Noyhauser

There is no VF-4 because VFX 2 did not have one. All the ones in the photo were in the game. VF-1 -3 -11 -17 -19 -22 I don't think its a star crusader either. I might be wrong though

HG can't use Macross design for robotek without permission right? Didn't Big West say anything for this?. Thats probably the reason why they end up not using it on the final cover. It was never intended to be ont he cover as it was. I think that sketch was sent in as sample work by a hopeful artist... it was not inhouse work for production.... sides, that Yf-19 is a trace job. Uhhmm no. The Figure artist is Tak Miyazawa who works for marvel and does Mary Jane, Xmen ect. This was a preproduction sketch. He is one of the better new artists out there today. He didn't do the mechanical drawings on the page though... that was done by someone else.

I've said this before, and people who have watched it will agree, that Legend of Galactic Heroes is probably one of the best Japanese animes you can watch. Its not a mindless action oriented series (although the action is top notch) but its one of the most impressive series you can watch. I think its done by the same person who wrote the Legend of the Lodoss war (Yoshiki Tanaka), and its not adapted from a manga as many Japanese animes are, but full length novels. Its a massive space opera, which tells the story of two empires at war.... full of engaging characters and likely one of the deepest plots out there. The battles pretty well look like texbook battles, using tactics derived from real battles. Its story is far superior to any Japanese or even American science fiction story (like babylon 5). If you are looking for a non typical japanese anime, this is it. I'd suggest you look to download the first few episodes and check them out to see if you like it... and then if you do, buy the Hong Kong Boots (because it was never licenced in north america.)

I think Israel's recent activities with the Chinese, in all honesty, has nixed its chances of getting a F-22. And the US would likely say no anyways because it does not need the fighter because nobody has anything remotely comparable to it. I think the Japanese, who does produce some of the F-22 components is probably the only country that may have a chance to buy the fighter, but given the Avionics rebuild that is required for a second flight of F-22s, I doubt that will happen either. Several reasons. One of the largest was the US suspension of aid during the 1972 war with pakistan, and its hostile tone in that conflict. The US sent the Enterprise into the bay of bengal to warn the Indians not to go further. This was taken at great offence by the indians and has not been forgotten since. It was one of the main reasons that lead the Gandhi government to the final development of the nuclear option in 1974. Moreover the US has always had better ties with Pakistan, India's arch rival than India. This goes back right to decolonization in 1948. It served as a base for U2 flights and for arms to afghanistan. We gave them the F-16s that are their prime delivery system for their nuclear weapons. India doesn't really have much to trust us about. Moreover Colonial powers have always had better relationships with their colonies. They have close links, such as in education common perceptions and expatriat population. These are in some way quite positive. Colonialism is part of their history but it has many different effects that go far beyond simple animosity.

There is a reason for that... its missing GUNS... and LOTS of them. That was the allure of the Kampfer... two big Bazookas and a LOT of firepower

Funny thing is cap... that wasn't so true until several years ago. Procured weapons designs were propriatory information of the companies themselves. This changed several years ago because of the rate of electronic advancement made constant upgrades needed (especially in aircraft design) and the government could not allow compeditive bidding on upgrade programs, and were forced to accept the owner company's untendered upgrade.

Actually they will have 16 Mig 29Ms. These will be used to equip the CV Gorshkov, if and when they ever make a deal.

I'm pretty sure I have. They are excellent paints. A model shop I frequent sold me a bottle when I was building a Mosquito, and I bought a tamiya gray and this new stuff of gray. I also used a bit on a YF-19 I was building. since I use brushes, I asked what was the best, he pointed this stuff out for me and it was amazing. No streaks at all once I brush, without thinner.... I can't do that with tamiya. I haven't had a chance to buy more since I haven't been home to build any models. Again I looked at the bottles and I'm not sure if they are the same, but if they are, then I would go for it.

I am so copying it.

Putzing around on his site I found a link to this... I don't know if its been posted before: http://www.warpfor.com/html/val_index.html

wicked idea... its a Shinden, reversed... with a FW 190 prop and rudder change.,.. took me a few seconds to recognize it

wicked... Kenobi has always been my favorite Jedi... I mean he was played by one of the greatest actors of all time (in my mind at least), and I think Ewan McGregor may have been one of the best casting moves that George Lucas has ever made, with the exception of Han Solo, and BILLY DEE WILLIAMS (actually I had to throw that one in there because of the mad TV skit) Here is my thoughts about the climactic battle. Not really a spoiler I'm curious how Obi kills (or almost kills) Vader. because in episode 4, Vader certainly has him beat though he is much older by that point. It makes me wonder, was he a very underrated Jedi? Thats the thing that pissed me off the most about metaclorines, they almost made it like who has the most metaclorines win... which ruined the ideas of jedis for me... (and for many other people) It would restore a lot of faith in the storyline if Lucas let Kenobi beat Anakin fair and square, not one of those cliche emotionally weak scenes where he beats him where Anakin is mentallly unbalanced and Obi takes advantage of that... that would ruin the film for me. It would also in my mind be fundamentally against what a jedi stands for... which is not to take advantage of your opponent. IF Kenobi wins fair and square, the death star rematch in episode 4 would take on a whole different light in my eyes. I think you could make an argument that he simply gave up for luke's sake. OR maybe he was just old.

I just read your write up... and there is an EW pod on the bottom? Can we see pictures?

Thats a wicked idea... I had something similar in my head (because I hate the Ostrich in its normal design) but you actually went out and did it... kudos!! :thumbsup:

heh, I wish

The question is "numbers" The USAF will have more fighters, with far better pilots, and better support. Name me a country you think that would be able to outstrip US fighter production... and actually could deploy more fighters than several US carrier task groups, and 4 or 5 Air expeditionary wings + allied contributions where available. The US will always have over 1500 combat aircraft ready, with more than 200~400 heavy fighters available at any given time. Even china would be extremely hardpressed against that. Also the question of "always must be better" is a very shallow argument to defence planners. ITs a question of "value for money." The US can spend billions even trillions on "possible threats." The british did so in 1909 with the Dreadnought scandal where Germany was supposedly building 20 dreadnoughts and the UK would only have 12 or there abouts. Britain almost bankrupted itself building 20, and at the end of the war, it was found out that the germans barely had 8. The US doesn't need more F-22s, I'm a strategic analyst by trade, and almost everybody I knows agree. I can't stress this enough. Only the Japanese or the EU has the the economic power to put up a challenge, and if that is the case we should maybe stop giving the Japanese their fighters, and buy the rest of the European inustries (thats a lot of Sarchasm right there). Really I think people should be worried about Europeans doing to little, then them doing too much... in truth though with the creation of a European security and defence program, its likely they will be valuable partners in any threat to the west. They have a vested intersted in the maintence of the International system as it is, they make too much money off of it. The USAF will have more F-22s than any other small airforce we may potentially fight has fighters. This will not change anywhere in the near future.

#1 the EF-2000 won't be sold to anybody the US deems a threat in the near future... Germany and the UK will see to that. Rafales, maybe, but I doubt it. Lets make a little scenario. Lets say a emirate buys 20 or even 40 rafales (3.2 Billion dollars is quite alot) and somehow keeps ALL its planes running at one time. Even if a third of them are deployed the US would have 50 F-22s(1/3rd of their capability) and a shedload of F-15s 16, 35s 18s ect All with far higher quality of pilots, an E-3 behind then guiding them and all the missiles to spare in the world. the US would literally remove them from the skies in a matter of days, if not hours, and if they didn't want to come out and fight they would be destroyed in their shelters.

I don't think the equipment exists anymore to build those chips. The Tools have probably been trashed, and recycled... it was intel who told the Airforce it was closing it down, not the other way around.. if there was any possibility of it opening up, why would the airforce buy 800 chips at the very end? No I'm quite sure there is no ability to go back. Opening up a chip manufacturing facility would be a horrendous waste of money, It would be far in excess of 300 million because the facilities are probably long gone, they would likely have to be rebuilt from scratch.. and the USAF would be the only customer, for a technology that is 10 years obsolete. Its not a cost effective solution... and it would prevent the F-22 from being upgraded to later capabilities. The F-22's flight architecture would be over 20 years old by 2010, and 40 by 2030. If a new batch comes along, its better to bite the bullet pay for the upgrade, adn then retroactively upgrade the previous fighters. But I doubt that would happen. I think the F-22 is dead after the next 155, product of bad timing, poor management and most importantly the lack of a global threat to US air superiority. There is no threat. No matter the circumstances the USAF can overwhelm any potential adversary in the air for the next 5 to 10 years, if not the next 15. As for the JSF being a replacement for the F-15, one of the key traits for the JSF is modularity, I'm sure if it really got that bad, the USAF would have a spiral dedicated to putting in a new radar, uptuned engine and all sorts of goodies needed for it to be a smallish air superiority fighter.

To clarify, its a complete avionics rebuild actually, This is from the GAO website http://www.gao.gov/atext/d04391.txt So you've got the cost of the engineering to do the upgrade (300 million is probably a very conservative number), The cost to hold the production lines (because you can't build these fighters without the avionics suites), which have already been produced, and a whole host of other problems. Maybe 250 is a bit high, but I certainly can see 200million when all the costs are said and done. And the USAF is not going to buy these things when its paying for the JSF at the same time.

oops, I see you meant the F-15.... but again the 115 million fly away cost is for the Current batch of F-22s... not what should be called the F-22Bs *Edit*... and I misread again.... I'm using GAO figures Nied, as well I can extrapolate figures for what the cost overrun will be for the next generation from other programs if you wish, it will take awhile but I can't see it being under 200 million especially with the previous funding allotment.

There is no way it will cost 85 million, when its flyaway is 115 million now. Honestly you're looking at a 200 to 250 million fly away cost in 5 years (the expected time for the avionics suite to be designed, I'd say its more realistically closer to 7 years) when you factor in cost overruns, and the redesigned suite.... right when the JSF project is running up into production, which is a larger budget priority, and a far more efficient and effective use of funds. Even if the JSF has 1/2 the capability of the F-22 (when it most certainly doesn't) its still more effective to buy JSFs instead of the 22.

I had a copy that my Uncle made for me in Japan in Beta (yes beta), when I was a kiddie... I don't think it helped me learn any japanese, but man I'd watch it just for the action... I wonder what happened to it?

Also a quick one from me... I've got to finish a essay about Airland Battle and the Soviet Operational Maneuver group... The cost of 115 million for the current batch of F-22s, and it itself is a very politicized number... The next batch will involve far higher costs as it does not figure in the cost of having to redevelop the avionics hardware because they cannot build anymore fighters after the first 155 built. This will take at least 5 to 6 years if everything goes to plan, and the costs of just the engineering alone is 300 million. You may think that is not much but.. because the manufacturing is delayed you run into massive cost overrun. Essentially everything stops for production, bbecause nobody knows what the flight architecture will look like, And the DoD is still required to pay the manufacturors to keep their staff and production facilities idle, as well as their subcontractors as well. I wouldn't be suprised if the actual cost for the next batch won't top 200 to 250 million dollars per aircraft, when it is all said and done and the cost for the new avionics is factored in. So no matter what The next F-22s won't arrive for at least 2010... if that... and a far higher cost than just 115 million. If that is the case, would you seriously consider buying one F-22 over 3,4 or 5 JSFs?

I agree about the minmay. It really looks like her. I also like the VE-1 Elintseeker, the subtle weathering on it looks good.

I don't think you've noticed but the EU has pretty well taken over most of the Balkan missions, save for KFOR, which will likely go to them in the next couple of years. The Bosnian mission is now called EUFOR, and in KFOR there are very few US troops deployed. Moreover, I don't think the US will ever be fighting overwhelming numbers of serbian fighters, if such an improbable thing ever happened. We had enough F-15s to do the job in Operation Allied Force... how many serbian fighters did we take out? Serbia wants to get into the EU, and most countries in Eastern Europe does as well. The former soviet union isn't going to do much. Look at Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova. These countries are trying to reform to western standards. Few of them have to money to rearm their forces at all, and we certainly don't need the most very advanced fighter to counter their meager forces, or deploy fighters into the area. If they were such a threat, why is the US closing most of its bases in germany? I'm still waiting to hear of the monster threat to appear that a US air group will be completely outmatched in size and numbers of opposing forces. I think we've had this argument before... and its really a non starter. Number one, how many fighters would a prospective country be able to buy? Probably less than one squadron, two max. That is a force that can be easily wiped out by a current US AEF, and isn't an airforce, unless their airforce consists of those fighters.Moroever the Eurofighter won't be sold to countries that are potential agressors due to German Constitutional laws which prohibit such a sale. Why do you think there are no Leopard IIS in the middle east? Saudi Arabia has said it wants them, but there is a constitutional law has barred its sale. Number 2... Do you honestly think that the buyers will be able to keep up a training standards like the United States Navy and Airforce does? In the right "trained hands" well outside of the west there are very few "right trained hands" and most of them were actually trained by us in the first place. The Former Soviet Unions doesnt' have the training regimen that the west does at all, and most countries skimp on training anyways. Number 3 ... Do you think the state would be able to buy the E-3 or E-2 behind it, which greatly enhances the capability of any fighter, or produce upgraded missiles like the US and the EU are able to? Probably no on all those cases. The United States will have overwhemling odds for the near future, it doesn't need a fighter designed to fight with the odds against it for the next decade or two.