[HN Gopher] The Soviet Union's Monster Mi-6 Helicopter Airliner
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The Soviet Union's Monster Mi-6 Helicopter Airliner
Author : Thevet
Score : 92 points
Date : 2024-06-30 04:43 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.twz.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.twz.com)
| ggm wrote:
| It would have been heinously noisy inside.
| PreInternet01 wrote:
| I can't say anything about the Mi-6, but its successor, the
| Mi-26, definitely isn't _that_ loud. Definitely "huge
| transport aircraft" loud, but not "C-130 loud" (where, if you
| sit just behind the forward bulk head, kidney stone removal is
| an automatic benefit included with take-off)
| openasocket wrote:
| You've had the opportunity to fly in both an Mi-26 and a
| C-130? I'd be curious to know more about your career, I can't
| imagine there are many who have spent time in both.
| PreInternet01 wrote:
| Well, the C-130 has been pretty much _everywhere_ pretty
| much _forever_ -- not sure if anyone in the military in the
| last 5 decades or so has not been in and /or near them at
| some point?
|
| My Mi-26 experience was as a staff tech (military, but as
| part of a humanitarian effort) airlifting medical trucks
| into a flood-struck area in India, like, 30 years ago or
| so, but as I understand it, they're still used pretty
| widely outside NATO, even today.
| openasocket wrote:
| > Well, the C-130 has been pretty much everywhere pretty
| much forever -- not sure if anyone in the military in the
| last 5 decades or so has not been in and/or near them at
| some point?
|
| Very true. I had the impression that the Mi-26 was
| considerably more niche, and that there wouldn't be a ton
| of overlap between operators of the C-130 and the Mi-26.
| However, I just checked the list of operators on
| wikipedia (not sure how accurate that is) and Algeria,
| Jordan, India, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela all field
| both. There also seems to be civilian operators of the
| Mi-26.
| vlachen wrote:
| C-130 Hercules: The ultimate white noise machine. CH-46 Sea
| Knight: The ultimate brown note machine. AV-8B Harrier: The
| ultimate tinnitus machine.
| vlachen wrote:
| Ask me how I know on that last one, but be sure to speak
| up.
| fnord77 wrote:
| I'm surprised how quiet modern helicopters can be made.
|
| Was on a beach a while ago and a coast guard helicopter was
| flying low and I didn't hear it until it was right over us
| circus1540 wrote:
| A figure which stunned me: Mi-26, the successor to the Mi-6 was
| involved in the deadliest helicopter crash, after being shot down
| during the second chechen campaign. It was carrying 142
| passengers, 127 of which died.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Khankala_Mi-26_crash
| LVB wrote:
| >the helicopter crash-landed in a minefield that made up part
| of the federal military headquarters' perimeter defenses. Some
| of the survivors, attempting to abandon the wrecked Mi-26, are
| reported to have been killed by 'friendly' anti-personnel mine
| explosions
| Arn_Thor wrote:
| Ah, Russia/the Soviet Union, land of "but wait, it gets
| worse".
| bell-cot wrote:
| Not to dismiss either the "shot down", or loss of life - but
| that does illustrate why very large passenger helicopters are a
| bad idea. Too many lives at stake, and a helicopter is
| generally a far more fragile basket than a fixed-wing aircraft.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| I don't think that is how probability works. The same amount
| of people will die to helicopter crashes regardless of the
| helicopter size.
| Retric wrote:
| That assumes nothing changes over time. Learn from the
| first accident and the odds of a second accident should
| reduce.
| ardaoweo wrote:
| Well, it should be noted that the helicopter in question was
| designed to be used by an organization that couldn't care
| less about loss of life, as we have again seen in recent
| years. So I guess this aspect of human life wasn't a big
| concern to the designers, the military can always get new
| human resources from Siberia or whatever poor part of the
| country.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I object.
|
| I think our Media is a great disappointment.
|
| We've spent 20 years in the Middle East, but the general
| public didn't learn anything,
|
| The idea of local culture is as uninformed as it was at the
| start of the war. As a result we will make the same mistake
| again.
|
| The reporting about war in Ukraine is the same - basically
| a caricature of reality.
|
| Sidenote: population of Texas and population of Siberia is
| about the same. Russia has a cruel culture, but their
| population is only 1/4 of EU's.
|
| Articles that ask probing questions are only now starting
| to appear, but are extremely rare. For example:
|
| "Russia is producing artillery shells around three times
| faster than Ukraine's Western allies and for about a
| quarter of the cost" https://news.sky.com/story/russia-is-
| producing-artillery-she...
| nradov wrote:
| Yes, NATO countries have hollowed out their military-
| industrial complexes. Everyone is aware now that was a
| mistake but it will take time to rebuild the industrial
| capacity necessary to fight wars of attrition. And of
| course it's cheaper to manufacture artillery shells in
| Russia since the country has lower wages and is now
| running a partially mobilized command economy. But once
| you normalize for quality of the shells, the difference
| isn't quite as bad as it first looks.
| bell-cot wrote:
| > isn't quite as bad
|
| That phrase sounds about right.
|
| Though my impression is that shell production is still a
| "meh, I guess we probably should do something..."
| priority in the great majority of NATO countries.
| Sakos wrote:
| > The research on artillery rounds by Bain & Company,
| which drew on publicly available information, found that
| Russian factories were forecast to manufacture or
| refurbish about 4.5 million artillery shells this year
| compared with a combined production of about 1.3 million
| rounds across European nations and the US.
|
| Rheinmetall intends to increase their annual production
| to 750k by 2025 and the US is aiming for 1 million
| annually by 2025. That's still much less than Russia and
| that's before considering they have access to the
| significant reserves and the factories in North Korea.
|
| > Since August, Pyongyang has shipped about 6,700
| containers to Russia, which could accommodate more than 3
| million rounds of artillery shells or more than 500,000
| rounds for multiple rocket launchers, according to the
| South Korean Defense Ministry.
|
| https://news.sky.com/story/russia-is-producing-artillery-
| she...
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/07/asia/north-korea-
| artiller...
|
| https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-
| watch/news/2024/02...
|
| https://www.army.mil/article/274905/munitions_for_ukraine
| _ob...
| bluGill wrote:
| NATO war doctrine doesn't use nearly as much artillery as
| Soviet (Russian)- preferring air superiority and
| bombs/missiles instead. While it isn't clear this is
| really better (and I hope we never find out), it does
| mean that having less production ability may not be an
| issue. Which is why the US Air force is the largest air
| force in the world, followed by US army, then US navy at
| 4, and US Marines at 7.
|
| Where the problem is, is Ukraine is trained on the Soviet
| war doctrine but are getting backing from NATO - but
| without all the airplanes NATO would use (and it isn't
| clear if they could train pilots/crew fast enough if
| given, but they haven't been given much) they need
| something to fight with.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| How much does that change or Is it just copium?
|
| Are we able to produce millions of air to ground missiles
| if we cannot produce enough simple artillery shells?
|
| Can we replace losses of aircraft in a timely manner?
| frostburg wrote:
| You cannot seriously think that you need 1:1 parity
| missile-to-shell in that paradigm. The overall result
| from the conflict is that the soviet doctrine
| underperfomed, with especially abysmal results for the
| IADS part of it.
| bluGill wrote:
| Ukraine is doing well using mostly the soviet doctrine so
| long as they are 1:5 ratio of artillery with Russia, when
| they are worse than they they start to lose ground, when
| more they gain ground.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > You cannot seriously think that you need 1:1 parity
| missile-to-shell in that paradigm.
|
| this argument would work if we could produce missiles in
| 1:1 parity with shells. However, for any reasonable ratio
| (say 1 missile for 10 shells) the situations with
| missiles is even worse! British government has ordered
| more NLAWs, and they will take 2 years to deliver.
|
| > soviet doctrine underperfomed
|
| That's exactly the scary part - Russian military is a
| mess, and even in these conditions our military
| industrial complex is barely holding it together. Mind
| you we spend 10x what Russia spends. NLAW costs more than
| a Tesla, takes longer to produce than a Tesla, and uses
| 90's technology. There is huge graft in the military
| complex!
|
| Now what will happen if there is a conflict with an
| opponent that is competent, and is able to outproduce
| Russia 5 to 1? It will end in massive humiliation.
| Sakos wrote:
| That's the point, no? Ukraine isn't NATO. Ukraine can't
| do NATO doctrine. So Ukraine also can't win against
| Russia if they're this behind on artillery supply. This
| _is_ an issue for Ukraine. It 's not for NATO. But we
| aren't talking about NATO, we're talking about Ukraine's
| ability to fight back.
| foldr wrote:
| Russia actually has a pretty strong tradition of pilot
| safety in the military. For example, the Ka-50 attack
| helicopter is one of very few such helicopters to be fitted
| with an ejection seat.
| simion314 wrote:
| Pilots costs many years to train, the OC is commenting
| about the mobiks, the soldiers used for their meat not
| brains. There is evidence to support that Russia or
| better said the Putin regime still gives less almost zero
| value to human live.
| masijo wrote:
| What government that has an active military cares about
| the lives of their soldiers beyond their utility value? I
| don't see how the US is different in that regard.
| simion314 wrote:
| That is the point, if you sacrifice the soldiers lives
| you should do it for something valuable, even using pro-
| Rus maps Russia is gaining at best something less then 1
| square kilometer a day and has 1000+ dead or wooded, I am
| sorry for you disillusions with USA but in civilized
| countries nobody would think that 1 soldiers live is
| worth 5000 square netters of field. Sure probably they
| are sacrificed not for that land but for buying time for
| Putin, maybe Trump or other miracle move will save him.
| So from Putin's POV 1000 soldiers for 1 more day on the
| throne is a price he can pay, in a democracy this would
| have ended a long time ago.
| thriftwy wrote:
| > maybe Trump or other miracle move will save him
|
| Save Putin from what?
|
| By default, from now on Russia just retains the
| (formerly) Ukrainian lands it controls and integrates
| them in Russia. There's no deadline to that process, even
| if Russia stops gaining any land at all while still
| having to lose some number of people on the front line,
| basically indefinitely.
|
| I can see that assertion in the Western media that
| Ukraine has an option to "not agree" to unfavorable
| terms, such as the ones voiced by Putin. The underlying
| assumption is that Putin has to disengage _eventually_ ,
| so the Ukraine can just wait it out. But unless some
| miracle saves the day _for Ukraine_ , Russia is not
| getting out of these lands at all. After all, Russia is
| busy paving roads and issuing Russian citizenship in
| these areas.
| ardaoweo wrote:
| I tend to agree with you. If what Putin has done so far
| doesn't cause a massive internal revolt, then selling
| what they've gained by now as a victory shouldn't be too
| hard either.
|
| Attitudes (and apathy) of the Russian population is the
| most astonishing thing about this whole conflict, and
| something that should be remembered when dealing with the
| country in the future, even after Putin.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Russian people begin to realize that 1991 and the
| following decade was very unfair to their nation and (the
| current) country, and the amount of humiliation and loss
| during that period dwarfs the losses of Russo-Ukrainian
| war so far.
|
| I don't say that fighting this war in the current state
| was a good decision, far from it. It is also kind of
| throwing out good money after the bad. Still, I don't see
| Russians parting with whatever paltry gains they just had
| in exchange for a lot of their spilled blood.
| simion314 wrote:
| >Russian people begin to realize that 1991 and the
| following decade was very unfair to their nation and (the
| current) country
|
| Post communism was hard for everyone else too, but we
| (Eastern Europe) do not invent conspiracies about Israel
| and CIA to explain the corruption and incompetence of our
| leaders. For our case the politicians could blame the
| previous guys but in a dictatorship it is hard to blame
| the previous guys since it means blaming yourself so
| dictators have no choice then blame soem external force
| like Israel, CIA,LGBTQ, Satan.
| thriftwy wrote:
| The only country in Eastern Europe in Russia-comparable
| situation is Hungary, and the humiliation in question is
| when it had lands with Hungarian people in them taken
| away from it in Treaty of Trianon. And as you can see
| it's the least happy camper right now.
|
| That and, outside the EU, another troublemaker that is
| Serbia.
|
| Russians do not see the existing borders and existing ex-
| Sovier political layout as fair or in any way beneficial
| to them.
| simion314 wrote:
| It is not free for Putin to keep this land, drones will
| fly and kill his men , destroy his refineries,
| infrastructure etc. Gazprom has giant loses for the first
| time, Putin also needs to protect himself from the
| oligarchs that he screwed over with his imperialistic
| dreams. Ruzzia's economy is not doing well, if you notice
| in all the demands for peace Putin includes "please,
| please remove the sanctions". From what I see onlyne Zeds
| fray to God that Trump will save their SMO from failure,
| hopefully there are still soem repuplicans with brains
| around to prevent any truly zetarded decision.
| ardaoweo wrote:
| Generally the US does a pretty good job training and
| keeping their grunt soldiers alive, and evacuating them
| if wounded. Russia really hasn't done well in these
| aspects if we look at the Ukraine war, or any earlier
| wars for that matter. Their tactics tend to prefer
| quantity over quality.
|
| But yes, as pointed out I'm sure Russia places some more
| value on lives of skilled, well trained personnel than
| the average poorly trained grunt soldier, simply due to
| higher utility value.
| medo-bear wrote:
| It just amazes me that Russian soldiers are able to fight
| against one of the most Western-armed countries in Europe
| [0] using ... shovels [1] ... and zombie-like meat waves
| [2] ?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to
| _Ukrain...
|
| [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-troops-are-
| ordered-f...
|
| [2] https://nypost.com/2024/01/23/news/moscows-meat-wave-
| tactic-...
| simion314 wrote:
| Does it amazes you that they gain less then 1 square
| kilometers even with their Chinese bikes and turtle
| tanks?
|
| not sure why everyone shits on Russian shovels, the
| RuZZian special forces recorded themselves how they train
| to fight close combat with shovels, a shovel is a weapon.
| Anyway the real quote was something like "weapons and
| shovels" but the Ruscists could only read the last part.
| The Zeds also claim they fight NATO, I say to all the
| Zeds please attack a NATO country then you can claim you
| fight NATO - because now you fight just your little
| brother that gas some old Western weapons and better
| intel, the difference is that Ukraine is not Chechnya so
| is harder to invade them, the drunk bear found a big
| enough adversary to break it's mouth.
| arghnoname wrote:
| Their reign of villainy would surely be stopped by now if
| it weren't for their ability to power their war machines
| with washing machine parts
| greenavocado wrote:
| > Their tactics tend to prefer quantity over quality.
|
| Nonsense.
| simion314 wrote:
| >Nonsense
|
| Reality disagrees , unless what we see is actually the
| best and brightest Ruzzia can find.
| greenavocado wrote:
| Russia is fighting against the combined military
| intelligence apparatus of 40 countries
| tpm wrote:
| Public opinion is a big deal in democratic countries,
| which makes them very much averse to loss of soldiers
| lives. Much less so in a dictatorship like Russia. They
| are losing more in a month than the US lost in years or
| decades in active campaigns.
| medo-bear wrote:
| What is the sound a helicopter makes?
| rascul wrote:
| > What government that has an active military cares about
| the lives of their soldiers beyond their utility value?
|
| I would speculate the governments that rely on volunteers
| instead of conscripts for the military.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| That thought is not very logical. Very large passenger fixed
| wings are also a very bad idea and fragile if the premise is
| someone is shooting at them.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
| lvspiff wrote:
| Even ground based large passenger non-winged transports are
| a bad idea if someone is shooting at them:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_railway_station_at
| t...
|
| overall i prefer any mode of transport that is not being
| shot at
| medo-bear wrote:
| What do you know, even sea based large passenger
| transport is a bad idea if someone is shooting at them:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania
|
| Funny anecdote, my first air travel was in an Mi-8 as a 6
| year old being airlifted out of a war zone
| jprd wrote:
| I'm not sure a lot of us would find that "funny", but is
| pretty great that you are in a place now where _you_ can
| find it so.
| medo-bear wrote:
| Took almost 30 years to find the dehumanizing idioticity
| of that war as funny, but I got there.
| _heimdall wrote:
| My grandfather flew in WWII and had many stories of both
| his planes and those in his group making it back with what
| mechanics would have thought was catastrophic damage.
|
| Shooting down any aircraft with a rocket is likely to take
| anything down. Planes can handle damage much better from
| what I understand.
| jordanb wrote:
| Anti-aircraft weapons have gotten better. In WWII the
| Axis didn't have proximity fuses so the shells would
| explode at a predetermined range and throw shrapnel.
|
| Now anti-aircraft weapons explode at a very specific
| distance and create a rapidly expanding ring of metal
| which slices the aircraft in two.
| stouset wrote:
| And they are actively guided onto their targets. Even
| bullets are aimed by radar and a computer plotting a
| solution involving the trajectories of the target, your
| own aircraft, and the bullets themselves.
| _heimdall wrote:
| For sure. I wasn't raising 80 year old flights as a
| direct analog to today's weapons, I'm just pointing out a
| direct example I have of planes landing safely after some
| really serious damage. Helicopters aren't nearly as
| likely to make it back with similar levels of damage.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| The Bloody Hundredth ( _Masters of the Air_ was based on
| that) had the highest casualty percentage of any combat
| unit in the war.
| mysterydip wrote:
| Still being used in training today:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
| _heimdall wrote:
| Survivorship bias is related to how you respond to the
| data though, in this case reinforcing the wrong parts of
| the plane based on where you saw holes in planes that
| returned.
|
| I do believe it is still true that planes can take more
| damage and still land safely compared to helicopters.
|
| I can't find any good data to support it now though,
| maybe someone going by here will have a good link to data
| that shows real world data either way.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| An anecdote, but in 1983 an Israeli F-15 famously landed
| successfully with one of its wings almost completely
| sheared off after a midair collision during training
| exercises.
| mysterydip wrote:
| Yeah agreed, I was making a connection to the parent's
| "the planes could survive hits the mechanics didn't
| expect"
| bell-cot wrote:
| Size matters.
|
| Flight 17 was shot down with a Buk missile. Wikipedia says
| 150 lbs. warhead.
|
| Flight 655 was shot down with 2 SM-2MR missiles. Wikipedia
| is mum about warhead weight...but the missiles themselves
| would be over 3,000 lbs. (combined).
|
| Vs. the helicopter was shot down with a 24 lbs. missile,
| with a 2.6 lbs. warhead.
|
| One extremely clear lesson from WWII was that _hitting_ a
| fixed-wing aircraft was very different from shooting it
| down. Size mattered. Once the combatants realized that,
| they replaced their start-of-war "you _might_ get a hit in
| just the right spot " pea shooters with the heaviest AA
| weapons that they could use.
| lupusreal wrote:
| So you're saying that fixed wing airliners are better
| than helicopter airliners because shooting them down
| requires larger missiles?
|
| Either of these are such fringe scenarios, it doesn't
| make sense to judge either whole class of aircraft by
| this type of incident.
| frabert wrote:
| I think what they're saying is that you can't easily
| target a fixed-wing aircraft flying miles above ground
| with hand-held equipment like you would a helicopter
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> So you 're saying that fixed wing airliners are better
| than helicopter airliners because shooting them down
| requires larger missiles?_
|
| Yes, it not only increases the barrier to entry for
| attackers but airlines can install some defenses against
| MANPADS since they're easier to counteract than more
| advanced missiles. Some Israeli companies have developed
| and certified flare based anti-MANPADS systems like
| Flight Guard and laser based ones like C-MUSIC, though I
| don't think airlines have widely deployed them yet.
|
| Once they're at cruising altitude, man portable AA can't
| bring them down.
| bell-cot wrote:
| I'm saying that helicopters are more fragile, _period_.
| It doesn 't matter whether you are testing that via
| consequences of weapons damage. Or counting the number of
| failure-critial moving parts. Or digging through flight-
| safety statistics. Or computer modeling the effects of
| the sudden loss of the outer 1/4 of one [wing|rotor
| blade]. Or getting quotes on life insurance for a career
| pilot. Or asking a savvy fortune teller.
| spookie wrote:
| It's true though. A fixed wing aircraft is able to travel
| faster and higher. That combination in itself makes them
| much harder to hit.
|
| Look at the next generation of "helicopters" for the US
| military and their justifications for such.
| indymike wrote:
| I think the OP was saying, fixed wing aircraft are safer in
| general, and that is before the shooting starts.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Correct.
| TylerE wrote:
| It's very logical. Rotor wings have a _much higher_
| accident rate per flight hour.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Would it make sense to add the 'height' factor? An airplane
| reaches and does most of its course at 3km, while a
| helicopter at a much lower heights and thus well within the
| firing range of far more weapons.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Airliners fly at 8000-10000m most of the time.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Correct, feet vs m got me.. pilots say 30000f, not 3000m.
|
| That makes my point even stronger (planes vs helicopters
| and their reach-ability from the ground).
| coolspot wrote:
| Video of the incident:
| https://youtu.be/JjpXofja1EM?si=E90kSKtGAwFQoUWN
| datameta wrote:
| It was heavily overloaded, for the record. But huge machine
| nonetheless.
| adolph wrote:
| The double Mi-6, the Mi-12, was developed and flown but did not
| make it into production. You can find video walkthroughs on
| YouTube.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_V-12
| belter wrote:
| Looks a fascinating piece of equipment out of Sci-Fi Anime...
|
| Noticed something interesting from the first flight: "...A
| first flight on 27 June 1967 ended prematurely due to
| oscillations caused by control problems; one set of main wheels
| contacted the ground hard bursting a tyre and bending a wheel
| hub..."
|
| _The cause of the oscillations proved to be a harmonic
| amplification of vibrations in the cockpit floor feeding back
| into the control column when a roll demand was input into the
| cyclic stick_
|
| How would they go about diagnosing such a complex interaction
| in the Sixties?
| adolph wrote:
| Probably similar to now mechanically. They got the chinook
| and others up and going during the same time period. Although
| I guess the Chinook was quite a bit easier since its mass was
| distributed out toward the rotors instead of clustered
| between them.
| NikkiA wrote:
| The Mi-6 had some pretty horrible harmonics issues too, if
| you search on youtube there are videos of them attempting to
| start one that's at a museum, and several times they abort
| the startup because the whole helicopter is rocking backwards
| and forwards after starting the second engine.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| I remember that one from being a kid - I had a helicopter card
| game and it had the same picture as the Wikipedia page.
| fnord77 wrote:
| I'm a little sad this article doesn't do any analysis on why or
| why not such a large pax chopper would be viable.
|
| Is there any hope that eVTOL drones can do what this was supposed
| to, namely hops between near cities and taking people places
| without large runways?
| nradov wrote:
| Well obviously it's viable in the sense that it could fly. But
| aviation projects in the USSR were based more on the whims of
| Party leaders than on any sort of rational economic viability.
|
| Current designs for eVTOL aircraft are very short ranged due to
| limited battery capacity. At most they'll be used by a few
| wealthy passengers for short hops within highly congested
| cities. And they won't be drones; it will be many years before
| the FAA even considers certifying drones for carrying paying
| passengers, especially in airspace where VFR aircraft operate
| ("see and avoid"). Human pilots will be in command.
| bluGill wrote:
| What is wrong with a train for short trips? There is nothing
| wrong with 1825 ideas with some small modernization (electric
| trains are still 1800s technology - though these days I would
| add autonomy which is still 1990s technology in trains unlike
| most places where it is still science fiction)
| 0x457 wrote:
| Nothing wrong with trains. Trains are cool.
|
| Railroads however...
| moffkalast wrote:
| The noise pollution that comes with trains is pretty
| ghastly too. Living next to a train track is just complete
| hell if you want to ever leave your windows open, cause
| every 30 minutes you won't be able to hear yourself think
| for about a minute. Road traffic is at least constant so
| you can sort of filter it out.
|
| Subways and trams are get a pass though.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| That red stuff inside the turbine intakes, what is it? The kind
| of cover they put in when the planes are in storage? So that
| whole photo is staged?
| nradov wrote:
| Of course it's a staged publicly photo. That's nothing unusual.
| The "red stuff" is just regular turbine intake covers that are
| commonly used when certain aircraft are parked outside.
| dmix wrote:
| There's a picture of it in flight in the article...
| bo0tzz wrote:
| The article mentions it being shown at the Paris Air Show with
| exhibit code H-239. I'm pretty sure that's what the picture is
| from.
| 15155 wrote:
| Jet inlet covers intended to prevent foreign object damage -
| bright red so they can't be missed. Standard for basically
| every jet turbine.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| This is quite likely just a reflection of my biases in learning
| and taught history, but so much of what the Soviets worked on
| feels rooted in a sort of "that'll show them!" inferiority
| complex.
|
| I see similar things in North Korea and Russia too today where
| it's almost like a lot of their efforts are based on a
| hypothetical checklist labelled "What Modern Nations Look Like"
|
| I think whether or not there's any truth to my perception, it's
| why I find a lot of Soviet stuff to be so fascinating in a
| science fictiony kind of way.
| ivankuz wrote:
| > so much of what the Soviets worked on feels rooted in a sort
| of "that'll show them!" inferiority complex
|
| That's what the Cold War was about, innit? Same reason why the
| US went to the moon.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Except the US actually made it to the moon with functional
| equipment and not Ekranoplanz.
| dieortin wrote:
| The soviets put the first satellite and man in space, so I
| bet they had functional equipment too
| Waterluvian wrote:
| My perception was that the Cold War was partly about
| exploiting this trait, forcing them into financial ruin by
| running races they couldn't help but compete in.
| pvg wrote:
| A short and fun to read corrective is Kotkin's _Armageddon
| Averted_. The competition, inefficiency and the demands of
| its own power projections were a costly strain but nowhere
| close to leading to ruin or an irrecoverable state.
| pvg wrote:
| _I think whether or not there's any truth_
|
| It's not entirely untrue and some of the cases where it is are
| famous but much of the time there were entirely pragmatic
| considerations and/or consequences of other policy decisions. A
| few things that come to mind are the many constraints on
| manufacturing capability and industrial capacity, 'dual use'
| goals, the size of the country (vs. the quantity of developed
| infrastructure), etc.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| What you are describing is an attribute of command-based
| economies. The typical market-based feedback mechanisms are
| often non-existent, or dulled - is it economical, is there
| demand, etc. In USSR everything was produced by state-owned
| factories, where political leadership would pass down edicts
| poorly rooted in economic realities and wouldn't pose questions
| such as "do we need to make a monster helicopter if 3 smaller
| helicopter are cheaper to manufacture and operate".
|
| In some ways today's China is also guilty of the same kind of
| folly, hence high speed rail network that isn't economical to
| operate so ideological justifications are needed. Or ghost
| cities. Etc.
|
| Market capitalism has other downsides, such as externalized
| costs skewing economic calculations, but it's a different
| conversation altogether.
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