David Hingtgen

Here you go: How to hide a carrier battlegroup. (or 2) http://www.warships1.com/index_tech/tech-031.htm

Smallest adapter voltage I can find in my list is 5 volts, sizes from 300 to 1500 milliamps. 5 is 1.11111 times that of 4.5, which is a little high, but not bad. Most stuff has a 10% tolerance or so. Of course, then there's the issue of having the adapter plug into the stand. It's REAL fun trying to figure out whether you have a 2.0mm or 2.1mm plug...

Basically: Voltage must match, Amperage merely needs to be "enough". Quick example: 2.6volt, 20milliamp LED. Give it 5 volts, it'll fry itself real fast. 1 volt, it won't light. Give it 2.6volts, with a small +/- margin. However, it'll only draw as much power as it needs from an adapter. I mean look at the AA batteries the kit already supplies--probably several thousand milliamps together. But the LED's will never draw more than they need. Resistors are for lowering voltage, not amperage. I managed to get my Ent-B down to just one resistor (though pretty significant wattage, had to order from Digikey)) inside the saucer.

Most people who go with LED's do get adapters. You can get SO many different adapters, you usually just wire up the system how you want, figure out what kind of power it requires, then buy whatever adapter you need. My Ent-B runs off a 9V 800mA one. Could just as easily used a 9-volt battery, but it'd be drained pretty quick. And since a starship needs a stand, might as well have the stand supply power from an adapter. Batteries are useful in that you can pretty much create whatever voltage you want---NiMH are usually 1.2V, Alkaline are 1.5V.

When I lit up my Ent-B, I learned quite a bit from this: http://members.misty.com/don/ledx.html I suggest "LED's 101" and "LED FAQ" for starters. Seriously, just google "LED wiring" and you'll find lots of articles from people lighting up various Trek ships. Only thing to be concerned about is wiring in parallel vs serial. Rules are different. I'll go and see if I can find my wiring diagrams for my ship, I sure hope I didn't toss them, as I'll never be able to replicate from memory. (I copped out and used bulbs instead of LED's at the end, but it's all the same concepts, mini-bulbs just draw a lot more amperage)

I need to hurry up and just spend the $$ and buy the rest of the series on DVD. At the Sci-Fi channel's current rate (and their fondness of repeating 3 eps in a row 2 weeks after they just showed those 3) there's no way I'll be caught up with the rest of season 3 and 4 in time for Peacekeeper Wars.

Transformers. LEGO's good, but so expensive/overpriced. Seriously---"small plastic cubes that cost .03 cents to make--$50" I always wondered if all the money goes to R&D for the instructions...

One simple reason: CAG Hornets tend to have truly awesome paint schemes. As good if not better than many Tomcat CAG schemes. I don't build them because of any love for the Hornet, but because some of my fave schemes just happened to have been painted on the Hornet. Also, the Academy 1/32 kit is the only way to get twin-AMRAAM launchers without investing a lot of money and effort into resin conversions. Not to mention there's still no "wonderful" F-14 kit, especially for B/D's. Hase may be detailed, but it sure isn't an easy build and their B/D's leave stuff to be desired. The Academy Hornet is supposed to be up there with the Tamiya Missouri for "near perfect fit".

http://www.armorama.com/modules.php?op=mod...wcontent&id=503 Man, I haven't even started my 1/32 Hornets... Thankfully the Flankers are cheaper. Now to just wait for Ukranian airshow demo decals...

And now we have all those people complaining about the A-10's uranium shells, and left-over bomblets from clusterbombs... Yeesh, the BLU-108 (main clusterbomb munition) is one of the few weapons that falls into the "brilliant" (smarter than smart-bombs) category IMHO (it changes its attack based on what it senses, and automatically self-destructs under various conditions to avoid civillians and friendlies) and that's STILL not good enough for them. Apparently we need to add a full DNA-scanner to the thing...

Mainly because it's usually inferior in most aspects to the planes it replaces. That usually stems from: 1. Its insanely high drag. No plane can out-decelerate the Hornet! (except Harriers) 2. The high drag causes high fuel burn, combined with its low fuel load, means it can't fly very far, nor carry very much. And the big fuel tanks cause so much drag, they practically cancel out the fuel gain. (There are situations where its actually better to carry LESS fuel in drop tanks, due to the drag saved by not carrying them). 3. Jack of all trades, not all that great at any. The F-15 is NOT a multi-role plane, and that's why the C is a great fighter, and the E is a great bomber--they don't make the same plane do both, they have one variant do one thing, and another variant do another. Specialization is a GOOD thing for planes. F-18's are forced to do every role with the exact same airframe. Even F-16's are optimized for a particular rle, though its not as well known. (Block 30's are fighters, 40's are bombers, 50's are SEAD with a secondary fighting ability) 4. The YF-17 was a neat little plane, often described as a hot-rod. Until MDC thwacked it with the ugly-stick until they had beaten it into its present drag-whore shape of today, the F/A-18. (Ironically, many of the "improvements" done to the Super Hornet were merely making it look more like the original YF-17 and F-18L, what the plane was originally intended to be)

And if you ever wanted to know exactly where the center of pressure is when an F-14's wings are swept, the atmosphere has clearly marked it for you:

F-14's do it better too:

F-4's do it better. And this is the original Vandy-1 no less.

How so? Flap position is based on airspeed, nothing else.

Well, in the US the deciding factor is that *enamel* Tamiya is nigh-impossible to get.

For the F-14's configuration, I meant physical configuration. Though I don't know of any museum that's ever back-dated an F-14 to be correct for how they'll paint it.

Umm, everything and anything? And it really depends on the brand. Acrylic and enamel are actually not enough to describe a paint. There's lacquer enamels, acrylic enamels, enamel acrylics, acrylic lacquers, and most any other combination you can think of.

NOT Squadron putty. I recommend Tamiya basic putty. Or Mr Surfacer, or super-glue. Depends what needs to be done and what you like.

Last time this came up, it practically became a styrene-bashing thread. So I'll be the first to say I like styrene a lot better. One of the big issues is that there's so many types/qualities of resin, versus few types of styrene. For styrene, there's pretty much opaque versus clear. Anything else is manufacturer-specific, and doesn't vary much really. But resin--any color, soft to hard, flexible to brittle, from full of airbubbles and uneven to better than Hasegawa.

knight26--so you think crashing on its first flight is a bad sign? PS--I see a lot more F-16 than F-18 in it. Though I do get annoyed that SO many "new" planes look like F-16's anyways.

I've got a WAPJ with the IDF as the feature article. Nifty little plane, but nothing really notable IMHO. (I do favor big, heavy fighters overall)

Well at least it's in the right ocean, which couldn't be said last year.

41 was with the Reagan in July. There's been some shifting around now that the Reagan's about to deploy for the first time. AFAIK, 14 and 41 should currently wear Reagan markings, not Nimitz. They've got the NH tailcode, which is CVW-11, which has been on the Nimitz lately. Maybe they just haven't gotten Reagan markings yet. I think the Nimitz is in refit at the moment.

Yeah---C model already is the "smaller for internal bays" variant. And it is already in service, and has been for some time. And F-22's carry 6. If you put in B models, can only carry 4. The C is as small as it's going to get. If you want smaller, you're going to need a total redesign and go to ASRAAM-style vectoring.