Date Posted: 2006-08-29 18:55:45.
Subject: US vs RUSSIA
Name: buffman54
Message: I doubt very much that Russia will be fighting any one outside of it old borders(USSR) any time soon. Its AF and Army are in very bad shape. They have barely been holding their own against these 'rebels' they have been fighting for years now. Sure you hear of fights they win every so offen. But not very offen. And even under the old system when was the last WAR that they fought and WON. WW2 maybe! Even under the old system they only put down some up risings but did not fight any real wars. Their is a lot of things about WW2 that make me think that if Hitler and fiends hadn't gotten real dum in 1941 and tried to fight more then one fight at a time Germany would have taken all of Europe and then could have turned on Russia any taken them, Too. Or if he had taken Russia fisrt and then turned on the rest of Europe he could have won. Germany realy did have the best military in Europe at the time and if Hitler hadn't tried to take to big of a bit he very well might have won it all but in the he lost all.

Date Posted: 2006-08-29 18:16:50.
Subject: What is the name of this airplane
Name: buffman54
Message: 1; Yes I forgot about the F2Y. And yes I should have made it clear I was talking about civilian passenger and cargo planes not military aircraft. I don't remember for sure about the trouble with the skis after they were retracted. But I do believe that it was dropped more because there was no need for it than because of problems with the plane itself. The vibration problem could have been worked out if there had been a real need for such a plane. To my knowledge there have been no new attempts to build a jet seaplane in twenty or more years, civilian or military. I may be wrong because I really have not been looking for any thing of that kind. But I've seen nothing in any newpaper or on TV or magazines of any kind.
2; It is very possible that it is a SA-16 Grumman Albatross. I knew that it was a seaplane(flyingboat) but I'm not that up on them. So I went suffing to see if I could find it on the web. I came across a picture of the Sikorsky S-43 and it looked close enough to me to be what is in the picture the man had posted. The PBY is the only one I know without trying.

Date Posted: 2006-08-12 22:19:26.
Subject: What is the name of this airplane
Name: buffman54
Message: I believed that the aircraft is a Sikorsky S-43 Flying Boat. Built in the 1930's & 40's It was a airliner for getting to places that didn't after runways but had water(lots of water). It was used in WW2 for flying people across the oceans and for antisub warfare. There were many kinds of seaplanes or flying boats in the 1920's-50's and they came in all sizes and shapes. There are still many today some are old ones but there are many new ones too. To my knowledge there are no jet powered seaplanes not even turbojet powered. The seawater does bad things to a jet engine and a seaplane would suck in a lot of saltwater. There have been many trys at builting a jet powered one but I don't know of any that have made one that works without trouble with the seawater or even fresh water for that mater. Some have had trouble with the engine being drowned out by water sucked into it.

Date Posted: 2006-08-12 21:02:09.
Subject: USA has the wrost Air force in the world
Name: buffman54
Message: I don't know who started this but they do not know what their talking about. In every war Americans have fought in they have always had the highest kill ratios of any others. At the start of most of the wars our men get creamed but by the end they are killing more of the bad guys than we are losing. In the last thiry or so years our AF has become the AF of the world. Some come close(UK, GER) the Israeli AF is likely the second best in the world. The Rus. AF was not as good and still is not and Very likely wiill not be even close for years to come. Thats not to say their aircraft are not as good and in some cases better (Mig29) than most of ours. But their pilots don't come close in most cases. Several aircraft from around the world are as good or better than ours but they don't have the pilots to man them. We at this time have the hardest training program in the world I believe and we teach our pilots to think for themselves. This has always been Rus. and China's worse failing not allowing their pilots to decide for themselves how to handle the fight in the air. They have had some very good pilots by get them killed off to fast by over controling them from the ground. In many cases our pilots have had higher kill ratios flying what amounted to flying junk. That not true today but has been in the past.