; they survived , but the project was cancelled ( Zaloga 1984 : 192 ) . Later , the Soviets used heavy bombers to land on the battlefield carrying T - 27 tankette s and light tanks , and experimented with air - dropping light tanks ( both with and without parachutes ) . In 1941 , airborne units were issued T - 40 amphibious tank s . None of these was completely satisfactory , so in 1942 the Soviet Air Force ordered Oleg Antonov to design a glider for landing tanks . Antonov was more ambitious , and instead added a detachable cradle to a lightened T - 60 light tank , bearing large wood and fabric biplane wings and twin tail . Although one semi - successful test flight was completed , due to the lack of sufficiently - powerful aircraft to tow it at the required 160 km / h , the project was abandoned . Japanese models . The Imperial Japanese Army ' s experimental Special No . 3 Flying Tank " So - Ra " or " Ku - Ro " , was developed in 1943 . Like the Soviet models , it had detachable wings , but it could also be transported by heavy gliders , namely the Kokusai Ku - 7 " Buzzard " and Kokusai Ku - 8 I " Gander " . These could be towed by aircraft such as the Mitsubishi Ki - 21 " Sally " heavy bomber . However , the Japanese Flying Tank project was abandoned before it went into production . The tank transport gliders were deployed to the Philippines during 1944 . Another prototype was Maeda Ku - 6 Flying Tank , but not advanced to experimental phases also . After World War II . The Soviet Union continued to develop methods to efficiently deploy airborne vehicles . By the mid - 1970s they were able to drop BMD - 1 fighting vehicles with crew members aboard , using a combination of parachutes and retrorocket .