David Hingtgen

Magnum ammo is hard to find. Maybe 40 rounds in the whole game. However you shouldn't need much. Even the hardest bosses should fall in a dozen shots or so. It's that powerful. My Broken Butterfly (which you can get for free, though I bought mine) is currently at 28.0, next upgrade is 50. Which is about 5 times more powerful than an upgraded shotgun at close range... Even the un-upgraded magnum has twice the power of most shotguns. And its power goes up by the power of a shotgun every time... Basically--it's the boss killer. Far more effective than any other weapon (besides a rocket launcher). Also good for any "really tough" regular enemy. Just use one round, they'll probably drop. Or save and go on a killing spree. I did on my second game and got all the way from the opening scene to inside the church in about 25 mins, since I was nigh-invincible with the magnum (and leftover ammo from the first time through).

Beat it, liked it much more than all previous RE's combined. Thermal scope is awesome, and be sure to use grenades if you've got them---you come across far more than you'd ever need, and you end up having to either leave behind or sell a lot of them. PS---Attache case L is probably skippable---you won't really need it until just before Attache case XL is available. I wasted 40K, since I bought XL right after L. PPS---best tip I can give: upgrading a weapon's ammo capacity refills it (not from your supply). By far the best way to acquire Magnum ammo---use it on a boss (don't reload, or if you do, use it all up), then go upgrade its capacity for a "free" refill.

Food coloring+Future is one of the most common ways of doing it. The other way is simply airbrushing thin coats of Tamiya Clear Yellow, possibly with some Smoke or Clear Orange mixed in. Word of advice: don't overdo it. It's quite subtle in real life 99% of the time. All those shots you see that have really "orange" cockpits are mostly the work of the orange light from a sunset, strongly accentuating the golden canopy. That, or the photographer kept trying to get JUST the perfect lighting angle that it'd "flare" orange. On a normal day, you really need to look, it's more like "slightly dark glass with a slightly yellow-brown tint". And F-18's tend to have pink-yellow, vs the F-16's orange-yellow. (Though Super Hornets are brown-yellow) I have plenty of pics of the real thing in normal lighting.

Wonder if whoever probably got paid $$$$$$ for planning the SuperBowl events realized a NIGHT flyover is really pointless. Schedule it earlier next time! Instead of pre-pre-pre haltime concerts, have the flyover... I could tell they were F-22's from the V.stab outlines, but I honestly couldn't tell if they were *Super* Hornets. Good look at the slime-green formation lights though.

The planes scheduled for the Super Bowl Flyover (presumably right around the time of the National Anthem, or maybe halftime, who knows) are said to be 2 of Tyndall's F/A-22's in formation with 2 of VFA-103's F/A-18F's (flown by VFA-106 pilots). Joint USAF/USN formation, interesting. And no I don't know if a high-vis Jolly Rogers plane will be one of the 2 Hornets.

If you want to look for substitutes, try this: http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html

Jumping ahead 60 years: F/A-22 does well in tests, cannot be engaged by ground systems: http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123009729 Also, current rumor is that the Super Bowl flyover will be F-22's this year.

Licensing means *NOTHING* for accuracy. Trust me. I have seen companies grant exclusive licensing rights many times. Often to the company with the worst molds and least amount of accuracy. It's like if Big West decided to allow only ONE company to make VF-1's, and after looking at prototypes from Bandai, Yamato, Toynami, etc---they picked Joons and barred all other companies from making VF-1's. Seriously, it happens. Of course, often times exclusive rights are granted to whoever asks first. And that's a big problem, especially for all the companies who don't make everything. Example: Pan Am. Big famous airline, much desired by airliner collectors (like me). However--the company with the exclusive license (trust me, Pan Am isn't legally dead) doesn't have molds for some of Pan Am's planes, and many of the ones they do have are vastly inferior to a rival company's. There's never going to be a Pan Am DC-8 model, no matter how bad people may want one since they don't have a DC-8 and have little interest in ever making one. And they made an A310, but it sucks, so there'll never be an A310 worth buying since the company with the good A310 mold can't make Pan Am planes. Example 2: Thai Airways. Picked the company that was so bad they came and went within a year, with errors such as the left side of the plane being a DIFFERENT PLANE than the right side. (in addition to generally awful molds and bad paint) Sorry for the rant, but IMHO the only thing worse than licensing is EXCLUSIVE licensing, since it often means many things we want simply will never be made. And I have seen samples/prototypes of things I want from Company X--and then before Company X can release it, Company Y gets the EXCLUSIVE license, and so the cool item from Company X has to be abandoned and such an item either never gets made, or a much inferior version is made by Company Y.

I just snagged a Luftwaffe magazine last night and it had an article about F6F vs Fw190 vs F4U (all from the same test pilot). Basically--Fw190 fills the same role as a P-38 or P-51---high speed attacks/interception. Don't try to dogfight using it. Any Navy plane will beat most all of them in a slow/turning fight, only the Spitfire is a really good non-Naval dogfighter. I still say the F4U is the best WW2 fighter. It's damn good at everything. Sure, P-51's may be fast and the Spitfire can turn, but the F4U is like 2nd-best in every category, vs being 1st in one category but rather poor in others. PS---they didn't think the Bf109 was all that great period. It was simply really quick and cheap to produce, so 30,000 were made because of that, not due to being superior.

GameMusic.com just got it in today! http://www.gamemusic.com/cgi-bin/WebObject...d=10163&did=101 Ordering from the US is usually easier/quicker. (And yes, this is the real, official, actual release)

Another thing is the *insanely high* fees, not just the fees themselves. I know Gulf Air wanted (not joking) $250 per model. On a 767 model that is normally around $22 bucks. Licensee of course said "no way" and so no Gulf Air 767's were made, and Gulf Air got 0 dollars. If the license was a FEW bucks, they'd have gotten several thousand dollars from the company that wanted to make Gulf Air 767's. Less money is better than no money... Now, most fees aren't that bad, but most are way too high. Licensing fees shouldn't account for 50% of the cost of a model! And of course there is the precedent thing. All the 747 models from the 60's 70's and 80's were license-free, even the ones sold in Boeing's own gift shops. But NOW they want a license... It's especially bad now that Boeing has bought so many manufacturers, they lay claim to most anything. Like the Boeing P-51 and Boeing DC-3 (as they type it on their website).

You know, the X-29's SP colors are the demonstrator colors. Just buy the Hasegawa kit, and tell everyone it's from AC5.

Also, your wingmen are so inferior to you, it makes little difference what you tell them. In one entire playthrough, you should have like 500 to 600 kills. Your wingmen? Lucky if they get past single digits. They average like 0.7 kills per mission...

::looks:: OK, VF-102's F-14's had itty-bitty ones. Shornet's are a bit bigger and more visible. Still, vastly inferior to the HUGE ones the F-4's had. Although honestly, considering the time period and its design, it was practically an "aim here!" marking for MiG's... Check it out: http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/galle...f4/d4c-7697.htm

The A-10C is out: Pics: http://www.fencecheck.com/forums/index.php...m1106685416#new Article (strange the USAF doesn't have an article): http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny...692.story?coll=

Ooh, VFA-102 repainted their CAG *again*. What is this, scheme #4 in 2 years? At least they know how to make a nose-stripe look good on a Shornet. Interestingly---the tailcode has been moved back to the rudders... (VFA-102 was one of the first to have to move their tailcodes off the rudders) Best of all--the Diamondbacks have a diamond on the back! Haven't seen that since the very first F-4 deliveries. http://drastic.cside.com/fly/CRW_0025.jpg

Have you considered any of the battleship/cruiser-based float-equipped scout planes, both US and German? Most are 30's designs, though certainly not sleek.

Which always struck me as interesting, as both cars and planes (and ships and trains and most every other form of mechanized transport) have constant arguments about who's "best", yet semi-trucks have a very clear heirarchy of "best to worst". Excluding a few "average" companies in the middle whom you could argue would be slightly better/worse than average.

I saw the pics, didn't feel like posting. Anyways---I suspect that is an OLD photo of a prototype/sample. Details-wise, it's perfect for THAT plane. It's 160656, the 1982 CAG. (DW has a typo, that's the 82, not 92 version). Every little detail I know of for that plane is correct. VF-111 is my fave squadron, I have most of their CAG plane's BuNo's memorized. 162594, 160656, 160660, 161621.. HOWEVER: there seems to be no nose pitot. Either they forgot to put it in for the photo (The F-16's is removable), or they have a Block 75 nose or something. That'd be wrong for 90% of F-14's. Also---did you notice IT HAS A B/D's BACK END? The fairings are separate, but GE's! So they obviously plan to do an accurate F-14B, they just put the wrong ones on for that prototype photo-shoot. So---if the final actual release has the correct F-14A back end, and a nose pitot, than it will be as accurate as if I built one from a Hasegawa kit. By far the most accurate diecast model jet ever, period. But, if there's no nose pitot, and it has the back end of an F-14B---then they screwed up as big as they did with the "no pylons" F-15E. Nose pitots are VERY common on F-14's, but not all. VF-1, 2, and 124 are about the only ones you'd commonly see without them. Maybe 24, 32, 51, 142, 143. (I'm not as up on those squadrons with their very first F-14 deliveries) Finally--yes, I do think it looks kind of "fat" and/or toyistic in those photos. DW often seems to change many details between pics and release, so I'm waiting for pics of an actual released one, before I buy. But details-wise, if they get the nose pitot and engine fairing right, it'll be perfect.

Not that I'm much of a car guy, but I would like to chime in here. My all-time top 2 fave cars are the 93-97 Camaro, and the Countach Quatrovalvole. I love wedges. With low front ends and very raked windshields.

Is there any way to calculate "prestige"? If 5 years from now, 90% of our front-line fighters are F-15's and F-16's, while smaller nations have EF-2000's, Gripens, and Rafales---regardless of quantity/training, it just plain doesn't look good on the world scene. Same as a carrier battle group--a big chunk of the effectiveness is its mere presence/existence in an area. But a bunch of old F-15's? Not very "intimidating".

KOTOR 2 has a great concept/story, just lacks in execution. And level 15 is about as fast as you can possibly get a lightsaber. 14 if you try. I got real sick of "random items" real fast. I spent a while experimenting with looting bodies etc, seeing what I got, then reloading. Items varied from nothing, to double-bladed lightsabers. Yup. Looking for a purple short saber? Just keep reloading. Might get a breath mask, might get nothing, might get a yellow double-saber... Ending is "total cop-out". IMHO. Especially the "we're not QUITE mocking the players" line at the very very end of "Did you think there was some big revelation at the end? Something that would shatter your perceptions to the very core? No, there's only you". (I don't think that's a spoiler, since they're saying that there is no big spoiler in the game) Don't worry about getting spoiled much in KOTOR 2, there isn't some big secret/revelation. Or if there is a few things that might be considered as such, they're ultra-obvious. If you guess something, you're right.

Lakenheath is the closest major base to the Balkans. And the rest of the former USSR, which frankly, few of those nations are very "stable". Spangdahlem and Aviano are pretty much "F-16 staging grounds for when we can't use Turkey". Now that Bitburg's closed, it's the best bet. And most importantly, the UK likes us (at least, more than Germany and Italy at the moment). Diego Garcia--too remote for anything but a B-52. As for needing something better than an F-15/air-threat: The F-15 is old enough now that even half-assed copies of modern fighters can probably beat it. Forget China, anybody with a few hundred million can get all the Rafales or Gripens they want, and blow any USAF plane but the F-22 out of the sky with pretty good odds. And, going with Nied here---F-15's are *old*. 1973, 74, 75 builds are ALL in the desert to be scrapped due to age. 76/77/78 won't last much longer, despite being the nifty F-15A MSIP. 6 years from now, all F-15A's and half the F-15C's will be too old for anything but ANG training if that. Instead of $105million F-15K's that are obsolete for air-to-air the day they're built, get the slightly more expensive but 10x better F-22. (105 million each based on last reported price of the F-15K purchase)

I've got 2 opinions on how we should deploy F-22's, depending upon the final number. 1. 3 squadrons at Langley, 3 at Eglin. 2 full wings, nothing more. Our premiere fighter wings having the best. 2. 3 squadrons at Langley, 1 at Kadena, 1 at Lakenheath. World-wide coverage. If we should happen to have lots of F-22's, just combine the 2 options. Even 1 squadron at every non-Langley F-15C base is unlikely at this point. (since they'll probably fill up Eglin before assigning them to any but the most critical non-CONUS bases)

Air superiority is everything. No superiority, then every A-xx, B-xx, EA-xx, C-xx, KC-xx, and H-xx is going to get shot down before it gets its job done. F-xx's exist to clear the air for the bombers/attackers/recon/tankers.