6 ms·

Antonovs in America (2012)

42 points by aww_dang 5y ago

DaveExeter 5y ago
>Soviet paratroopers would practice low-level jumps into snowdrifts without parachutes. Not sure if that would be fun, or terrifying.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- aww_dang 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    You can fly backwards in a Cessna pretty trivially. Anything with a low ish stall speed will have that happen on a windy day.
timonoko 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGF4ovuSrK0
Animats 5y ago
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-plane-destroyed-ukraine-scli-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/antonov-an-225-largest-pl...
- michaelbazos 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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/status/1497321085603307522 https://twitter.com/AntonovCompany/status/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/1497967836337041409 https://twitter.com/AntonovCompany/status/149796783633704140... Based on that, I wouldn't call it completely destroyed, but it will certainly need repairing.
- gambiting 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    >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.
nosianu 5y ago
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/Gesellschaft_f%C3%BCr_Sport_und_Technik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesellschaft_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_df_n-15_0000479_Fallschirmspringer%2C_Gesellschaft_f%C3%BCr_Sport_und_Technik_%28GST%29.jpg 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/flugplatz-magdeburg-1958/1_02.jpg 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.
- overlordalex 5y ago
  > 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation
cptnapalm 5y ago
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.

42 points by aww_dang 5y ago

>Soviet paratroopers would practice low-level jumps into snowdrifts without parachutes. Not sure if that would be fun, or terrifying.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
aww_dang 5y ago
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 5y ago
  You can fly backwards in a Cessna pretty trivially. Anything with a low ish stall speed will have that happen on a windy day.

timonoko 5y ago

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 5y ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGF4ovuSrK0

Animats 5y ago

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-plane-destroyed-ukraine-scli-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/antonov-an-225-largest-pl...

michaelbazos 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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/status/1497321085603307522 https://twitter.com/AntonovCompany/status/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/1497967836337041409 https://twitter.com/AntonovCompany/status/149796783633704140... Based on that, I wouldn't call it completely destroyed, but it will certainly need repairing.
gambiting 5y ago
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 5y ago
  >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.

nosianu 5y ago

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/Gesellschaft_f%C3%BCr_Sport_und_Technik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesellschaft_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_df_n-15_0000479_Fallschirmspringer%2C_Gesellschaft_f%C3%BCr_Sport_und_Technik_%28GST%29.jpg 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/flugplatz-magdeburg-1958/1_02.jpg 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.

overlordalex 5y ago
> 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation

cptnapalm 5y ago

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.