Is the aircraft in this image real? | Hacker News Reader

Is the aircraft in this image real?

aviation.stackexchange.com

229 pointsziofill54 comments

haha the way the top answer buried the lede, waiting till the end to add the:

  Finally: the Twitter profile of the Twitter post says in the bio:

    Skilled to Transform Your Wild Aeronautical Imaginations Into Digital Reality

So this is somebody's "wild aeronautical imagination"? I guess I should not judge.

It's niche, but there's gold in them hills.

People in the industry are going to notice if you get the little details wrong. So going to a "specialist" for marketing materials and mockups saves time iterating.

Your tickets are missing the hologram, there's no such team as the Spungos, and finally they seem to be printed on some sort of cracker.

Hahaha

What I find interesting about this is basically this is just a poor photoshop - they've taken an existing image and just mucked around with some details. But I think it's worth thinking about why this has traction - is it because people are now on the look out for AI generated images. Certainly that's what I first went to.

TL/DR: it's not. And for a fake, it's a pretty bad one too. Besides all of the points the Aviation SE users noted, notice how all of the passenger windows were photoshopped out except the ones partially overlapped by the large IndiGo logo at the front of the plane, which would have required some more work...

Larger image: https://i.stack.imgur.com/DQdIY.jpg

The twitter account of the author is openly creating fakes as well. https://twitter.com/aeroconcepts1/status/1387227601098268672

Yeah, but I love the way user DeltaLima on Aviation SE left this detail until the very end of their answer. This would have been enough to settle the issue on its own, but of course pointing out all of the other details gets more upvotes...

It is valuable to understand the objective reasons as to why something is fake; without it being given away.

Wow, I noted it looked strange and spotted some things other people mentioned, but somehow completely missed the windows... I'm sure there is some sort of name for this thing of not spotting the obvious while getting the details.

Missing the forest for the trees ?

Banner blindness is more a web term, but maybe fits as the logo could count as some kind of banner/ad which we only glance over and won't pay much attention to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_blindness

Fits well in this case, thank you. I did just see the logo and stopped paying attention to it immediately, I think, so it's the same circumstance.

Cargo planes rarely have windows though http://www.nycaviation.com/2015/02/anatomy-freighter#.Vt2tlJ...

It's pretty good if it were an AI generated image fake. That was my immediate thought, and then changed when the only differences were things like 'it should read AVAF not AVAX'.

Besides AI, trolling is becoming a common source of entertainment.

I know cars and car mechanics inside and out. There's a lot of good car based media and advice on YouTube, Instagram, and stories/TikTok.

There is also a high level of trolling. Sometimes I have to stop and think if this is real. Or if it's a joke. Or if it's just a mistake. Or stupidity. Or trolling for fun/laughs. Or trolling to mock. Or trolling as an antisocial Darwin award instigator.

As basically an experienced expert, I can tell all of those apart. But it makes we wonder if those with less experience can draw the lines as well as I can, and what that really means for them.

Finally, what am I supposed to think about the media for things Im not an expert in?

Here:

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YM3w4rD33mc/UIZ8-W32afI/AAAAAAAAA...

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_xSf4aeoUeDs/TTrHrAjxD9I/AAAAAAAAA...

https://pzc-pics.blogspot.com/2013/04/indigo-airlines.html

A German(?) flag over the brand name of an Indian low-cost airliner on the vertical stabilizer?

No.

That's one of the elements which is actually real (original photo: https://www.airliners.net/photo/IndiGo/Airbus-A321-271NX/528...) - the German flag (as well as the German registration and the MSN) are apparently added over the airline's paintjob until the plane has been delivered to the customer and is allowed to use its Indian registration (which is to the right of the Indian flag over the rear passenger windows, covered with a white sticker).

They tack some stickers on their brands?

Don't they have any sense of aesthetics?

Thanks for the clarification.

It’s a temporary registration during test flights etc., so not much different than a dealer plate on a car?

Planes are painted in the first user’s livery at the factory, and they’re hardly going to repaint the entire plane between test flights and delivery.

Probably a big part of the curiosity this picture creates is that some of the elements that look like really bad photoshop are actually real, but others are not. This is where the surprising entertainment value is. Almost reminds me a little of that oddly-colored dress that took the internet in 2015.

Low cost seems like the wrong way to describe Indigo. They seem to be the safest and most reliable choice in the market at the moment (since vistara got vacuumed into AI) and have been quite pleasant the few times I’ve taken them. They just don’t have a business class at the moment.

Low-cost doesn't mean unsafe. Most (all?) the large, European low-cost airlines have excellent safety records.

Eurowings certainly doesn’t..

But yeah generally that seems to be the case. Ryanair for inspection is one of the largest airlines in the world but it never had any fatal accidents.

It’s cool to see these photo detectives at work

The top comment there was a pretty good analysis and dropped the bomb at the end.

The fact the Tweet comes from an Indian Twitter account and the SE poster is also from India is a little suspicious too.

What is suspicious about that?

My immediate thought was that it looked like self-promotion. That is my bias and this supports it a little.

I'm 50/50 whether it actually is though. Like I say, a little suspicious. Nothing more.

hmmm true. I also saw a post from California posted by a guy from New York here on Hacker News.... no one believed me when I pointed to the obvious

What's the point of this bad photoshop?

> Skilled to Transform Your Wild Aeronautical Imaginations Into Digital Reality

Maybe designing airplane liveries for prospective customers?

Yeah, that's almost certainly it, though that still doesn't really explain what they did to the winglets.

Ricer Airlines

My guess would be illustrating what it would look like if IndiGo had a freight service. Still not a good explanation for the winglet job though. Perhaps the artist felt the Boeing ones look more modern? Or "if we had a freight service, it would be on Boeings"?

We need an updated XKCD.

Why are you up so late?

Someone posted a bad photoshop job on the Internet!

(c.f. https://xkcd.com/386/ )

It is at least as real as Iran's Quantum Processor.

"All the information on this website - aviationjobstoday.in - is published in good faith [...]"

Patterns of hyper efficiency emerge as dweebs compete to prove superior digital forensics skill. This is what AI does too, yet an unskilled go player is more likely to beat ai than a skilled one grasshopper. The plane is clearly real for shits and giggles.

yes more downvotes please. Ignore the fact that you are psychologically vulnerable to click bait titles and the need to be right. The plane is 100% real.

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