David Hingtgen

Guess we're getting upgraded KC-10's! Anyways--is it just me, or do the KC-10's have like 1/8 the polys that the "main" planes do? F-15's---looks like a generic big hangar. Only the doors are hangar-deck-ish. (And that's an unbelievably nice and clean and spacious hangar deck if its supposed to be one)

Hmmn. If there's to be refuelling, then we'll either need the latest upgraded KC-10's, or KC-10's and KC-135's, to be able to service both types of refueling equipment. (Probe 'n drogue, or USAF-receptacle) I thought the JSF might have been the point at which the forces all went to the same system (best opportunity) but they didn't---USN and USMC will still be probe, USAF will be receptacle.

No, they only used the RADIO CALLSIGN "Ghostriders". However, no squadron uses that callsign, not even the Ghostriders. Ones I know off the top of my head: Jolly Rogers, callsign Victory Bounty Hunters, callsign Bullet Ghostriders, callsign Dakota Black Aces, callsign Fast Eagle Satan's Kittens, callsign Hellcat

FYI, she's really into planes, if you read the article. (I don't have the magazine, but parts of it were posted at some of the airplane forums I go to)

Most of this was already discussed when the definitive cast was announced. Yes, Invisible Girl/Woman has always been fair-skinned, blue-eyed, and blonde. And Jessica Alba is none of the above.

Did some more checking on my Chap 27 "3 secs of lost footage": On my 3-month-old Sony, it does it for every audio track, French and Spanish included. There is no pause/stutter/artifacting, it very smoothly and almost seamlessly just skips it--I watched the counter closely: 3:24, 3:25, 3:26, 3:27, 3:30, 3:31, 3:32... It's as if those 3 secs simply don't exist. However, my launch-day PS2 which audibly groans when switching layers on most discs, plays it flawlessly.

I'll re-watch ANH Chap. 27 tonight with various audio tracks selected, see what happens. PS--WS sold out at so many places already? Man, my Best Buy was like 90/10 split for WS/FS. Target's about the same--you've really gotta look to find full-screen.

Only glitch I noticed was chapter 27, about 3:28 in. It suddenly skips (audio and video) to 3:31 or so. Luke just ended saber practice with the helmet on, Obi-Wan says "you've just taken your first steps on the path" and then there's like 1 frame of the end of that scene then it goes to Vader. Tested on: Sony NS575-P. Trying to slow-mo the scene causes it to freeze. Strangely, plays ok (or nearly so) in reverse. And the big blue door on the escape pod looks really added-in and pointless.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who hopes it's top-loading. No matter how careful you are (and I am obsessively careful with discs), most any tray-loader will make some scratches. (Strangely, my car CD player is much much better than my PS2 or PC, it never leaves even the tiniest mark) And the PStwo looks even thinner than the thinnest Sony DVD player, how there could be room inside for a tray mechanism...

Came earlier than I expected it---which is good, because Xenosaga 2 will SO kill my launch-day PS2. Heck, Ace Combat 5 might, since I like to replay every mission with every plane... And I needed a new controller anyways, might as well wait another 6 weeks.

Just got mine. Box sucks IMHO. Cheap, flimsy, strangely designed. All I really wanted was a simple box sturdy enough to not be ripped apart by the sheer act of being shrink-wrapped. Oh well, I'll probably just stick all 4 discs separately in a DVD tower.

The US has massive reserves of aircraft, all at different "readiness" levels. Some are saved in good condition to potentially fly on short notice. Some are saved "well enough" to fly with some work done, and others are only saved to serve as spare parts sources for others. And of course many are scrapped or converted to drones. They're currently doing this with the B-1 fleet---sending perfectly good B-1's to the desert to be stripped for parts. It's better to have 2 wings of B-1's consistently ready, than 4 wings barely able to fly. Half the planes means twice as much spares and maintenance support per plane. Ships are the exact same way--the USS Iowa is only kept as a potential source of spares for the Wisconsin and New Jersey.

You haven't won? You're missing out on the best planes! Though IMHO, the later the missions, the weirder they get. AC usually has at least "plausible" missions, AFDS just gets plain silly at times.

Random photo post: Ever wondered what happened to all the F-4's the US bought? No, not THAT many became AMRAAM targets. Most of them retired to Tuscon, AZ! Seriously: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/449326/L/ There's a few dozen Tomcats up top too, and some Harriers fairly low. But it's mainly several hundred (less than a thousand though, I THINK) Phantoms...

I go with very tiny amounts of regular cement. All the white-glue like stuff for canopies is too weak IMHO. And some of them like to pretty instantly dissolve when exposed to water (as in, if you need to apply a decal in the area). Still haven't tried the GS-Hypo stuff, supposed to be THE best.

If you do that, you'll end up with a .jpg or gif or whatever, but of *much* lower quality than the original. .ART is not merely a new format, it is a highly compressed format with major loss of image quality. It's not an MP3 of a CD, it's like a 11khz 4-bit mono WAV file of a CD...

ART is AOL's own extension (not your standard .art extension), auto-compression of ALL images (gif/bmp/jpg) for the cache. To get rid of it, you have to go into AOL and switch the IE preferences to "never compress". AOL compression is it's own menu-tab on IE' main preference setting. But it'll only show up if you go in via AOL's own settings, then web prefs. Won't show up if you launch IE then change prefs, even though the effect still happens.

For the Arleigh Burke class, there's PLENTY of real-life sources out there. For obvious reasons, the Cole is the most heavily photographed one. http://www.hazegray.org/features/cole/ Great detail pics in the "repair" gallery. Though, I don't remember if the Burke's in Macross are Flight I, II, or IIA. (Cole is one of the last Flight I) Good place to start: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/sys...ship/ddg-51.htm

Checking around, it seems this is the E3 demo basically, and that it is little more than a playable beta, many features lacking. Anyways---damage seems like every other game, you're fine up until 100% damage. Other things I forgot: Accurate gun ammo amounts. No "I'll just shoot for 5 mins until I hit him" here! Gun takes a moment to "spin up" to full speed, you can hear it. Less than 2 months until the "real" version comes out, can't wait to see all the changes/additions.

It's the October issue. Just came out this week I think. "Def Jam fight for NY" is the cover game. All 40 different covers of it.

F-14A's haven't had working glove vanes since about 1986. Maybe earlier. It has been many, many years since an F-14A has deployed its glove vanes. PS--I thought the A's tail looked a bit more VF-33 like than VF-84. But the nose-stripe is definitely VF-84. PPS--if you're looking for this issue, it has 40 (forty! ) different covers. Be sure to read the listing of what's on the disc to make sure you get the right issue. PPPS---they went with a VERY pink/blue afterburner effect. Not many planes have that color, and it's usually indicative of specific engines. Would much prefer yellow/orange. (Unless they do it plane-by-plane correct, thus yellow-orange for F-15C's and orange-blue for F-15E's, etc)

Things I forgot/corrections: You start the mission with drop tanks, but they automatically jettison like 2 secs in. Noticed that the Tomcat drops the pylons, too--I honestly don't know if that's right or not---it's very rare to see a Tomcat with drop-tank pylons only---they either have the pylons AND the tanks attached, or nothing at all. Real F-22's drop their pylons with their tanks, but I think that's kinda unique. F-14A's still have glove vanes deploy. C'mon, they've been gone for nearly 20 years now... AMRAAM has no minimum range, I must have been doing something wrong earlier. It'd have been really neat though IMHO, it's the super duper godly missile otherwise---there has to be SOMETHING to make it inferior in some way to some other missile... (like a minimum range) Sparrow and AMRAAM have identical ranges, about 3x that of a Sidewinder. Noticed that there's a counter in the plane select screen, and it counts down as you assign planes to wingmen. Perhaps you can only have so many of various types, and/or have to buy them. Thus, your squadron couldn't have all F-22's unless you could afford them . Would make it more interesting, having a mixed fleet, etc. "Yeah, all of you get 4th-hand F-5A's, I need to save up for my Super Tomcat's custom high-vis paint job..."

Well it's technically the Official *US* Playstation Mag, could be availability/compatability issues.

AFDS lets you set the throttle exactly where you want it, from idle to full burner, in like 1% increments. You don't need to hold it down. And you can "double click" from any setting to get full burner or minimum idle instantly. Wonderful setup, IMHO. AC4/5--let up on the button, and it just defaults to "moderate thrust". Full non-burner, and full burner are about the only other settings you can hold accurately, and full burner requires you to press down HARD, and hold it. It's nigh-impossible to get like 70%, 90%, min burner, half-burner, etc. Wing sweep---well the demo's calibrated in km/h, not knots, and it's really messing up my "accuracy checking". I did notice a "mach 1" condensation effect, much better than any other game. But sweep was definitely determined by speed, not throttle. Actually seemed too slow IMHO, since the F-14's wing sweep actually occurs over a rather narrow band (pretty much Mach .75 to 1.25--- Mach .5 to .75 is only like a 2 to 4 degree change, and nobody notices) F-14's don't do "inbetween" sweep very often (unless they're really dogfighting), it's usally in or out. I'm definitely going to play some more tonight. PS---the demo has the full long video that you can download from Namco's site as well.

Thread necromancy! Anyways---am I the only one who picked up the latest issue of Official Playstation Magazine? *PLAYABLE* Ace Combat 5 demo! Thoughts/notes: Demo only has F-14A and F-18E. Jolly Rogers/low-vis respectively. And wow are they paying attention to the new paint rules, the Super Bug has the tailcodes off the rudders, and moved forward. Overall combat is changed a little bit---you select the planes for all 4 people in your element (yourself and 3 wingmen). So don't give them all A-10's and then issue "cover me" while fighting Flankers... Overall, the realism is up a bit. F-14 has a definitely more "heavy" feel compared to the Hornet. Thankfully, the ailerons are gone, but still no differential stabs, which is the F-14's primary control. S. Bug was good, but there's no airbrakes, only rudder toe-in. (And I think it should be toe-out, not toe-in). S. Bug's LERX's seemed too thin/long to me, too much like a Legacy Bug's. AIM-7's now are like real ones--you must maintain a radar lock until the target is hit. But they are powerful and will take down large aircraft in a single hit, where you need like 4 AIM-9's to down a C-5. C-5's and C-130's will drop a million flares if you use Sidewinders, I had like 6 in a row miss. And 20mm doesn't do much to big planes like that. AIM-9's are still your "4 dozen of them and can hit anything, but are weak" weapon. They launch off the rail like THAT, you don't even see them. Wonder if they'll bring in AIM-9X's later. (Actually, I'd really like to see the AIM-9 be air-to-air only) AMRAAM's are far superior to the others---faster, long-range lock-on, fire-and-forget. I hope they make them not too easy to get in the real game, or it'll instantly make the S. Bug the best plane, due to sheer number of AMRAAM's it can carry. However, I did note that they added in a minimum range limiter--no 1-mile AMRAAM launches. It is medium/long-range only. Get in close, and you'll need a Sidewinder. I'll play more later and see how the Sparrow does, real Sparrows can actually get in pretty close--might be the only advantage the Sparrow has. No Phoenixes in the demo. Overall difficulty is definitely up, mainly due to a bit more realism, and I'll say smarter AI. The bad guys actually launch countermeasures! And they will gang up on you to protect what they're escorting, taking down C-130's are not a piece of cake 60-second mission. Graphics--noticed there weren't any of the neat follow enemy/target/missile views, hopefully the full game will have them. I actually thought AC4 looked a bit more polished, could also be a "demo" thing. Outside view is more like AFDS than AC4--as in, you're really close to your plane, too close IMHO. And yes, you still need to press down HARD to get afterburner, which is probably my #1 complaint about the entire AC series. Why can't they do like AFDS and let you just select your thrust level? Or at least reduce the amount of pressure needed to get afterburner.