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Have you ever heard of the Antonov An-225? The Antonov An-225 Myriad was an aircraft that should never have existed. By nearly all forms of convention, it’s a bad idea, but to the Soviets, it was the perfect plane for transporting space aircraft across the vast empire of the USSR. Originally, the Soviets would transport large pieces of their space program by train. Many of the pieces needed were too large to be transported by train. So, the USSR replaced the trains with Myasishchev M-4 converted bombers, designated the VM-T Atlant. Even these converted bombers, though, were not large enough for some components. So, they turned to the largest aircraft the Soviet Union offered at the time. The Antonov An-124 was the largest transport aircraft the Soviet Union had to offer, but even this was too small. So, they requested the Antonov Design Bureau for a large aircraft to replace the VM-T. So, they took the an124 and scaled it up a little bit. They reinforced the roof to help it carry things on top, it had three engines, and it was the largest plane ever made and put into service. It was then flown WITH THE SPACECRAFT ON IT through a storm to the Paris Air Show. I personally say that this is some crazy reckless behavior.  But at home, something bad was happening. The Soviet Union collapsed, and the An-225 reverted to the ownership of its original creator, Antonov. I should mention that Antonov is a state own buisness. It sat in a hanger for many until demand was needed for a larger aircraft to transport big things, even bigger than the An-124. So, Antonov rushed to bring it out of storage and back into service as a cargo aircraft. It was re-engineered for cargo service and refitted with better engines. On May 23, 2001, the An-225 was re-entered into service. It took the largest loads. It transported things like trains, aircraft, and even win turbine blades! These impressive loads come to a sad end when Russia invaded Ukraine. It was scheduled for evacuation by NATO, but Russia had already started shelling the airfield as it was one of the main targets. This incredible story ends in a hanger in Ukraine, destroyed and sad. I know that this article is supposed to be purely informational and with no feelings but seeing such an iconic plane burnt out destroyed just makes me sad. Anyway, that is the story of the crazy supa-big plane that got bombed by the people who built it.  The picture shows a before and after of the plane.

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i found my password

Have you ever heard of the F-15 streak eagle? It is the United States’ way of respectfully telling the Soviet Union that we are better than them. In the late 1960s, the Soviet Union showed of the MiG-25 “Foxbat”, which promptly made every single military commander very worried. This jet (according to the Soviets) was the fastest, most advanced, most crazy supa high tech fighter ever made. This was not true in fact, but the United States did not know that and got really concerned when it started to set new world records. So, the US decided to make an aircraft that was on par with what they thought was the Soviet aircraft. Thus created : the F-15 eagle. The funny thing was that the Foxbat was not actually that good and was only created as a interceptor for supersonic bombers. It used outdated radar tech, fuel hungry engines, and really heavy steel. Without knowing this, the United States made of the best aircraft to compete with an aircraft that sorta sucked. it got to 30,000 meters in the air in just over 3.5 minutes. It has lost 0 planes in air-to-air combat and is one of the best planes ever

made.

You may be wondering why there is a different paragraph here and it is for a reason. I recently went to the National Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. There, the Streak Eagle is on display, were, I took some “interesting” photos.

There are, not one, BUT TWO spelling mistakes on the Streak Eagle! Ojbects and safty are both on those warnings CLEAR AS DAY. This, I find very funny.

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Ever heard of the one time the USSR stole a bomber from the Americans and just straight up copied it. The Tu-4 is a one to one copy of the American Boeing B-29. It was done after a B-29 was forced to land on to a Soviet Navy airbase 18.6 miles east of Vladivostok, on 20th July 1944. The plane landed there because at the time, they were not able to return to base and Russia was the closest allied country to the US. When the plane landed, the crew was put under arrest and the plane was taken. This was the first of five B-29 bombers to have to make a forced landing in Russia. Although the 5th bomber was returned to the united states along with it’s crew, the other four planes were taken and studied intently. Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev was put in charge of examining and reproducing the aircraft. Tupolev examined every single piece of the stolen B-29s, and documented them thoroughly. The reason that the USSR did this was that they had no long range strategic bomber that was…well good. They had the Pe-8, but that was outclassed in many ways compared to western offerings and was produced only in very small numbers. The biggest problem that they had on replicating the B-29 was converting all the bolts to metric, which thinking about it is really funny. Over 900 factories and research institutes were involved in the effort, producing 105,000 technical drawings to replicate the aircraft. Despite that, the first prototype flew on May 19, 1947. Western observers were stunned at the Tushino Air Show in Moscow when three Tu-4 bombers flew overhead, looking identical to the American Boeing B-29. This confused the heck out of the western representatives, thinking that it might just be a similar looking plane, but they were wrong. They had just seen the Tu-4 bomber, that was totally, a Soviet Original (trust me bro)

This is an image of an Tu-4, which looks LITERALLY THE SAME AS A B-29

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Did you know that there was a plane that shot itself down? The Grumman F-11 Tiger was a fighter aircraft that was intended to improve on a carrier jet design. It was extremely fast and reached Mach 1 without its afterburner during its first test flight. On the 21st of September, 1956, the prototype Tiger took off from a test facility in Long Island for a weapons test. The pilot flew to 14,000 feet and shot a 4 second burst, firing 40 rounds. The pilot initiated the afterburner and flew down 7,000 feet and did a mag dump. Suddenly, the windshield shattered. The pilot assumed that it was a bird strike so he accelerated towards the base. The pilot realized that the plane was going down and attempted to fly back to base but, the engine had been hit by the bullets, and the plane crash landed 300 feet from the runway. It was given the designation as the first plane to shoot itself down, which in my opinion is really funny.

This is an image of the plane as is on display at the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

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The SR-71 “Blackbird” is the air forces brute force answer to intelligence. During the cold war, the US used U-2 spy planes, which went on a different route. Rather than going extremely fast, they went extremely high. Going up to 70,000 feet, they assumed that it was too high for Soviet radars and surface-to-air missiles. This idea was wrong as the Soviets could see the plane from day one. The USSR eventually shot it down it paraded it around the country as proof of aggression from the west. This was a disaster for the US, but it still needed an intelligence aircraft. Lockheed was contracted to make the aircraft, and they created the A-12, which was later designated the SR-71 for the USAF. It was a tremendously fast aircraft, one that still holds the record for fastest aircraft to date. Lockheed had to make the aircraft almost entirely out of titanium because of how hot it got during flight. It cost 200 million (around 1.8 billion today) to run every year. The program was shot down on the 28 of December, 1966 because of the immense running costs, the success of intelligence satellites and drones, and improvements in the Soviet Air Defenses. Although, $160,000 was allocated to keep six SR-71’s in working order. And that, my friends, was the story of the crazy fast supa-plane that no one was able to shoot down.

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Zippo lighters are one of the most robust and reliable designs known to man. They have been produced for over 80 years and are some of the most popular lighters in the world. Over 600 million have been produced worldwide and it is the epitome of the idea of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Zippo lighters have barely changed in the large time span that they have been produced and they are still very good. This is not an ad I just think they’re cool.

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Did you know that the F-15 Eagle was created because the Soviet Union was to good at propaganda? It’s true! The United States thought that the Soviet Union’s MiG-25 Fox-bat was a Multi-role fighter that was really good. So the US made one of the most successful fighters of all time, the F-15 Eagle. When the US finally got a Fox-bat when a Soviet fighter pilot defected, they realized that it wasn’t really that OP. So the US accidentally made a fighter for a threat that really wasn’t really a threat. Funny.