National characteristics
Aeroplanes seem to have national characteristics. The ones I associate with the following nationalities (N.B. none of these stop me loving them!) are:
British
- Inadequate fin area, often later admitted by use of add-on fillets, dorsals, ventrals, anti-spin strakes etc.
- Engine goes proper way round
- Free castoring tailwheels with no lock
- Brakes applied by hand
- Cockpits full of sharp edges and awkward catches
- Need to open the cowlings as part of pre-start ritual
- Light weight, nice controls
- Slightly less power than would be comfortable
- Poor range
- Nice curves
- Fragile
- No keys required
- Stick right hand, throttle left
American
- Can't see out
- Toe brakes
- Engine goes wrong way
- Blunt noses
- Flying surfaces drawn with a ruler
- Wide cockpits
- Heavy controls
- Electrics for things that should be manual
- Hard to break
- Won't do the speed it says in the brochure
- Keys used to get in / start
- Bladder-busting endurance
- Yoke left hand, throttle right
Russian
- Same peculiar driving position as any 1960s / 70s Italian car - arms outstretched, knees up round ears
- Incomprehensible metric instruments
- Mag switches work the wrong way
- Obsession with compressed air
- Massive power, yet little speed
- Some things magnificently over-engineered and built like a lare scale Swiss watch, others apparently made out of left-over chicken-shed roof and nailed on at random.