This month we show you ten of the greatest, fastest, or just oddest planes ever built. Every boy dreams of flying planes, but the technology itself is sometimes oddly slow-moving. Passenger airplanes are a mature technology; they haven't really changed since the mid-1970s. You can still buy 737s and 747s that are twenty or thirty years old and use them for new airlines - after a check-up, of course! The interiors can be jigged around, new communications and entertainment technology added, but the plane design itself remains mostly the same. The real innovations nowadays are in military planes - plus some weird designs by random innovators!

本月，我們?yōu)槟故臼飞鲜笞顐ゴ?、最快或者最古怪的飛機。每個男孩都夢想駕駛飛機，但科技本身有時發(fā)展奇慢?？蜋C技術(shù)已經(jīng)成熟，自上世紀七十年代中期以來就沒有真正地變化過。你仍然可以買有二三十年機齡的波音737和747飛機，然后將其投入新航線，不過當然要經(jīng)過檢查了！內(nèi)部可以重新整理，增添新的通訊與娛樂設(shè)施，但飛機本身的設(shè)計幾乎還是老樣。如今真正有創(chuàng)新的是軍用飛機，還有一些革新者所設(shè)計的奇怪飛機。

The F-22 Raptor

F-22“猛禽”隱形戰(zhàn)斗機

This is the current darling of the US air force, a lean, gray beauty and the newest, fastest, most advanced stealth fighter in the skies. With a price tag of a hefty $138 million per aircraft, it can fly at over Mach 2.0 (around 2100 km/h), but is also highly maneuverable. Stuffed with high-tech gadgetry, and loaded with air-to-air missiles, it's virtually undetectable by ordinary radar. Pilots and military contractors love them, but military analysts doubt the need for such advanced and expensive planes given that the US already enjoys total air superiority in any plausible scenario.

這個修長的灰色“美人”是美國空軍現(xiàn)在的寵兒，是天空最新、最快、最先進的隱形戰(zhàn)斗機。每架高達一億三千八百萬美元，飛行速度可逾2.0馬赫（約 2100千米/小時），而且操控性極佳。它配備有高科技配件，可攜帶空對空導彈，普通雷達幾乎偵查不到。飛行員和軍事承包商喜歡它們，但軍事分析人士懷疑是否需要如此先進而昂貴的飛機，因為無論在任何情況下，美國已經(jīng)完全擁有空中主導權(quán)。

The Lear Jet

利爾飛機

This is the old warhorse of business planes, originally modified from an American fighter design way back in the 50s, and now onto its ninth or tenth generation. Designed primarily for the use of CEOs and a small cadre of followers, LearJets can seat 9 people - as long as one of them sits on the toilet. Like other private aircraft, they're often pimped out with accessories, including full-blown entertainment systems, in-flight offices with high-speed internet connections, luxury leather seats, and the suchlike. Most airports have a terminal designed specifically to handle private jets - which has the additional luxury of letting the passengers speed through immigration!

這是老牌的商用飛機，起初由美國上世紀50年代的一款戰(zhàn)斗機改裝而成，現(xiàn)在已發(fā)展到第九或第十代。利爾飛機主要是為首席執(zhí)行官和少部分追隨者所設(shè)計，可容納9人（只要有其中一人坐在廁所）。跟其他私人飛機一樣，它們有很多配件，包括完整的娛樂系統(tǒng)、可高速上網(wǎng)的空中辦公室、豪華皮座椅，等等。大多數(shù)機場有專門供私人飛機起降的航站，當然也可以讓乘客享受快速通關(guān)的額外奢華待遇。

SpaceShip One

太空船一號

Unimaginatively named but technically brilliant, this snubby, odd-looking machine was the first in the world to achieve private manned spaceflight. Designed by American aerospace engineer Burt Rutan, one of the few real modern innovators in aerospace design, it can reach up to a hundred kilometres into the atmosphere, far higher than ordinary planes, and can be boosted by rockets up to Mach 3. It's still sub-orbital - reaching the earth's orbit would require more than sixty times the power - but is the first step towards an entirely new range of flight. SpaceShip Two is currently being developed, and will be used to take small groups of private tourists into space.

名字出奇的怪，但技術(shù)卻很卓越，這架機翼上翹而古怪的機器是世上首架能夠?qū)崿F(xiàn)私人太空旅行的飛機。設(shè)計師為美國航空航天工程師巴特?魯坦，是當今少數(shù)在飛行器設(shè)計方面真正的革新者之一。太空船一號的飛行高度可達10萬千米，進入大氣層，遠勝于普通飛機的飛行高度，經(jīng)過火箭助推，速度可達3馬赫。它還只能到達亞軌道，要到達地球軌道得需要60倍的推力，但這是邁向飛行新領(lǐng)域的第一步。太空船二號正在研發(fā)，可將幾個私人游客帶入太空。

The C-5 Galaxy

C-5銀河系運輸機

This gigantic aircraft - 75 m long, and 20 m high - was built by the Americans to transport military gear. The US originally looked to design a massive transport plane back in WW2, when Howard Hughes, the famous industrialist, came up with the 'Spruce Goose,' a gigantic all-wooden aircraft that only ever flew once. The Galaxy is more successful; it can easily carry helicopters, tanks, and armoured personnel carriers, though it's most often used to carry more prosaic war materials such as ammunition and building equipment. In peacetime, they're often drafted to carry food aid or scientific gear. Massive and tough, they've been used to carry gear all over the world, from the deserts of Africa to the ice fields of Antarctica.

這個大家伙長75米，高20米，是美國人為運輸軍事輜重而制造的。二戰(zhàn)期間，美國原想設(shè)計一架大型運輸機，著名的實業(yè)家霍華德?休斯就生產(chǎn)了Spruce Goose，這是個全木頭的巨無霸，只飛行過一次。銀河系飛機更成功，能輕松搭載直升機、坦克和裝甲車，不過主要還是運普通的戰(zhàn)爭物資，如炸藥和建筑設(shè)備。在和平年代，它們經(jīng)常運輸援助食物和科學設(shè)備。由于體型大且耐用，從非洲沙漠到南極冰帶，它們經(jīng)常滿世界地運輸設(shè)備。

Global Flyer

環(huán)球飛行者

Another of Bert Rutan's designs - and again with the literal naming! - the Global Flyer was specially designed to allow adventurer Steve Fossett to challenge the around-the-world flight record. The previous record had been set by Rutan's Voyager plane, like the Global Flyer a massive, spindly thing with a tiny space for the pilot. Made of carbon flyers, and looking more like a glider than a plane, the Global Flyer requires very little fuel for the distance it travels. The Global Flyer smashed all previous world flight records, successfully circumnavigating the world in just over two days.

巴特?魯坦的又一個設(shè)計，名字起得很貼切——環(huán)球飛行者飛機是為冒險家史蒂夫?福賽特挑戰(zhàn)環(huán)球飛行記錄而特別設(shè)計的。之前的記錄由魯坦的航行者飛機創(chuàng)下，這架飛機跟環(huán)球飛行者類似，也是細長的大家伙，而駕駛艙狹小。環(huán)球飛行者由碳纖維制成，看起來更像是滑翔機，不像飛機，而且耗油量很少。環(huán)球飛行者打破了之前所有的世界記錄，僅用了兩天多就繞了地球一圈。

The Caspian Sea Monster

“里海怪物”

Something between a plane, a hovercraft, and a ship, ekranoplanes, or ground effect vehicles, use cushions of high-pressure air underneath their wings to propel themselves mere metres above the ground. Still an underdeveloped technology, theyre faster than ground vehicles and can achieve massive sizes. The Soviets developed one of the first in the 1960s, an enormous beast weighing over 500 tons - American spy satellites spotted it in the Caspian and, with very little idea what it was, dubbed it 'The Caspian Sea Monster.' It may actually have been too small to work properly - for the ground effect to develop, bigger is even better, and Boeing are even now working on a design for the 'Pelican,' an ekranoplane which will weigh in at a terrifying 1500 tons!

Ekranoplane（又稱地面效應飛行器）介于飛機、氣墊船和輪船之間，利用機翼下填充高壓氣體的氣墊來助推，距離地面僅數(shù)米。技術(shù)還不成熟，但速度比汽車快得多，體積也很大。前蘇聯(lián)于上世紀60年代研制出最早的地面效應飛行器之一，體型龐大，重達500多噸。美國間諜衛(wèi)星在里海偵查到它，因為不知道它是什么，就稱之為“里海怪物”。可能如果太小了，它就無法正常運行，即地面效應產(chǎn)生不出來，因此越大越好。波音甚至現(xiàn)在都還在設(shè)計“Pelican”，這種地面效應飛行器重達1500噸！

The SR-1 Blackbird

SR-1黑鳥

There have been other stealth planes since, but the Blackbird was one of the first, and the coolest.A sleak black hunting bird, it was among the first designs to extensively use titanium, a super-strong material now common in aircraft manufacture. Able to fly at incredible speeds, it was also virtually invisible to enemy detection. It carried minimal weaponry, for defensive purposes, and was mostly used as a spy plane to photograph military installations and gather intelligence data.

隱形飛機有很多，但黑鳥是其中最早的之一，也是最酷的之一。它宛如修長的黑色獵鳥，是最早大量使用鈦的飛機之一，鈦是一種超強材料，現(xiàn)在廣泛用于飛機生產(chǎn)。SR-1黑鳥飛機速度驚人，敵方很難偵查到。它攜帶有少量武器，用于自衛(wèi)，主要用于偵查，拍攝軍事設(shè)施，并搜集情報數(shù)據(jù)。

The Backfire

逆火

Time to give the Soviets some credit! Their plane designs during WW2 were pretty great - the IL-2 fighter remains the single most produced military aircraft of all time - and the MiG fighter achieved remarkable things dogfighting in Korea, but they haven't really innovated since. The Tupolev-22m, or 'Backfire', was one of their better designs, a supersonic, swing-wing, long-range bomber that saw extensive service bombing the hell out of unfortunate Afghans. It's the mainstay bomber of the modern Russian air force - one was lost over Georgia in the recent war.

該表揚一下前蘇聯(lián)了。他們二戰(zhàn)時期的飛機非常棒，IL-2戰(zhàn)斗機仍然是史上生產(chǎn)數(shù)量最多的軍用飛機，米格戰(zhàn)斗機在朝鮮半島空戰(zhàn)時立下汗馬功勞，但之后它們就沒有真正地改進。Tupolev-22m，或“逆火”，是其中一種更好的機型，這是一種后掠翼、長距離超音速轟炸機，將可憐的阿富汗炸得夠慘。它是當代俄羅斯空軍轟炸機中的頂梁柱，不久前在俄格沖突中損失了一架。

The Superjumbo

超級客機

Formally known as the Airbus A380, this is the latest in commercial passenger planes. Bigger than even the previous 'jumbo jets,' it can hold up to 850 passengers (though normally only takes 540 or so). Divided into two decks, it's so big that space on it can be converted into private rooms for first-class passengers, accommodate an entire sauna, or even host a casino and gymnasium. Because of its size, it can't manage small airports and is very expensive - over $300 million - to make, but the potential savings of fitting what would normally be three or four different flights into one already makes it a strong candidate to dominate major flight routes in the future.

它的正式名字叫空客A380，是最先進的商用客機，比之前的“巨型飛機”都大，能搭載850名乘客（不過一般搭載540人左右）。內(nèi)部分為兩層。它太大了，空間可改裝成頭等艙乘客的私人房間，一個完整的桑拿浴室，甚至賭場和健身房。由于體積龐大，它無法停在小機場，而且非常昂貴，制造成本超過3億美元。但一個A380的載客量相當于三架或四架普通飛機的載客量，因此今后它很有可能支配干線航道。

The F-35 Lightning II

F-35閃電II

The cream of the crop of modern aircraft designs, this fighter is designed to do anything - spy, fight air-to-air, or support troops on the ground. It was designed by a grand consortium of mostly European countries, spearheaded by the USA.

這架戰(zhàn)斗機是當代飛機設(shè)計的精華，其設(shè)計的目標就是全能“戰(zhàn)士”——偵查、空對空戰(zhàn)斗，或支持地面部隊。它由多國聯(lián)合設(shè)計，主要是歐洲國家，由美國掛帥。