They are pretty dangerous. A good number of them crashed. Some in choppy seas. I... | Hacker News

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		rdtsc on Aug 17, 2013 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: The Soviet Superplane Program That Rattled Area 51... They are pretty dangerous. A good number of them crashed. Some in choppy seas. It is hard to train pilots for it. In one case, the sea was getting choppy and pilots did what well pilots do. They pulled up to increase the altitude. That disrupted the ground effect and the craft crashed.

nawitus on Aug 17, 2013 [–]

Those problems can essentially be fixed with a modern autopilot. Nobody claimed that progress doesn't involve work on developing the planes.

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