David Hingtgen

And the US Navy! "F-32 Sailor-Sucker II"

Yeah, I do think you're the only one.

Whoops, got it.

Could you explain the mechanism a bit more? Pushing down on the legs as in making them contract? Or pushing down as in making it walk more horizontal vs upright? If it's the latter, I wonder if it's not based on a Zoid Genosaurer mechanism.

3 competing Eurocanards (Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen).

I think that explains a lot. In the US, (well, Iowa at least) you can miss like 1/3 of the questions. And there's no "skill" test at all really. There's a physical driving test, but little to do with "accurately placing your car". If I had my own country, the driving test would have "can you go STRAIGHT down the CENTER of your lane?" as an early part. 1 mile, perfectly straight road. No touching the lines, no correcting your angle every 3 secs, no holding 4mm from the left edge with a half-car width to your right. Many people would fail. The second part would be "can you maintin position in a constant-radius turn?". It'd basically be a circle, slightly banked, 60mph----typical through-city interstate scenario. And no drifting into other lanes (the point of the test would be to see if you won't intrude on other people during rush hour). Even more people would fail.

After Dassault left the Eurofighter program and made the Rafale, the EF-2000 had "defeat the Rafale" as a design goal---as they knew France would sell to everybody, and they figured the odds were good the Typhoon might have to fight the Rafale. Very VF-25 vs VF-27 esque in that regard. Except that the Rafale did amazingly poor export-wise. (I still don't know why, it's a good plane, and carrier capable--not that many can take advantage of the latter)

They went with deltas in the 60's for their sheer speed due to extreme sweep angles. As you said---pure interceptors were deltas, air superiority fighters were not. Mach 2 could only be achieved then by having very little wave drag (and polishing the planes until they gleamed). Nowadays anything can hit Mach 2 through sheer power (except a Hornet) so no more US deltas generally. The F-16XL is a delta for range---the sheer area of the wing increases the lift/drag ratio and increases the internal fuel capacity.

The Bandai VF-25 decals don't seem to like solvaset very well, use microsol.

B-2 is a bunch of diamonds arranged like tangram, from above. News: Even Airbus is now saying they may have to scrap the entire A400 program. "It is better to put an end to the horror than have horror without end."---CEO of Airbus

Yeah, if you look head-on, you'll see how few planes the F-22 has. When you REALLY look, both the YF-23 and F-22 are pretty amazing in how everything lines up--especially compare "trailing edge of A to leading edge of B"---basically, EVERYTHING lines up with something else--it just may not be near or associated or obvious--but there are overall *very* few skew lines---everything's parallel.

232,000lb heli? I'd want a lot more, and larger, rotors than that thing has... (though it does seem to have 2 turbines for each rotor---the gearbox/torque issues must be massive)

The F-18's LERX vortex tended to burst right at the v.stabs, causing damage. The LERX strake reinforces the main LERX vortex, allowing it to get past the v.stabs before bursting. Stealth---well if you believe Boeing and Eurofighter, the head-on RCS is everything, so an above-the-wing mounted canard up front is very bad.

Yeah, that's an F-15. At least, 90% F-15-esque. Definitely NOT a MiG-29 in the slightest way, other than being a twin-engine fighter jet.

Give me a camera and unrestricted access to a plane, and you can be sure of unusual angles showing lots of "secrets" of a plane's design.

3 rights, not 2.

Partly, but they're still there and let a lot of air through. You'll see the entrance is hidden by the splitter plate, which is why it's very hard to see from the sides (and even below). But when the plane's flying straight---the air goes right through. My own pic:

B-2 so doesn't count as a delta for most things. Anyways---the LEXs on an F-18 etc don't even "start to work" until very high alpha, while a delta is generating drag all the time in even moderate turns/alpha. (that's part of the reason for the big slots cut in a Hornet's LEXs---to allow air to flow through under most conditions, bypassing the LEX and reducing drag) And the vortices from a LEX/strake are "stabilizing" vortices, usually to reinforce the flow along the tail to maintain control----not to generate lift like a delta wing LE does. Even airliners have vortex generators and strakes, not for high alpha nor lift-generation, but to make little "reinforcements" to the flow at certain points.

Just went out to get the mail, and it seems to be the start of an ice storm. Odds seem good for thundersnow.

Delta wings always have extreme taper and sweep--that reduces their max lift coefficient. Also, at higher alpha they start generating/relying on vortex lift, which increases induced drag (so now you've got both raw skin drag and induced drag to deal with). They simply produce less lift and more drag overall--they NEED to have a huge area to compensate. Except when flying "flat and fast"----0.5 degrees AOA at M2.0 at 50,000ft. (like a Concorde--does very well because it spends 90% of its time doing that---but fighters don't, they "live" at 30,000ft at M0.9) Delta=speed. It sucks for everything else. Canards are a band-aid for the delta's problems IMHO.

Bumping. Also, found this and don't think I've seen it before: http://risachantag.deviantart.com/art/Comm...-Girl-113515445

Could someone summarize this "darker ending" so I don't have to rifle through hours of podcast?

Coolest looking plane (and it's stealthy): YF-23 Retractable canards---why does everywhere act like this is new? The Tu-144 did it years ago. And the Tu-144's *canards* had double-slotted flaps and slats. They really were little wings.

How is a blue mask KKK? Now if it was a pointy white hat...

On a more light-hearted note, I found and bought these today: