Aircraft

Somewhereonline said:
I mentioned the USSR developing the "flying tank" concept in the IL-2 by creating an armored airframe.
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Yes, in mixing an attack aircraft with an armored airframe, the Il-2 was probably the first of its kind.
Zare said:
It was outlining examples and stuff how notoriously bad Soviet QA/logistics probably affected a great deal of losses of Il-2. And they were always bad at armour and riveting.
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This is kind of my point. The Il-2 was a very Soviet aircraft. It had lower production standards than US/Commonwealth aircraft, was affected poorly by logistics and training, and was used in an aerial imitation of Soviet standard infantry tactics.
 
Somewhereonline said:
Post-Stalingrad, however, the Soviets got much better at logistics, training, strategy, tactics, etc and had time to produce better quality equipment. Looking at the Red army (and air force) in 1942, one can see a stark contrast to its 1941 incarnation.
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It helps that the first 2 years of war cleared out a lot of the dead wood in varying branches of the Red Army and the VVS as well. The 1938-40 Purges really stunted the Red Army technologically and organizationally, and it's one of the reasons why the Germans were able to cause the level of destruction they did against an enemy that had more men and arguably better equipment on the ground (T-34 vs Panzer 38t, Panzer 4 with the stubby 75mm). It's not just time, it's better people in the right places too. But I think we can agree that WW2-level Soviet manufacturing and goals never reached the emphasis on operator safety that was used in western machines.
 
Somewhereonline said:
a regiment of female pilots called "Night Witches," who flew biplanes over German positions at night and randomly dropped small bombs on infantry.
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Nobody on this board has heard of the Night Witches.

From the depths of hell in silence
Cast their spells explosive violence
Russian night time flight perfected
Flawless vision, undetected
 
My favourite WW2 aircraft is now, and always will be, the Supermarine Spitfire. Beautiful, beautiful piece of machinery. We have a Mark IX at the Aviation Museum and I always spend like a half hour looking her over.

Fun fact - we also have a He-162 Salamander at the Aviation Museum. Man, those things just reeked of desperation.

SO - have you ever been to the Udvar-Hazy centre at Dulles?
 
I've just had my first decent sighting of a Typhoon in the air, and was impressed by the manoeuvrability. It appeared to be in a training dogfight with another one that I could hear above the clouds. The one I could see seemed to be using a lot of thrust to sit on its tail, turn sharply and fly slow. They came round a few times and were making very sharp turns. Definitely not something Ive ever seen a Tornado do.
 
F-15 should be in any top 10 for the remainder of it's career just for the service record alone, never mind the technical merits.
But that site is atrocious. You guys shouldn't have even clicked 'cause this 'Julia' profile is an ad bot for the site, but now I also had to :D Just wow. MiG-31 is not a fighter, F-22's avionics package is not classified, F-22 is not the biggest plane, Rafale+Typhoon in front of Su-35S begs an explanation (Su-35S is same gen, same type, but bigger and more powerful for a higher operational cost, it would be like putting F-18 in front of F-15 if you plug out the carrier capacity). Two non-operational entries, J-20 and F-35, one being a prototype, the other in LIRP (low initial production rate), and not putting PAK-FA, which is just entering LIRP which means it's 'in between'. Where's the criteria for this shit?

In any case, I like the plane very much but if you top the list with F-22 you need to denote that it's air to ground potential is currently in the rank of Romanian MiG-21s.
 
Favorite aircraft is the Ki-44 Shoki (Tojo), P-47 Thunderbolt, and B-17E/F. Been a World War II aviation freak since I was about 6 years old, I'm 50 now. Also a Korean War aviation freak as well. For modern aircraft, the JAS 39 Gripen, MiG-31, and Su-33 & Su-34 are some bad ass aircraft. World War I aircraft are pretty cool as well. Anyone here build model airplanes or buy aviatio books?
 
I used to build kits a lot, but with the exception of doing my own Ed Force One early last year (ie before the official kit came out) I haven't really done it for years.
 
Brigantium said:
I used to build kits a lot, but with the exception of doing my own Ed Force One early last year (ie before the official kit came out) I haven't really done it for years.
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I used to build 1/48 scale World War II aircraft when I was a kid, when I was about 14 or 15 partying and chicks became a priority. Then when I was about 23 I built again for about 5 years. Don't know why I stopped. I still buy kits, much to my wife's dismay but I do plan on building them sometime.
 
A skilled pilot embraced the Christmas spirit with a festive stunt while flying over Germany and Denmark.

Flying the world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, the pilot drew the outline of a Christmas tree - complete with decorations - in the sky on 13 December.

A spokesperson for Airbus explained it was a normal internal test flight before the delivery of a new aircraft, adding: “There are hundreds of these flights every year.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/world-apos-largest-passenger-plane-111029106.html?hl=1&noRedirect=1
 
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