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I always found the Sukhoi 35 the most beautiful of current jet fighters.

Absalom wrote:

Trantor wrote:You want an elegant seaplane?

No, no, you misunderstand, that isn't a seaplane, it's a firetruck that someone duct-taped some wings to .

Yep, and it plays it´s role perfectly. KISS-principle.

GeoModder wrote:I'm Dutch speaking

Hello neighbour!

GeoModder wrote:so often German terms are pretty obvious to me ("Wegbereiter" is an example). "Ersatz" OTOH, doesn't have a near-identical comparison in Dutch.

Really? You mean as a loanword, or is there no dutch word for "alternate"?

junk wrote:Wegbereiter is more of a trailblazer than anything else. But yeah I've never heard of a similar word in german either. A piece of technology that stays on the peak only for a short time.

Stupid question: Is there an english word for exactly this?

junk wrote:You know, kinda sad I can't anything to this pissing contest.

Lemme guess: Czech?
If yes, then 1.) Hello neighbour!
and 2.) Where´s the problem? You have a very good reputation at engineering, for ages. You were the only country to re-engineer the ME-262 (Avia S-92), fly and maintain.
Also your locomotive-industry is very impressing - e.g. Skoda built some of the most elegant steam locomotives ever.
Not that bad for such a small country.

junk wrote:The only thing we have good is artillery these days

Zuzana Howitzer? Then it´s Slovakia. Not a direct neighbour - Hello anyway!

junk wrote:I guess these birds used to be decent


I believe they were able to go outmaneuver bf109s in some areas.

That´s easy, 109ers weren´t good at turns.

Absalom wrote:At any rate, I'm afraid that I've got all of you beat. THIS is the perfect aircraft:

Yess. One of my alltime favourites!

on the SR-71, why bother with being stealthy that was them just testing stuff for defense? just fly faster than the missiles they shoot at you and higher then the guns reach...

but to add a few more to the list of awesome planes.



the X-36, sadly no full size was ever done, but it's gorgeous.



boeing bird of prey, also pretty awesome to look at.

do not know about flight characteristics but the look nice, best plane though, A-10 hands down.

Trantor wrote:[czechies

Yeah I'm a czechie. And to be honest - I've got no problems with germans. Apart from the traditional our beer is better than yours pissing contest . They're just sometimes far too sticklers to precision Learned it the hard way from some of my teachers.

As to the arty I believe it's shared by both us and slovakia. At least the original systems. Not sure if they modernised theirs in any way. I know we did modernise our DANA's to some extent.

bunnyboy wrote:

Absalom wrote:At any rate, I'm afraid that I've got all of you beat. THIS is the perfect aircraft:

Actually I have heard something else.
Pro: It fly high and is almost invisible for radar.
Con: Terrible to fly, terrible to maintain, can't be used in bad weather and it has pricetag of 1 and 1/2 of spaceshuttle. Also, if radar receivers use noise triangulating (principle used in WWII when the radars didn't have power to emit signals), it should glow more than typical nonstealth aircraft.

Initial versions were... troublesome in certain circumstances. You see, you occasionally had an engine flame-out, so you had to perform a specific procedure to get it restarted. After a while, they added some electronics to do that automagically, at which point it wasn't a problem anymore.

So in essence, no, the SR-71 apparently wasn't so bad to fly. The U-2 on the other hand... satellites are good !

Maintenance from what I understand mostly came down to the fact that it used titanium. Good luck doing much better with the SR-71's requirements.

The bad weather thing was apparently related to old electronics that got replaced partway through.

The pricetag was mostly related to fuel costs (the crews weren't worried about the fuel catching on fire when it leaked, because that took LOTS of effort), though I'm certain that tricking the Russians about what that titanium was getting used for wasn't easy. In order to get the plane operational they had to use very unusual (a.k.a. expensive) fuel. I understand that to be what killed the plane (three times, as I best recall!).

As for radar, it could be worse: at one point they were apparently testing a fuel additive that made the exhaust into a massive radar return.

amusingly the SR71 used cutting edge stealth technology, it had a radar profile smaller than most of the fighters used in it's day, so in that regard it was a success.
The PROBLEM actually came from the engine exaust, and your misreading your additives, they added something (cobolt?) as an additive to reduce the radar profile of their exhaust I think 3 fold.

The fact the russians could pick the aircraft up the moment it crossed the horizon with their airport radars just goes to show how useful all these stealth modifications really were.

But in it's defence, said radar profile was thanks to the high energy ionisd gas ejected from the engines that allowed a top speed of mach 3.5 in an era when they were facing mach 1.8 at the top end far closer to sea level, it was an excellent aircraft, although ungainly and poor manuverability.
Admittedly for the purpose it was built, spying on well defended targets, missile technology has far surpassed the airframe... although i wonder if the SR's theoretical successor, capable of mach 5, with improved cooling allowing mach 6 to 8 without damaging their aircraft... i wonder if we actually have a missile that could catch that from ground level in the modern inventory, aside from those insane anti-nukes lol.

But to be fair, I would nominate the XF-71 as the ultimate aircraft to ever be designed from those i have encountered... dropping gliding tactical nukes into the core of bomber fleets at mach 2.5 from an altitude that even modern fighters aren't built for.
And of course I eagerly anticipate it would be followed by the XB-71... a nuclear bomber that would make the russians wish they had improved their own (mach 5 nukes dropping in on your doorstep anyone?)
The biggest problem with the 71 series aside from the whole ionised gas component, was that even moderate turns at the speed they flew at led to high levels of Gforces, so they couldn't turn fast if they wanted to .

Personally, if i could bring just one aircraft back, it'd be the 71... it has an ability to get and collect up to the second intelligence from anywhere in a matter of a few minutes, while satellites at best gives snapshots, a 71 could hang around for a few minutes giving electromagnetic intel, as well as video and the rest...
And best of all, you can time a satellite in orbit's arrival... a 71 could be there at any time ^_^

But the A-10 is the best combat aircraft for sure... but I feel that is mostly because some fool in congress used his connections to 'encourage' a alternate plan which was still in the design stage and ultimately got dropped for being incapable of meeting the requirements, which a 71 appears to have the capability to have met 'out of the box'.

The day the airforce failed to prevent the instructions to destroy the tooling required for this aircraft, is the day they failed at modern aviation.
And now the A-10?
What next, are they going to suggest we retire the M1 mbt?

And some people wonder why I hate politics, no matter who we vote in charge they make stupid and irrational decisions that either complicate our lives, cost us money, or generally ruin the few enjoyable bits of our lives we have left.

Trantor wrote:

GeoModder wrote:so often German terms are pretty obvious to me ("Wegbereiter" is an example). "Ersatz" OTOH, doesn't have a near-identical comparison in Dutch.

Really? You mean as a loanword, or is there no dutch word for "alternate"?

Literally, "Wegbereiter" could be either translated as "voorbereider" (preparator) or "wegenrijder" (road trafficker), depending on the context.
But "Ersatz" is something uniquely German, nothing obviously springs forward for a translation.
"Alternate" --> "Alternatief", but I think the word is a French loanwoard (alternative, with the emphasis on the second and second last vowels).

junk wrote:Yeah I'm a czechie. And to be honest - I've got no problems with germans. Apart from the traditional our beer is better than yours pissing contest .

That´s correct, i´m a Budweiser (Budvar)-addict.
It speaks for itself that a whole class of beers is named after one your towns.

junk wrote:They're just sometimes far too sticklers to precision Learned it the hard way from some of my teachers.

Yep. "Precision ´r´ us". Sometimes it fires back, see the piston squeezers the Germans had in dogfights over southern England. The british engines didn´t had them, they built their engines sloppier and their engines used more oil, but they didn´t squeeze.

junk wrote:As to the arty I believe it's shared by both us and slovakia. At least the original systems. Not sure if they modernised theirs in any way. I know we did modernise our DANA's to some extent.

I remember a test firing report, where it was stated that the Zuzana was toe-to-toe with the PZH2000 in all aspects, which is pretty impressive.

Fotiadis_110 wrote:Personally, if i could bring just one aircraft back, it'd be the 71...

And the XB-70.

Fotiadis_110 wrote:...
What next, are they going to suggest we retire the M1 mbt?

Buy Leopards!

GeoModder wrote:But "Ersatz" is something uniquely German, nothing obviously springs forward for a translation.
"Alternate" --> "Alternatief", but I think the word is a French loanwoard (alternative, with the emphasis on the second and second last vowels).

Hm, interesting, how about "Sucessor" for "Ersatz"?

GeoModder wrote:

Trantor wrote:

GeoModder wrote:so often German terms are pretty obvious to me ("Wegbereiter" is an example). "Ersatz" OTOH, doesn't have a near-identical comparison in Dutch.

Really? You mean as a loanword, or is there no dutch word for "alternate"?

Literally, "Wegbereiter" could be either translated as "voorbereider" (preparator) or "wegenrijder" (road trafficker), depending on the context.
But "Ersatz" is something uniquely German, nothing obviously springs forward for a translation.
"Alternate" --> "Alternatief", but I think the word is a French loanwoard (alternative, with the emphasis on the second and second last vowels).

I think substituent or something similar would work better. Since it's not alternate in the normal sense, but alternate from necessity. So more of a substitute.

Successor isn't the right word either. I'd use "náhrada, náhradník". But I doubt anyone else would understand that one

Double post

Trantor wrote:

GeoModder wrote:But "Ersatz" is something uniquely German, nothing obviously springs forward for a translation.
"Alternate" --> "Alternatief", but I think the word is a French loanwoard (alternative, with the emphasis on the second and second last vowels).

Hm, interesting, how about "Sucessor" for "Ersatz"?

Successor? AFAIK, Ersatz means "surrogate". A successor is a "next-in-line" kind of thing. "Opvolger" in Dutch, or "nakomeling" if you're talking about geneologies.

A QUICK CHECK OF THE TERRAN INTERNET REVEALS THAT THE WORD "ERSATZ" ALSO IMPLIES THAT IT'S SHITTIER THAN THE ORIGINAL

TeidarPallanLeinnol wrote:A QUICK CHECK OF THE TERRAN INTERNET REVEALS THAT THE WORD "ERSATZ" ALSO IMPLIES THAT IT'S SHITTIER THAN THE ORIGINAL

Ah. Is there a Dutch word for "made in China"?

Trantor wrote:

Fotiadis_110 wrote:Personally, if i could bring just one aircraft back, it'd be the 71...

And the XB-70.

Imagine that thing with nuclear engines .

Absalom wrote:

TeidarPallanLeinnol wrote:A QUICK CHECK OF THE TERRAN INTERNET REVEALS THAT THE WORD "ERSATZ" ALSO IMPLIES THAT IT'S SHITTIER THAN THE ORIGINAL

Ah. Is there a Dutch word for "made in China"?

"GEMAAKT IN CHINA"

TeidarPallanLeinnol wrote:A QUICK CHECK OF THE TERRAN INTERNET REVEALS THAT THE WORD "ERSATZ" ALSO IMPLIES THAT IT'S SHITTIER THAN THE ORIGINAL

Not necessarily.

Absalom wrote:

TeidarPallanLeinnol wrote:A QUICK CHECK OF THE TERRAN INTERNET REVEALS THAT THE WORD "ERSATZ" ALSO IMPLIES THAT IT'S SHITTIER THAN THE ORIGINAL

Ah. Is there a Dutch word for "made in China"?

Good one.

Absalom wrote:
Imagine that thing with nuclear engines .

Bah. Don´t spoil it.

One try was enough:

ok it a scaled model but still!

that is clearly the vest aircraft in world, hands down, i vote this thread now be closed as a clear winner has been found.

Absalom wrote:

TeidarPallanLeinnol wrote:A QUICK CHECK OF THE TERRAN INTERNET REVEALS THAT THE WORD "ERSATZ" ALSO IMPLIES THAT IT'S SHITTIER THAN THE ORIGINAL

Ah. Is there a Dutch word for "made in China"?

"Rommel", or "brol" in my country's dialect.
And no, I don't mean the German general.

I would like to tender this one!

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