Great photos of Russian helicopters and seaplanes

allen griggs

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/Gidroaviasalon2006/Highlights/index.html

ElMuertoMonkey

Russia is such a funny country - they can design planes, missiles, guns, and tanks that are amongst the best in the world, yet can't seem to build any consumer item that don't look or feel like a hunk of concrete. They helped defeat Hitler, but couldn't balance a checkbook to save their lives.

And many of their women are hot, but their men either look like Yeltsin, Stalin, or Putin...

It is a nation rife with inconsistencies, that's for certain...

zipperzap

Guns or butter ... and it's ashame.

When they develop Siberia oil,
perhaps things will change.[8D]

buschmaster

their consumer goods were designed by the same ones who engineered their tanks, factory machines, etc.

russia would have clobbered germany in wwii by themselves if they wouldn't have been so poorly supplied. it would have been like holyfield vs. tyson all over again: one was an excellent boxer, but the other was one hell of a brawler.

(aahh... tyson should have won.)

buschmaster

those are some good pix! thanks!

elkoholic

Thanks for posting. Great pics.

tsavo303

cool pics

mrseatle

Sweet pics,

KSUmarksman

those are some great photos, as a guy who suffered from a case of "planes on the brain" since a very young age I appreciete it.

As far as the question of why Russia/the USSR can design great aircraft but has sucky domestic products, it is a complex problem that is most easily summed up by basic economics: guns or butter.

Russia was the last "western" (as opposed to true Asian nations like Japan, China, etc) nation to industrialize. I think part of the issue was that Russian Boyars (noblemen) were never too eager to give up the privileges under feudalism, often the Czars had to threaten force to get Russian to modernize. This situation was not resolved early enough and left Russia playing catchup in the late 1800s/early 1900s (which they were doing rather well, thanks in large part to good relations with the US/American businesses)

WWI and the revolution too a heavy toll on Russia. Not only by sheer devastation but also from the fact that a lot of really intelligent folks decided to hightail it for any nation that would accept them (quite a few bright guys, like Igor Sikorsky, ended up in the US)
Stalin's policies of forced industrialization were carried out in a haphazard manner and toward the latter half focused primarily on military industry.

It is my opinion that the final blow was WWII. The USSR simply could not rebuild its civil economy after the destruction of the war while simultaneously fighting the US in the arms race. We somtimes forget that the US was already better off than Russia in 1900, and we benefitted from WWI and II more than we suffered (in terms of the economy). Many historians think that the European NATO countries would be in the same boat as Russia isf not for US aid under the Marshall Plan.

11BravoCrunchie

I want one! [:p][:p][:p]