[HN Gopher] Antonovs in America (2012)
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Antonovs in America (2012)
Author : aww_dang
Score : 42 points
Date : 2022-02-27 11:49 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| nosianu wrote:
| I have good memories of the AN-2 as a skydiving platform.
|
| As part of East German pre-military training of the youth I chose
| the paratrooper path in the GST (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ge
| sellschaft_f%C3%BCr_Sport_un...).
|
| The skydiving training airplane was the AN-2 of the article. Most
| memorable were the group jumps, 12 people leaving the AN-2 one
| after another as quickly as possible.
|
| Image taken from that Wikipedia link, it looked pretty much like
| this and I was on that same airfield:
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Fotothek...
| -- except that in this picture everybody is in civilian clothing
| but We were all in dark gray-green GST uniform.
|
| I made 18 jumps. We first had to learn how to pack both
| parachutes, the main one and the reserve. It was done in steps,
| each of which had to be approved by a trainer. I still think it
| was good to pack your own chute. The first 12 jumps were quite
| diverse and the core of the training. For example, one jump (the
| fourth?) involved also opening the reserve in addition to the
| already open main (looked like this but in dark green:
| https://kameradenkreis-fjb-lstr40.de/wp-content/gallery/flug...).
| This was for when there was a problem with a not completely open
| main.
|
| I remember that the only tree on the wide grass plain was almost
| hit by quite a few people quite a lot - for no good reason, since
| even though the round chute was not nearly as steerable as a as
| the modern wing forms it still was plenty good enough to easily
| avoid any such obstacles. I think it was because the brain
| involuntarily steers where people are looking, so those people
| trying too hard not to hit the tree might have involuntarily
| steered towards it, not sure, just my hypothesis because it made
| no sense. Or the guy who ended up with a sprained ankle in the
| only ditch far and wide.
|
| The training involved training camps lead by military
| paratroopers in their third year. I remember I blacked out during
| one morning exercise. Discipline was harsh, real military style
| including group punishments when someone did something stupid and
| they could not determine who was responsible.
|
| Just to finish the anecdote, the GDR ceased to exist before it
| was time to join the military, so I ended up in the now unified
| Bundeswehr as battle tank weapons systems mechanic instead of in
| a strenuous paratrooper role.
| darekkay wrote:
| > I have good memories of the AN-2 as a skydiving platform.
|
| As a former sport skydiver, the An-2 was definitely an upgrade
| to planes like C-182 or C-206. But compared to more common
| choices like C-208, DO-28 or Porter it was not as good from
| speed/altitude perspective. For both military and sport use
| cases, the An-28 was a great plane.
| overlordalex wrote:
| > I think it was because the brain involuntarily steers where
| people are looking, so those people trying too hard not to hit
| the tree might have involuntarily steered towards it, not sure,
| just my hypothesis because it made no sense.
|
| This is actually called target fixation[1] and is part of why a
| helpful hint for a lot of new cyclists is to simply look where
| you want to go and don't overthink it.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation
| elliekelly wrote:
| Suddenly my inability to ride a bike in a city makes a lot
| more sense...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Another part is that when you're not a very experienced
| cyclist you tend to want to model everything around you to
| avoid hitting something or being hit, whereas you just have
| to trust people around you to (for the most part) being
| just as happy not to hit you. So focus on what's ahead of
| you and whose paths will intersect with yours as long as
| you are going in a straight line and really start to worry
| about the rest when you are sharply changing direction.
| Avoid others first and foremost by speeding up or slowing
| down rather than by changing direction, but do so
| gradually, not abruptly. Signal your intent.
|
| This is how I teach my kids and they tend to do very well
| in traffic and on their traffic exams.
| sitkack wrote:
| https://theanthrotorian.com/travel/2012/10/20/how-to-
| cross-t...
| adolph wrote:
| _The An-2 Colt is a fabric covered flying machine that is at
| home muscling through the sky at very low altitudes and slow
| airspeed. This translates into a small radar cross-section for
| its size, one that is hard to spot by fighters using their
| radars in look-down-shoot-down mode. Flying at low altitude
| means traditional surface-to-air missile systems will have a
| very hard time of detecting and engaging these aircraft as they
| plot along south, hugging the terrain._
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/13851/north-koreas-rec...
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| It always amused me that DDR called BRD fascists while it was
| the East Germans who were still wearing uniforms and drilling
| their children as Hitler- I mean Pioneers. And there weren't a
| lot of military parades in Bonn.
| georgecmu wrote:
| I think that was because many of the 3rd reich officials
| transferred seamlessly into the government, intelligence
| services, and the military of the FRG; effectively there has
| been no denazification to speak of:
|
| _Fifty years ago, the Brown Book: War criminals and Nazis in
| the Federal Republic--in government, business,
| administration, the army, the judiciary and science was
| published on July 2, 1965.
|
| In its first edition, the Brown Book listed the _SS ranks and
| former Nazi membership of 1,800 business leaders, politicians
| and senior officials of the Federal Republic of Germany. In
| the third edition in 1968, more than 2,300 individuals were
| listed--including 15 ministers and state secretaries, 100
| generals and admirals of the Bundeswehr, 828 judges, state
| prosecutors and top judicial officers, 245 leading officials
| of the foreign office, and 297 senior police officers and
| employees of the intelligence service _. The veracity of the
| data was supported with detailed statements and quotations
| from legal, military and Gestapo archives, often accompanied
| by copies of incriminating documents.
|
| "The whole system is infested with Nazis," said publisher
| Albert Norden at an international press conference at the
| time. The Brown Book sparked a deep political crisis and led
| to the resignations of numerous officials and government
| ministers.
|
| It played an important role in the protest movement of the
| 1960s. Suddenly it became clear that there had never been a
| "zero hour"--that is, a new beginning for German society
| after the end of World War II, as announced by the government
| of Konrad Adenauer. Despite adoption of the Basic Law (German
| constitution) and the official denazification campaign, key
| positions in the state apparatus, the government and posts
| for its representatives abroad were occupied chiefly by
| former Nazis.
|
| The Brown Book set the ball rolling. After 1965, many more
| former Nazi perpetrators were unmasked in the German civil
| service. One thinks of the Baden-Wurttemberg Minister
| President Hans Filbinger, who served as a naval judge until
| the final days of the war, delivering death sentences that
| were only revealed in 1978_
|
| https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/07/07/nazi-j07.html
| sitkack wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction#Trial
|
| I saw a documentary on the RAF, I had no idea that West
| Germany had so many open Nazi party members in all levels
| of government. Esp former Gestapo members in leadership
| positions within the German Federal Police.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Globke
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Buback
| nosianu wrote:
| The GDR was not an inheritor of the 3rd Reich's militarism -
| it was an inheritor of Prussia's militarism.
|
| But yes, even school classes had a somewhat military
| organization. Serving in the military also had very high
| prestige and was well paid (for East Germany), and you got
| very good support when you left the military.
|
| In school I learned to lockstep-march and shoot and how to
| tackle the obstacle course and how to use maps and compasses
| and to navigate in unknown terrain and even how to use gas
| masks long before I finally ended up in the Bundeswehr.
| During basic training in the Bundeswehr, when a handful of
| fresh recruits including myself went over the wall with no
| difficulties on our first attempt, the Major standing on the
| side watching everything commented "Oh, that must be our new
| recruits from the East" (we were drafted to a West German
| location, just a year after reunification).
|
| Anyway, it has nothing to do with fascism except that they
| too took on the Prussian militaristic heritage. Militarism
| was a Prussian thing since before "Germany" was made - by
| Prussia and by force of arms.
| DaveExeter wrote:
| >Soviet paratroopers would practice low-level jumps into
| snowdrifts without parachutes.
|
| Not sure if that would be fun, or terrifying.
| [deleted]
| aww_dang wrote:
| Apparently they can fly backwards with a sufficient headwind.
|
| Having a hard time finding the source, but another anecdotal
| report claims they would fly into a headwind, then repel down.
| edrxty wrote:
| You can fly backwards in a Cessna pretty trivially. Anything
| with a low ish stall speed will have that happen on a windy
| day.
| Animats wrote:
| The Antonov-225, the world's largest aircraft, was destroyed on
| February 24th. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/antonov-an-225-largest-
| pl...
| syassami wrote:
| very sad. It was in the bay area just a few years ago!
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWmkKE-9FgA
| gambiting wrote:
| I saw this the other day and it makes me very sad. Obviously
| it's completely irrelevant compared to all the other
| attrocities happening in Ukraine, but at least for me
| personally the An-225 was a symbol of incredible engineering
| and perseverance to get it built. It's a huge shame it was
| destroyed.
|
| I guess we can hope that after this war someone will put in the
| money to get the second airframe out of storage and get it
| finished. I'd assume the demand is there.
| trhway wrote:
| >after this war someone will put in the money to get the
| second airframe out of storage and get it finished
|
| In Ukrainian news they say that they would force Russia to
| pay for restoring of the "Mria". Ukrainians are really
| berserks right now. No way to stop. Beside official army the
| civil population is getting involved more and more. Prepared
| millions of Molotov cocktails, and there have already been
| some Russian armor destroyed by it, and territorial defense
| units hunt down Russian advanced saboteur/spies teams and the
| likes and those Russian dispersed armor carriers and tanks.
| They joke that after seeing how they are beating Putin the
| NATO will be joining Ukraine instead of the other way around.
| While Russian tanks still continue coming, and massive
| Russian marines attack seems to be coming to Odessa, and
| Belarus forces are joining (btw that seems to me a sign of
| Putin's desperation as hitting Odessa would be as bad or even
| worse for Russian morale than hitting Kiev, and Belarus was
| probably kept as reserve) - it is pretty clear that they are
| coming to be blood bathed, and Ukrainians tell Russian
| soldiers to carry sunflower seeds in the pockets so at least
| sunflowers will grow when the soldiers die on Ukrainian land.
| adolph wrote:
| Hopefully that other airframe could be finished? Some say
| no and I'd believe them given the age of the technology.
|
| https://simpleflying.com/second-an-225-economically-
| unviable...
| spoonjim wrote:
| I saw it once at an airport and wasn't expecting it. It was a
| real WTF moment.
| shagmin wrote:
| I actually got to go into this plane when I was 7 years old
| when it came to the US to pickup emergency medical supplies
| during the fall of the USSR. I remember the pilots bought a ton
| of shoes and very particular other things (I can't recall
| exactly) while they were here.
| michaelbazos wrote:
| On February 27th, per the article: "The fire at the hangar was
| detected at 11:13 a.m. on Sunday, according to the NASA data,
| which is obtained from a number of NOAA and NASA satellites."
| input_sh wrote:
| To elaborate a bit, there was a shooting at the airport on
| the 24th, but Antonov the company confirmed that the plane
| was in good condition: https://twitter.com/AntonovCompany/sta
| tus/149732108560330752...
|
| Fighting continued (it's in a hotly contested airport just
| north of Kyiv), and then yesterday the company released
| another update that said:
|
| > Currently, until the AN-225 has been inspected by experts,
| we cannot report on the technical condition of the aircraft.
|
| https://twitter.com/AntonovCompany/status/149796783633704140.
| ..
|
| Based on that, I wouldn't call it completely destroyed, but
| it will certainly need repairing.
| cptnapalm wrote:
| Likely from watching Indiana Jones movies too many times, I'm
| rather partial to biplanes and loved the AN-2 when I saw pictures
| of it. Shame they're restricted as to use because of regulations.
| timonoko wrote:
| Is it a Bird... Is it a Plane... No... It's Superman.
|
| Is it threshing machine.. Is it Ju-52.. No.. it is the bloody
| Antonov.
| sschueller wrote:
| I used to see the Ju-52 frequently over my house. Sadly since
| the accident[1] on August 4th 2018 they are no longer flying.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGF4ovuSrK0
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