just my opinion

Jemiba

Jemiba

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Folks,
during the last weeks we had quite a number of posts dealing with those dark times in
german history, which again and again are so very fascinating for a lot of people.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with these interests, but to my opinion sometimes
we are coming close to the edge of those sites dealing with flying saucers and ray guns.
I don’t want to offend anybody, but I would like to ask all forum users to check their
sources about those themes even more, than usual. Maybe I’m a little bit over suspicious
about “german secret projects” in the meantime, but I want to remind everybody here,
that the number of fakes, crude misin-terpretations and overestimations is unproportionally
high in this field and, contrary to most other countries, it seems that no “project” can be
too ambitioned, not to be taken for real by a surprisingly number of people. There certainly
were in fact more attempts to develop aircraft and weapons to turn the tide, we already
discussed, what probably quite often was the real reason for designers to come up with
a new “idea”.
There are still a lot of questions unanswered about german aviation, I just remind to the
question about the Bf 165, a type that really reached the mock-up stage, but nevertheless
is unknown today. Of course, it was a pre-war design, not intended to win the war alone and
this may reduce it’s fascination ..... but for all admirers of wartime german aviation, their still
is enough to do, without the need to turn their attention to supersonic suicide aircraft !
This forum here has a good reputation, I think, so we all should be aware, that just getting
near those above mentioned “sources” could do damage !
 
Good news, Bad news

The good news is, the sources on many of the late war German projects are fairly accessible and reasonably well preserved. This is the result of a large well organized effort by the Allies to evaluate the German state-of-the-art at war's end. In the USA, a large amount of the original documents were microfilmed before the originals were returned to Germany and these are available at the NASM archives.

The bad news is that much of the published material on late war Luftwaffe development did not originate from the primary documentation which is readily available. Also, some of the material at the archives was not indexed, so no one looked at it for many years. The Luftwaffe 46 site is pretty good, but particularly before say, 1995, much of the late war Luftwaffe published material is just pure crap!

If the material you see does not reference original source material, there is probably a good reason. Caveat emptor!

Best regards,

Artie Bob
 
This forum here has a good reputation, I think, so we all should be aware, that just getting
near those above mentioned “sources” could do damage !
Click to expand...

Few minutes before your post I addressed a similar one to the moderator's team ;). I think that's an important affaire.

regards

Antonio
 
Folks,

I know it can be fatiguing at times but I'd recommend we all handle the "Luft 46!" newbies with care. The way much of the Luft 46 info us presented seems very factual and real. To an ill informed individual it's pretty easy to get very enthusiastic about all the fantastical stuff in the Luft 46 genre.

I know that to those of us who are informed, this sort of enthusiasm for half-baked and incredible concoctions, as all too often litter the Luft 46 realm, can become rather grating.

But, with a bit of guidance, that newbie's enthusiasm can be properly directed and educated to a more discerning level. So, don't be too hard in smacking down yet another breathless Luft 46 enthusiast when they first pop in here all wild eyed about the uber science of the 3rd Reich! With a bit of tact and patience they can be shown that there's actually a lot more truly cool aviation stuff than just the Luft 46 world that also has the advantage of being completely factual.

Madoc
 
Madoc, you are absolutely right, problem just is, that not all of those infected by
this stuff can be cured by us ! ;)
And I see, too, that even for someone, who IS sceptical about such stuff, it is
relatively easy to get fooled. Unfortunately, there are very few sites, which publish
only fakes or lies, but it's mostly a mixture and it's you, who have to decide, what's
right and what's wrong. And probably most of us believe in the say "In every lie is a
little bit of truth". So, if we are reading about flying saucers with ray guns, built in
germany and flown over the US, can't be there a little bit of truth, too ?
Again, I don't want t blame anyone, I just want to make an appeal for as much caution
and sensibilty, as possible with regards to german projects of the late war years.
 
I'm very grateful for this discussion. Since I was a boy I'm interested in aircraft and it was not easy to get all the wanted material here on the other side of the Iron Curtain. All the more I've tried to distinguish between real and faked information. I was very sceptical considering the growing number of German 'Wunderwaffen'. Plaese support Overscan's original/initial idea of a home for seriously research of unbuilt projects. Jemiba's point of view and the reflections by other SPF members make me thinking that we are on the right track.
 
Do you mean that dreamers should run away from here? I would again. Sadly. :'(
(I respect Reality lovers but as far as I'm concerned I love dreams as well, and I strongly dislike dictatorship)
 
I don’t think so, and sometimes the borders between dream and reality are fleeting,
just see the thread about the Loening flying aircraft carrier. And I still think, there’s
a difference between what-if and fake. A what-if could be a F-15 with lift engines,
a completely new type, the helicopter of Father Christmas, or just a TSR.2 in desert
camouflage. With reasonable judging by the “designer”, it should be no problem, to
post those things either in the modelers section or in the Bar. But even the slightest
chance of a misunderstanding should be ruled out !
Another theme, to my opinion are things like Fornebu flying saucers, german nuclear
bomb tests, or the like. These are fakes, not made to enjoy anybody, but often to
support a certain political opinion (Not by all, who are asking for these themes, to make
this clear ! I don’t want to accuse anybody being a Nazi ! )But to everybody, who is searching
for these things, it should be clear, that he (or she ?) is diving into very murky waters.
Someone who’s buying drugs on the street, not for consuming, but just to see, if they
really are as easily available, as is always said, shouldn’t be too surprised to meet criminals.
So, someone, who is searching for themes, that are dealt with and held high in Nazi
propaganda can meet ... who do you think ?
Basically these points are clear to everybody here, what we really need, is sensibility and
sometimes a little bit more scepticism, but not more rules, I think.
 
rather than 'Oh my god the vril stuff is coming' what needs to be made clear is the ethos behind this forum. In the time that I have spent here (which is quite considerable of late) , it seems to me that this forum is heavily focused on the tech aspect of military and indeed civilian ' machine development ' .. if i may use the term. All 'philosophical discussions' also seem to revolve around 'design philosophy' etc etc. It is a common platform for rather 'elite' near insiders and ex-insiders or even wannabe insiders ( mostly western) to discuss what is clearly more than a passion for them - in fact it is probably their religion. The forum definitely attracts people such as myself for its focus and the absence of any inane and uninformed opinions being bandied about as fact. In fact the brevity and the tightness of many of the discussions is quite impressive but nevertheless limited in scope. This should be apparent to most who read these pages and are enlightened by them. However I must say that the Bar is a rather weak attempt at 'post anything here' and does not really count. It must be accepted at some level that this is a super aficionado forum and it is fast becoming a mere repository ( albeit the best) for cached information on equipment and not really a ' open forum' as such . I think as the owner and overseer of this site once said- posting here is a privilege not a right. I guess some of you are yawning by now .... but that's okay I can live with it.
 
You’re right, nearly all discussions here are limited to the technical aspects of things, that in fact are
weapons, machines made to destroy and kill people. Not accidentally one, still living thread has the
title “Civil aircraft are boring? Think different”. A partial explanation may be the fact, that the gender
“male” still is overwhelming here. Only few boys aren’t fascinated by big bangs, too often without any
realisation of the effects, a phe-nomenom, that can be found through all ages. And still
yet I’ve not read (nor written !!) a post agreeing to the cancellation of an aircraft, because in most
cases better use can be made of the taxpayers money, than buying weapons.
But there are better places for discussing social politics, than an avation forum. I don’t think, that you
can read many warnings about becoming deaf due to loud music in a forum about rock music. And a
computer hardware forum usually isn’t the best place to discuss, if sitting in front of the screen for too
long may do damage to our kids.
About the treatment of informations, true or false, about german “Wunderwaffen”, I honestly have
mixed feel-ings, too. Of course, nobody should be afraid to ask “is there any reality behind it ?”. But
as often could be seen (not just in this forum), a simple “no” seems not to be a sufficient answer for
those asking. And maybe I’m a little bit paranoid with regards to this era, but I can’t help the feeling,
that such projects wouldn’t raise that fascination, if they would have been decorated with a british
roundel, instead of a swastika. I’m pretty sure, there’s a reason, why you can buy piles of books
about “german secret weapons”, a genre so succesful, that even today designers are working on
such things !
It’s quite easy, I’m afraid, to drift from an uncertain answer like “well, maybe somone there was
thinking about something like that ..” to the sometimes stated “superiority of the german technology”
and the next step, probably would be a short one : In a nation, that supported such revolutionary
developments, there must have been something good ! And to my opinion, that’s the reason behind
many of those books and sites !
Of course, all informations about Stalins, Kim Il Sungs or Saddam Husseins wonder weapons should be
regarded with the same scepticiscm, but I don’t have the feeling, that there’s any problem ..
 
Jemiba said:
You’re right, nearly all discussions here are limited to the technical aspects of things, that in fact are
weapons, machines made to destroy and kill people. Not accidentally one, still living thread has the
title “Civil aircraft are boring? Think different”. A partial explanation may be the fact, that the gender
“male” still is overwhelming here. Only few boys aren’t fascinated by big bangs, too often without any realisation of the effects, a phe-nomenom, that can be found through all ages. And still
yet I’ve not read (nor written !!) a post agreeing to the cancellation of an aircraft, because in most
cases better use can be made of the taxpayers money, than buying weapons.
But there are better places for discussing social politics, than an avation forum. I don’t think, that you can read many warnings about becoming deaf due to loud music in a forum about rock music. And a computer hardware forum usually isn’t the best place to discuss, if sitting in front of the screen for too long may do damage to our kids.
About the treatment of informations, true or false, about german “Wunderwaffen”, I honestly have
mixed feel-ings, too. Of course, nobody should be afraid to ask “is there any reality behind it ?”.
Click to expand...
Thanks Jemiba to understand and somehow approve my uneasy feeling about weapons, that made me almost an extraterrestrial on an another site I left.
But for Reality, just be informed that Indian Buddhists and skeptics (including myself) do think "maybe there's no Reality, just my changing from dream to dream". In the Western World, I reveive a full condemnation and psychotropic pills for this "guilty" opinion, impossible to destroy by logics.
So, is this site welcoming dreamers or approving their chasing away? That was my question. In you war against Nazi fans, will you blame innocents?
 
I may enjoy a "fantasy" post (I drew lots of fantasy aircraft and variants as a teenager) personally, but I also have personal experience of a drawing I invented appearing all over the internet, treated as real. I don't want this site to mislead people, intentionally or accidently.

Thats why I think its necessary to clearly tag any such topic. I also think the Early/Postwar Secret Projects forums aren't the right place for such posts. They are intended as a reference resource.

However, creating a new dedicated section for fantasy creations might just encourage posts of this kind, which I think are strictly off topic for my intention for the forum. However, a forum exists for all its users, so if it was something everyone wanted, it could be created.
 
while the analogies posted by Jens about certain specialised forums may certainly hold, one must not forget that the cropping up of supposed "nazi super weapons" is probably perturbing him the most. i think SPF is not an ejaculation joint where people can just keep salivating over designs that if built would have sunk a sizeable portion of a particular country's GDP and would probably not have been used in 'defense'. Rather than start a section on fantasia I would suggest that SPF started a separate dedicated section on the trials and tribulations of people who actually belaboured on these projects, the consequences of project stoppages, project management in aerospace, technological spinnoffs from these projects into the civilian world (not just aerospace ) and documentation about the actual use of some of this stuff in combat and the consequences thereof. All of the above have been touched upon in various threads (great aerospace personalities, some topics in the bar etc) but a properly labelled separate section would help. No schizophrenia gentlemen , many of you have kids who in my humble opinion should not grow up thinking that their dad has an internet alter ego existence that simply revels in boys for toys kind of stuff- hell with the consequences.
 
Ok, let’s make a section about the poverty of the industrial workers in the aviation industry,
the dangers of using teflon covered frying pans (technological spinnoff) for health, and of
course about the biological effects of the nuclear tests in the fifties and sixties ...
Avatar, do you know the say “Good for all means good for nothing” ?
All your mentioned points can be discussed, and I’m sure, already are discussed , even by a
lot of people from this forum here, but ... not here, because, as the name implies, this is a
forum about aviation projects. Why not meet again at another forum for these questions ?
 
Jemiba said:
not here, because, as the name implies, this is a
forum about aviation projects. Why not meet again at another forum for these questions ?
Click to expand...
ok, Jemiba, I stop discussing here, I will answer to your mail separately. Politics and religion are not the subject here... (while political and religious dictatorship, fully required here, remains much unpleasant)
 
"the poverty of aerospace workers" - why not my friend? isn't this forum essentially rehabilitating a load of people from that very category :) seriously, this is a 'just my opinion thread' started by, guess who? so that is essentially an opinion and not a dictum that i am trying to foist upon this forum ..... I was just indicating a direction - that could have made this forum more socially "attuned" than it is at the moment. It would not really have diluted its USP - heck it would have made it popular among an even wider category of people - but then its "just my opinion".

Unfortunately you turned a few of my suggestions on their head and indulged in making an unnecessarily polemical reply. For instance
I had talked about highlighting the less known and useful tech spinnoffs, not their ill effects.
I had talked about making other people understand (people who read these pages) the actual sweat that goes into creating these machines- to understand , the toil, the genius - stuff that old hands like you may have seen first hand - rather than merely putting up stuff from your HDD. Secret projects involve not so secret work - not the cloak and dagger stuff but actual project challenges and more mundane work.


As far as your comment about meeting up on other fora is concerned- I do not post anywhere else. And in any case I will not waste any further bandwidth on Secret Projects. Clearly the forum requires people with a different ethos probably with an ethos similar to Herr Jens here with his 'what is good for all, is good for nothing' an admirable notion - not very farway from Nazi eugenics mind you.
 
I can't see anyone objecting to posts about the people who worked on projects, and the consequences of cancellations. This kind of information is harder to research though, which is why its not often done.

I'm not sure however we have an ethical duty (which is what you seem to imply) to talk about wider social issues, and the "use of this stuff in combat". I'm pretty sure no-one has ever used an unbuilt plane in combat.

When you post about PAK-FA, avatar, should you have to discuss whether Russia should cancel the project and divert the money to reducing poverty in rural areas of Russia? I don't believe it would be helpful.
 
Aah, Overscan you do the same thing that Jens did and focus on the part about "the use of this stuff in combat and the consequences thereof" .. leave out the consequences thereof part and even what preceded it ... its okay ... it is seemingly at odds with the topicality of SPF ... however I come from a culture nay civilisation where all opposites are sought to be reconciled. As far as ethicality is concerned, SPF certainly does not "owe" anything to anybody. I have not implied in my posts that it is SPF's moral obligation to include my suggestions , quite the contrary. I have merely stated a few ways in which I think this forum can be made more comprehensive and enriching. Also about our forumite juniors :) I believe that they should inherit an SPF which looks at all dimensions - a modern day well rounded person .

Your question about PAK-FA vs butter is precisely what I am not suggesting . and I definitely would not bring it up for discussion in the PAK-FA thread. As far as the macroeconomic choices with reference to defense procurement and the way it is to be done , well ...
 
Avatar said "And in any case I will not waste any further bandwidth on Secret Projects. " But you did...

I joined and have contributed financially and materially to this forum to find out and unearth more information about real project vehicle designs that pique my interest. There are a few childrens shows that have some wonderful designs in that I might post in the Bar just to ask has this any merit in its design - but I have been resisting the temptation - so far. These shows in my youth probably influenced my taste for what I like in the real world now.

Personally I steer clear of discussing Politics and Religion as I find it normally ends up in tears/shouting. If it has to happen here can it be boxed up into its own little section with a big warning sign "Enter At your Own Regret!"

Regards,
Barry

ps I believe everyone is entitled to their own (hopefully informed - and enlightened) opinion. However I reserve the right not to have to listen/read it...
 
nice prevarication Mr Bond and you end with a wonderful inversion on "just my opinion" too . you clearly justify your own presence here with "financially" and "materially" .. wonderful ... well I have contributed materially too in my own small way. The financial bit ... well I was coming to that too.. . in any case as Overscan said some of things i suggested require more research and should "pique" your interest giving due regard to your gushing desire to contribute.

I have a message for overscan and all other forumites....
either head in some more involved direction as hinted above or get ready to have the "death star" discussed here by neo-vril converts, sooner than later. It does not have to be any of the "outlandish" and non-contextual things I have suggested but something more serious anyway

secondly, do not pounce upon just one of my suggestions and beat it repeatedly with a stick.

Thirdly, comments such as BB's seem to suggest that unless you make "contributions" ,, you really should zip it up - unfortunate
 
"Thirdly, comments such as BB's seem to suggest that unless you make "contributions" ,, you really should zip it up - unfortunate " -no not my intention at all. To explain when I came across this forum I thought it to be very good and wanted to contribute what I could find from my collection of old magazines and such like to see if other people would then contribute more to this wonderful resource. When I learnt that I could help out by contributing towards it's running costs I did so because I wanted to keep it open. I had no intention of insinuating what your conclusion was. There may well be many people accessing this forum with nothing to contribute - that was probably me 15 years ago as my interests/hobbies started going into a different direction from fictional film hardware to realworld projects. I have no particular agenda to rid the forum of non-contributists. Now those who post inane comments and wundervril stuff...I just have to endure and chuckle at.

Please read my post again but take it in a lighter tone as not everything I was saying was meant to be taken seriously - I do not think any of my friends would say I was a particularly serious person.

Now I think it is entirely up to the person who created this forum as to what it is about - if that person feels the need to ask the users their opinions about the forum and what new directions they may like to take it in - that's all good and well (but in the end they don't have to take any notice whatsoever). And if the creator wants to pull the plug - again that is up to them.

I belonged once to a private forum (the owner poached people he thought worthy of contributing from other forums) _ I asked if a particular section for my interest could be created - he did so. Then it vanished - merged into another section - I was hurt, no word of explanation to me. But then I realised I could do nothing, it wasn't worth complaining about it was his forum he could do what he wanted. He was benefiting from other peoples knowledge and I also found out he was pissing off a few other people with his irrational actions. I stopped going there. Dunno exactly what I'm trying to say there but it just came to mind.

Oh yeah, you still seem to be wasting your breath here or do you not stand by your words?!
"Avatar said "And in any case I will not waste any further bandwidth on Secret Projects. "

Regards,
Barry

ps how about the Poverty Of Nuclear Industry Workers eh...!
 
well Mr bond you certainly did waste a lot of time and bandwidth replying to or rather clarifying my "thirdly' part. ;D Subsequently you post an anecdote and remind me of "wasting bandwidth" ... hmm... interesting . ::)in anycase Overscan (the owner of the site ..eek!) did reply to that "wasting bandwidth " post and I thought it was fit to reply to what he said as his reply made me reconsider the part about "wasting further bandwidth". To understand why - check the first paragraph of that post.

i too have come to like this site , which is why I registered. I have lurked numerous forums since I was a kid and have been a enthusiast (military, tech , just about everything since I was a kid.) I do not post anywhere else.

The owner and i daresay others ( presumably yourself) are concerned about the future direction of this fora. which is why this thread has been allowed to continue - it clearly represents some sort of a consultative process and I therefore decided to join issue with my suggestions. clearly some of my suggestions ( one in particular) have been found rather contentious. that is okay , they are suggestions after all...

about the nuclear industry ... well i am actually connected to it( my work) and have spent some time analysing it ... i do not know whether you gave that example specifically or just because it came to your mind
 

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