David Hingtgen

The 'drill out and use a paper clip' method is the main one used, there's not quicker, easier way AFAIK.

I say we get rid of stealth. Makes planes survive through agility, speed, and the pilot's ego.

So explain FA.2 vs FRS.1, for the two Sea Harrier variants. Also---I would call the Tornado F.2 "interim" rather than "abortive". Semantics, but abortive gives me the impression it never came to be.

Thus the reason Sony TV's have the most over-driven red of all. It sells. Redder+brighter=better (to the masses), and even service mode adjustments can't get the red down to "normal" on most Sony TV's. I remember years ago it took forever to convince my dad to get a Toshiba TV, and not the reddest one in the store. (This was back when Toshiba and Sony alternated every few months as to who had the best tube TV's). And he was very much set on the absolute reddest one they had (a Hitachi I think), with about 1/2 inch visible bleed of red into all surrounding colors because it was SO bright.

Show me the LIONS. Every review spends 99.9% of photos and text on the combined mode. If that's all that mattered, they should have just made a large, articulated action figure--it'd be cheaper and better. But since the majority of Voltron toys are designed to separate, lets get some info on the lions. Are THEIR legs ball-jointed? Shoulders? Neck, jaw, etc? Are they skinny? Dispoportioned? How similar/dissimilar are green and red lion? (Always the key for me---those two always look weirdly proportioned).

I would think it'd be mostly hidden on the -19---it tends to go right behind the radome, not ON the radome.

I must admit I never considered how it'd look in battroid mode. You could do it for the -19 and -22 though.

I like that Sundowners VF-11 more than the last one, very F-4ish---but no shark mouth?

I haven't read anything about the Cell in a while, but last I recall it was designed with 8 coprocessors, with the PS3 originally designed to use/require 7, as they knew they'd have a very low yield of chips with 8 working ones. Those chips with only 5 or 6 functioning ones would go into other products. (And I'm guessing the few 8's they got would go to PS3 development kits or something) So it's been downgraded from that? Recently? Still, only getting 5/8 when they were expecting 7/8 seems like a big drop.

It's not acrylic, it's enamel white with lacquer clear coats. And it's been dry for about 3 years at this point (plus the 6 months various parts had in building). I am still considering just applying new decal to the areas that are currently bare, or that plus just a few bits of replacement where any paint damage wouldn't show.

Yup, experience orb is everything. ESPECIALLY combined with the Emerald Necklace. Put the emerald necklace on someone, give them JUST enough points from the orb to level up, swap who has the necklace, repeat.

The manual won't help at all in maximizing your attacks. I don't know of any other RPG with so great a difference between doing "ok" and doing "great". 1000 damage vs 100,000 sometimes it seems. Just play, and see how comboing/timing works. Above all else, experiment with a character's attack order---not who goes when, but what sequence the character actually does his/her moves. (it's a little-used but critical option in the menus) Aelia does like 3x better when you change it from the default. (She's my fave character after Lenneth)

Has anyone ever stripped off all the decals of a model and nicely preserved the paint, so as to re-decal the kit? There's some new decals out for a model that I did a few years ago but it is very important to me and would love to do it with the newer, much more detailed decals. However, since it is a lit-up kit and has massive amounts of wiring and super-glue, it cannot possibly be disassembled nor repainted. If I have to, I'll just apply some of the new decals to where there's nothing currently or few paint details, but I would prefer to re-do evey square inch. (It's a HEAVILY decaled model, when you look at it it's about 40% decal and 60% paint, if not more decal) If you're curious or it'll help your advice, it's a Star Trek ship and there are now decals available to aztec the entire hull---my model is un-azteced pure white, and I want to aztec it. (I do have a few issues with the non-azteced parts of the new decal set, so I would also want to preserve a few of the original decals which I feel are superior) (would also take the opportunity to clean up some pylon seams if possible)

Is Tamiya German grey like Panzer grey? Panzer grey is ever so slightly darker than european grey, their FS numbers are about the 2 closest I know of. It's one of my fave colors to use, it's the darkest grey that's clearly "grey" and not "faded black". BTW--if you ever want a zillion shades of black/dark grey, go check out the model railroad paints. They literally have engine black, grimy black, dusty black, oily black, black, and other slightly different shades of black and very dark grey. (Because how else can you individually show grease, oil, soot, and dirt on a black locomotive--and then give it a wash to highlight panel lines!) Note that grimy black is the least black of all, it's pretty clearly grey.

Time to talk JSF again! UK's next carrier design seems finalized, and the French plan to license the design and build one of their own to complement the Charles De Gaulle, so this will be a very important class. Anyways---it seems the UK is becoming less and less enthralled with the STOVL F-35, and Australia is getting the impression that their version will NOT be the same as the USA's (less stealthy, etc) and cost more than expected. So basically the two most important buyers are decreasing orders and are unhappy. Point: What will the new carriers carry? UK seems especially interested in early warning craft, and is considering everything from helicopters to V-22's to E-2's. The French already operate E-2's from the De Gaulle, so the new carrier could certainly support them. Second point: Since nobody's liking the STOVL JSF now, why not a full-fleged multi-role Naval plane? The new carrier's quite large, and it absolutely could support a wing full of Rafales---perhaps Super Hornets. Why compromise with a heavily-restriced JSF (and the UK isn't happy in that many of the weapons they want to use won't fit internally period--they don't plan to use soley JDAM and AMRAAM) when you've got a carrier big enough to accept conventional planes? Either buy the F-35C like the US Navy will, or see if you can get Super Hornets. (While I think the Rafale would be an excellent choice, I think politics would prevent France's best plane from being the Royal Naval's main force) Check out the new carrier---65,000 tons, that's like a Midway class, which could take F-4's and F-18's (though not F-14's). A big issue is fitting catapults--either a full assortment, or maybe just one for heavily-loaded E-2's. The final fitting will be determined by what planes they use.

Is it like the DOA2:HC purple ninja outfit, or like DOA3's? (And I still want to know why there's no Ninja Gaiden outfit for her--it's her best one ever, and they gave Ryu his NG suit for Ultimate) (I'm a huge Ayane fan)

Quick DOA4 costume question: Are they 6 or 7 DIFFERENT ones, or like always, 3 different costumes plus a bunch of slight variations of the school girl outfit? "C3 but with BLACK socks" is not a new costume IMHO. I'm still disappointed Ultimate wasted so many slots on slight variations, especially when some really good ones for DOA2:HC and DOA3 were left out. (I love Ayane's *ALL* purple ninja one) (plus poor selections from XBV)

Specifically, the Geschwader Kommodore (wing commander) of JG2.

While the title may be accurate, it really sounds like a book. When I first heard of this in another forum, and also skipped over it like 3 times thinking it was a design works artbook or something.

Spatula---are you playing on hard/going for the A ending? Lezard's tower isn't even a dungeon IIRC playing "normally". I really suggest you see the regular ending first, then replay on hard, go for the A ending, and see everything else.

Well that's a first. I REALLY don't see the point of blind-packaging ships. I can at least understand (and dislike) it for figures, but for ships---nobody wants anything but a matching, complete set.

Radiant Silvergun is very pretty, but I didn't find it all that "wonderful". Ikaruga is much better (and much harder) IMHO, for recent vertical scrolling SHMUPS. I still have Thunderforce 5 as my all time fave shooter.

Though the ships usually have the parts numbered, they don't number the variants. Thus, for the Yamato-class ship I have, if you bought a box #1, #2, #3 etc, you might end up with a 1941 Yamato bow, 1945 Yamato bridge, and a 1944 Musashi's stern. You're guaranteed all the different pieces, but not from the same variant. So you still really need to buy an "opened" set, or you might end up with half the parts being the clear version, or something.

Since NOBODY wants anything less than a complete ship, most any store that sells cutaway ships opens them up and assembles complete sets, even if they won't do it for any other blind-packaged item. Also, there are generally 2 complete ships per case, so the stores don't end up with any leftover parts.

Cutaway ships have become popular in Japan lately, but this is the first anime ship AFAIK. Kind of ironic, the first one released (by Takara) was the real Yamato (I bought the Musashi). There's also going to be clear-hulled variant.