[Radoye]

because some additions wont have a date because they would never have existed, and there are lots of people that are not so "into" the plane types as you and i and many others are.

Couldn't say it better myself!


@ Greyhound:

An XP-55 Ascender would not be a "what if" plane. It did not enter service, that's true, but it did exist, it was built and flown. Therefore it qualifies as "real".

Even most of the Luft '46 could be considered "real" if we stretch it a bit, because there were plans drawn and performance estimate calculations done, in some cases there were models tested in wind tunnels or even full-size mock-ups built... That would make these too at least ~somewhat~ real.

What i'm talking about are planes that were never actually built, in some cases not even considered even as a concept on a drawing board - a completely fictional type that has no relation to history. And i've seen several such popping up here and there.

One of the more extreme examples is a "Yak-3K" with arrestor gear that takes off with ease from a carrier while being loaded with 1xFAB250 + 4xFAB100 = 650kg of ordnance, and still has all the agility and speed of "real" Yak-3. This mod is based on a series of alternate fiction books, and while i don't even want to think about trying to tell people what they are allowed to mod or not, stuff like this should IMHO be somehow labeled apart from "real" stuff.

(To make matters worse, there was a real life Yak-3K prototype that has NOTHING in common with this alternate history version - so there's a potential for confusion!)