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，我们为您展示史上十大最伟大、最快或者最古怪的飞机。每个男孩都梦想驾驶飞机，但科技本身有时发展奇慢。客机技术已经成熟，自上世纪七十年代中期以来就没有真正地变化过。你仍然可以买有二三十年机龄的波音737和747飞机，然后将其投入新航线，不过当然要经过检查了！内部可以重新整理，增添新的通讯与娱乐设施，但飞机本身的设计几乎还是老样。如今真正有创新的是军用飞机，还有一些革新者所设计的奇怪飞机。

The F-22 Raptor

F-22“猛禽”隐形战斗机

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.

这个修长的灰色“美人”是美国空军现在的宠儿，是天空最新、最快、最先进的隐形战斗机。每架高达一亿三千八百万美元，飞行速度可逾2.0马赫（约 2100千米/小时），而且操控性极佳。它配备有高科技配件，可携带空对空导弹，普通雷达几乎侦查不到。飞行员和军事承包商喜欢它们，但军事分析人士怀疑是否需要如此先进而昂贵的飞机，因为无论在任何情况下，美国已经完全拥有空中主导权。

The Lear Jet

利尔飞机

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!

这是老牌的商用飞机，起初由美国上世纪50年代的一款战斗机改装而成，现在已发展到第九或第十代。利尔飞机主要是为首席执行官和少部分追随者所设计，可容纳9人（只要有其中一人坐在厕所）。跟其他私人飞机一样，它们有很多配件，包括完整的娱乐系统、可高速上网的空中办公室、豪华皮座椅，等等。大多数机场有专门供私人飞机起降的航站，当然也可以让乘客享受快速通关的额外奢华待遇。

SpaceShip One

太空船一号

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，但技术却很卓越，这架机翼上翘而古怪的机器是世上首架能够实现私人太空旅行的飞机。设计师为美国航空航天工程师巴特•鲁坦，是当今少数在飞行器设计方面真正的革新者之一。太空船一号的飞行高度可达10万千米，进入大气层，远胜于普通飞机的飞行高度，经过火箭助推，速度可达3马赫。它还只能到达亚轨道，要到达地球轨道得需要60倍的推力，但这是迈向飞行新领域的第一步。太空船二号正在研发，可将几个私人游客带入太空。

The C-5 Galaxy

C-5银河系运输机

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.

这个大家伙长75米，高20米，是美国人为运输军事辎重而制造的。二战期间，美国原想设计一架大型运输机，著名的实业家霍华德•休斯就生产了Spruce Goose，这是个全木头的巨无霸，只飞行过一次。银河系飞机更成功，能轻松搭载直升机、坦克和装甲车，不过主要还是运普通的战争物资，如炸药和建筑设备。在和平年代，它们经常运输援助食物和科学设备。由于体型大且耐用，从非洲沙漠到南极冰带，它们经常满世界地运输设备。

Global Flyer

环球飞行者

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•鲁坦的又一个设计，名字起得很贴切——环球飞行者飞机是为冒险家史蒂夫•福赛特挑战环球飞行记录而特别设计的。之前的记录由鲁坦的航行者飞机创下，这架飞机跟环球飞行者类似，也是细长的大家伙，而驾驶舱狭小。环球飞行者由碳纤维制成，看起来更像是滑翔机，不像飞机，而且耗油量很少。环球飞行者打破了之前所有的世界记录，仅用了两天多就绕了地球一圈。

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（又称地面效应飞行器）介于飞机、气垫船和轮船之间，利用机翼下填充高压气体的气垫来助推，距离地面仅数米。技术还不成熟，但速度比汽车快得多，体积也很大。前苏联于上世纪60年代研制出最早的地面效应飞行器之一，体型庞大，重达500多吨。美国间谍卫星在里海侦查到它，因为不知道它是什么，就称之为“里海怪物”。可能如果太小了，它就无法正常运行，即地面效应产生不出来，因此越大越好。波音甚至现在都还在设计“Pelican”，这种地面效应飞行器重达1500吨！

The SR-1 Blackbird

SR-1黑鸟

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.

隐形飞机有很多，但黑鸟是其中最早的之一，也是最酷的之一。它宛如修长的黑色猎鸟，是最早大量使用钛的飞机之一，钛是一种超强材料，现在广泛用于飞机生产。SR-1黑鸟飞机速度惊人，敌方很难侦查到。它携带有少量武器，用于自卫，主要用于侦查，拍摄军事设施，并搜集情报数据。

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.

该表扬一下前苏联了。他们二战时期的飞机非常棒，IL-2战斗机仍然是史上生产数量最多的军用飞机，米格战斗机在朝鲜半岛空战时立下汗马功劳，但之后它们就没有真正地改进。Tupolev-22m，或“逆火”，是其中一种更好的机型，这是一种后掠翼、长距离超音速轰炸机，将可怜的阿富汗炸得够惨。它是当代俄罗斯空军轰炸机中的顶梁柱，不久前在俄格冲突中损失了一架。

The Superjumbo

超级客机

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，是最先进的商用客机，比之前的“巨型飞机”都大，能搭载850名乘客（不过一般搭载540人左右）。内部分为两层。它太大了，空间可改装成头等舱乘客的私人房间，一个完整的桑拿浴室，甚至赌场和健身房。由于体积庞大，它无法停在小机场，而且非常昂贵，制造成本超过3亿美元。但一个A380的载客量相当于三架或四架普通飞机的载客量，因此今后它很有可能支配干线航道。

The F-35 Lightning II

F-35闪电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.

这架战斗机是当代飞机设计的精华，其设计的目标就是全能“战士”——侦查、空对空战斗，或支持地面部队。它由多国联合设计，主要是欧洲国家，由美国挂帅。