David Hingtgen

Nied got to it first. And even without any other commentary, the "did not transition well to precision bombing" tells you all you need to know about the accuracy of that article. Hey, I bet other large interceptors like the F-15 also can't be made to do precision bombing well...

Depends on how long it was shut down. (We are now in deep, deep, in-joke territory)

Sigh, the one day I don't check MW until 9PM, "my" thread goes to hell and another mod has to step in. Yeesh people. Anyways: The Senate has *passed* amendment 4211 to Senate bill 2766 "The 2007 Defense Appropriation Act" to name the CVN78 the Gerald Ford. It's very likely it will be. A few weeks ago it was merely "introduced" but now it's one step away from being so. I wasn't using Ford's name as a random example... USS America.org still trying to stop it. http://www.ussamerica.org/

New class. It won't be Nimitz class, it'll be Gerald Ford or Enterprise class. (Let's hope the latter). Stats change all the time of course, but I think generally the big things are a "stealth" island and electromagnetic catapults. Though I would be against Enterprise (despite the coolness) simply because that'd make 2 of the 3 CVN classes "Enterprise class". It's bad enough we have the new nuclear Virginia class ships just a few years after the last nuclear Virginia class ships were retired, we don't need another confusing repeats. Sure they're a different type, but whenever people mention "Virginia class" you have to ask--which one? The 80's/90's or the current? Dear Navy: there's tons of names, and feel free to re-use them all, and immediately after the old one's decommissioned--but at least change the CLASS LEADER names once in a while! Yeesh, at this rate the next destroyer will be called Spruance class... (again) PS--we're talking about AIRCRAFT carriers. Plenty close enough to the thread title. And since I made it, I'm not changing it. Also, we've had carrier discussions here before---often regarding the JSF/Rafale with regards to future European carriers.

Except nowadays Congress has figured out how easy it is to make bills to name ships whatever they want, so we get a lot of "who the heck was/where is THAT?" names lately, and "less than stellar" presidents. Like the next line of super-carriers will be Gerald Ford class. Yeah, THAT's the image you want to project from the flagship of the US Navy. Quick and easy votes: get a ship named for a city in your state, or after someone from there.

Only really good picture was of the Super Hornet after their demo---Rocky and Sicko waving to the crowd:

"Spirit of California" according to the pics at Fencecheck.

That was quick, have to start a new one already. No name/subtitle for the thread on purpose--I'm not that fond of them. Anyways---I visited my brother last weekend and went to the airshow in Duluth. Best show I've seen. Never knew a B-2 could bank hard enough to make vapor.

Another car care question, but a simple one: What's the best tire cleaner out there? I want to get a layer of grime off them. (I swear it's been there since I bought them--I'm quite disappointed, and plan to smoke my tires often and never rotate them, so I can get new ones as soon as possible--but in the meantime I want them clean) Willing to scrub like crazy if need be. (Scrubbing like crazy with just car wash helped a bit, but not nearly enough) PS---which (if any) tire places take in used tires for credit? And how much? I've only got 8,000 miles on them.

Watched some of M+ again, here's good examples of the upper part of the intake (red) separating from the hips (blue). Upon further scrutiny, it seems the animators have it attached to the "spine", not really like an armor skirt as I thought. (And the red part is one piece---not two separate pieces from each hip) Part 2 (OVA, not movie version): Soon after the YF-19's first appearance and the dino-bird smoke-trail Isamu makes, you see the first YF-21/YF-19 simultaneous testing. There will be a side-shot showing both of them in the mock town, and Isamu is in GERWALK, then jumps over a bridge and lands in battroid---that's a decent look at what I'm talking about. Great shot: When Isamu tests the arm-mounted extra weapons pack---the shot starts with a rear view, then he turns around and fires. Another good one: When Guld and Isamu fight in the mock city---very early in the fight, Guld will throw his first PPB punch---Isamu will retaliate with a knee--that's a good look.

Do they have a lot of museum pieces etc? Half that stuff is out of service! I've never seen an A-6, and they're long gone now.

I would assume "rotate 180 degress to fit in the torso area".

Just a quick comment on seeing it last night: The 777 was done exceptionally well, far better than any airliner in a movie I've seen in a long time---amazingly, it's even better than the real actual 747 used in "Air Force One" in a few ways. Little things like spoiler deployment, etc. Very nicely done, rather than "lets just have all the flaps moving in ways they can't". Also--the breakup sequence was exactly what'd happen, as a 767 once went into a flat spin, and broke up that way---I wonder if they used that as a reference, as it's one of the few known airliner flat-spin breakups, as well as being a similar aircraft.

Watch for scenes showing the back of the battroid--then it's more obvious that they separated the upper part of the intake from the "hips". Actually, I think the "red part" moves back (towards the engines) rather than the legs/hips moving.

I need to go watch M+ again and get the exact time/frames that show the 'extra' piece in the YF-19's intake transformation sequence. It's not in Kawamori's drawings, but the animators figured out how to reconcile the different shapes. I mentioned it to Graham, but haven't gotten back to him on where it's shown. I'll try to do it tonight. Basically, the upper and lower halves of the intake split--the lower section forms the "hip" while the upper section becomes the "rear skirt armor". Have the red part separate from the blue part:

However, the Hasegawa version just plain looks friggin' awesome, as well as having detailed perfect 3 view schematics, so people "accept" that as the definitive version nowadays, for how fighter mode should look at least. Hasegawa knows planes, and they made it as "real jet-esque" as they could, and so their version of fighter mode looks the most real/acceptable to most people--regardless of conformity to Kawamori's sketches.

I have read that the CG in the Dirge of Cerberus game beats AC's.

Or, again, make it removable and solve the problem entirely... Of course, Yamato is fond of making, huge, carrier-style dual-wheeled extra-beefy nosegears, even in planes which are clearly shown to have thin, single-wheeled nosegears. See their YF-21. I think someone at Yamato just has a dual-wheel beefy-gear fetish or something, and incorporates it into all the designs. Yamato's trademark seems to be big nosegears, regardless of accuracy, and always to compromise fighter mode.

Real pics are always cooler than anything anyone can photoshop: There's another one on the other side of the carrier, they straddled it. Twice.

And proud of it!

Port side in the cargo door facing outwards--AC-130 style.

If you had the v.stabs on a sliding hinge and able to be rotated, you could make them bigger and still fit totally behind the legs. Look at the blue VF-19A pic. Imagine the fins could slide up along their hinges on the legs a bit, then rotate downwards to be behind the legs. As for stuff hanging off: c'mon, it's the YF-19. It has GIGANTIC wings hanging off the hips. Having a bit larger canard or ventral fin or v.stab hanging off won't make the slightest difference in battroid mode compared to what the wings do---but could help a lot in fighter mode.

Designed as a counterpart to Hercules gunships, this is certainly the smallest plane to ever be armed with four AIM-7's and a M197 gatling (the Cobra's gun), the AU-24 Stallion: 17 built, all went to Cambodia. Nobody believes the Sparrows went with them nor could actually be launched (kind of hard without a radar), but some joke they could be a form of improvised JATO...

How much of Computron do you have? It's usually easier/cheaper to buy a whole one than search for parts. You'll end up paying 10 bucks for one little gun...

What it actually is, is a tab from the inner liner of my car's glovebox. It seems to have no purpose other than to snap when you take the the part the glovebox attaches to off, when you replace the air conditioner's fan. (Annoyingly I found you can EASILY bend it out of the way to remove it without snapping, but you can only see that it's possible if you're upside down laying on your back on the passenger seat's floor, looking up from below the dash)