David Hingtgen

I abbr. it to 17th wing as I didn't know how well-known "CVW" would be.

Yeah, and very soon after Iran had their revolution, Russia "came up with" the AA-9 long-range radar-guide missile:

Clarification: I only use 3M as "filler", the actual painted edge should always be Tamiya. But if you need to mask off an area like the size of your hand, use 3M blue for the center area to fill out the Tamiya-masked edge. PS--I recently got some tape from HLJ by "Aizu". It seems to be Tamiya tape cut in VERY thin widths. (EXACT same color). Will try it out on canopies soon. Less than 2 bucks a roll, well worth the price, because 0.4mm is too hard to try to cut yourself, and you'd never get good consistency. I suspect that thinness will be able to pretty much curve into a complete a circle.

Tamiya tape is worth its weight in gold. Though 3M blue tape is decent (as in, low-tack) it can't conform to a curve or surface half as well as Tamiya. Use 3M is you're just masking straight lines and flat areas, as its cheap. But if you need a curve or 3D area, Tamiya's the way to go.

IMHO, those companies are exactly like those that make, say, replica/replacement parts for a '67 Corvette. A product completely unsupported by the manufacturer for decades, yet there's a great want to keep some of them in complete, mint condition. Much more of a "providing a service for people who bought the product, but can no longer get spare parts from the manufacturer" than "trying to make money off someone else's work" situation.

One of the things is, Boeing even did "low-vis" AA tailcodes. Even the current low-vis planes in the wing get the lightning-style lettering. See here: Or look at the yellow-tipped CAG about 3 posts above.

"Even with the arrival of the F/A-18E Super Hornet in the force, the F-14 remains the platform of choice for precision targeting. It has longer range than the Super Hornet, and the LANTIRN targeting pod is superior to the Nite Hawk the F/A-18E's carry" --CAPT Scott Swift, deputy commander, CVW-14, 2003

But "traditionally" Sue Storm is a very fair-skinned, blue-eyed blonde. Jessica Alba, while pretty hot, is about the exact opposite of that.

Don't forget planes like the Harrier and Tornado. They can't blow off their canopy, so there's det cord embedded inside to blow it to bits before the seats come out. F-16's are pretty unique in having no forward frame for the canopy, so they actually blow off the windshield and middle, as opposed to most planes which have the windshield stay and they blow off the middle and rear sections.

Hey, Phoenixes are supposed to take out heavy bombers in one shot--they'd just vaporize a fighter. And yes, F-14's have horrific spin characteristics, combined with crappy engines. F110's help prevent spins, but you're still pretty screwed if you spin a Tomcat. Jetwash/propwash: generally, it's actually the wings making the effect. (Wingtip vortices). Few things on earth have a nastier wake than a 757.

While the F-14 was technically not involved in the Vietnam war (since Nixon declared end of offenses in Jan. 73) the F-14's did CAP cover the evacuation of Saigon in '75 and patrolled throughout the latter half of '74. So they were flying around Vietnam, fully armed, in the 70's, just not technically when a high-school textbook's illustrated time-line would show the Vietnam war as occuring in.

Skull Leader--gotcha. Knight26---143 are the Dogs, not 103, which everybody knows are the Sluggers. (They're not the Jolly Rogers till they change the number to 84 IMHO) Stamen--no, Goose shouldn't have died. There are lots of things specifically designed to prevent that. The most obvious one being that the seats are taller than the headrest, so you'd have to be like 8 feet tall to have your head poke above the metal frame. Now, you can lean up and out above the headrest (and you'll usually see the crew sitting like that), but when you eject the harnesses automatically pull you in tight, down into the seat. In addition to the fact that the canopy fires off in such a way as to get out of the way as fast as possible (they pitch up 90 degrees so they catch air and instantly flip/fall out of the way due to drag). Plus the upper frame of the seats (not the pilot's head) are designed to punch through a canopy, should all else fail. Let's see... 1. They rock! 2. VF-101 is gone in a few months. They will not disgrace themselves with Shornets. "Death before Bugs! " VFA-106 is expected to add on E and F models to be the new RAG, or possibly re-establish VA-174 as VFA-174. 3. F-14's are so inherently good at bombing, the Black Aces have won "best attack squadron" awards with non-upgraded A models! They didn't even need Bombcats to out-bomb A-6 and F-18 squadrons. 4. VF-1 and VF-2 were deployed to Vietnam to cover Saigon, but never got a chance to encounter MiG's. THAT would have been a lopsided fight, F-14 vs MiG-21....

trueblueeyes---normal F-14A engine position when shutdown is one open, one closed. Which one does what? It varies, despite many people's claims that it's one way or the other. I see both ways about equally. Also see them both open fairly often. Rarely see both closed. (They are supposed to be different, if they're both in the same position, someone wasn't following procedure) If you really want me to say the "most normal/correct/common" way, I vote for right open, left closed. F-14B/D's leave them both open. Shin---full burner doesn't necessairly mean fully open. Nozzle position is above all, dependent upon pressure ratio. Depends how fast the exhaust is, how fast the plane is moving, and how dense the air is. Go look at say an F-15 engine being tested---it'll be at FULL power with a 50 foot long flame, but the nozzle will be mostly closed because it's not moving. The nozzle's function is to equalize the pressure of the exhaust with the outside air--and the speed of the plane will affect that. You'll often see "open" on an F-14 taking off, but not FULLY open, which'll only happen at very high speeds and altitudes. Skull Leader--I'm not following your 203/117 discussion at all. Navy planes AFAIK give their modex over the radio. "Victory 103" would be the Jolly Roger's #103 plane, the showbird. Etc. I don't get where you get the Black Knights and Aardvarks from the numbers. Topgun stuff: Most of the planes filmed for flying around were from VF-51, including Maverick's. However, Iceman's was from VF-111. (VF-51 and 111 are sister squadrons, and were "available" at the time) Maverick's plane (and jacket) were actually marked up as VAW-110, an E-2C squadron. Picked simply because the director liked the logo. Iceman's was marked up as VFA-25, which is my favorite HORNET squadron. Of course, since VF-111 has the all-time coolest squadron markings ever (sorry, Jolly Rogers are #2 IMHO) they really shouldn't have repainted the plane. Yes, VFA-25's pretty cool, but to paint over the Sundowners markings... Maybe they didn't want Val Kilmer to have the cooler plane. Misc F-14 stuff: F-14B/D's are operationally limited to Mach 1.88 in peacetime, due to having so much thrust it can't maintain yaw control if one failed at Mach 2+. The true top speed is still unknown/classified, but likely around Mach 2.5 F-14A's are limited to about 2.2 for the above reason, Max speed is 2.41 F-14 fired its gun in anger for the first time in 2003, doing CAS! F-14's don't move ANY part of the wing at all for control when the wings are swept back. Everything is done with the tail--roll/yaw/pitch. An F-14's wing center-section is INCREDIBLY strong. They have been removed intact from otherwise smoking craters that crashed F-14's leave behind. You might find 100,000 little bits of metal, and 1 perfectly fine wing center-section with the pivots to attach the outer wings still attached. Electron-welded titanium. The most extreme/impressive move an F-14 can do is the bat turn. Start out at high subsonic speed with the wings swept back, and simultaneously hit full afterburner and command over-ride the wings to full forward, while rolling 90 degrees, and pull back on the stick HARD. Basically a right-angle turn, faster than even an F-18 or F-16 can do. Will suck up an incredible amount of energy (like a Cobra), but will result in one incredible turn. You pretty much trade a LOT of kinetic energy for the ability to turn like that for about 1 second without falling out of the sky. The epitome of "instantaneous rate of turn". The F-14 came very close to having 1 large v.stab and 2 large ventral fins. Was changed to 2 smaller v.stabs and 2 small ventral fins quite late, mainly on clearance issues. (Both ground and hanger deck height). The F-14 was the first fighter to carry AMRAAM's, and much of the initial AMRAAM flight testing was with F-14's from Pt Mugu. F-14's were supposed to be the first plane to get them, to make them nigh-invincible in BVR, as they would have had Phoenixes, AMRAAM's, and Sparrows, combined with the most powerful radar flying. F-14 #1 crashed on its second flight after all the hydraulics failed. F-14 #6 shot itself down with a Sparrow. (missile pitched up sharply IMMEDIATELY after launch)

Yellow wingtips? That hasn't been seen since they had F-8's. Coincidentally, both VF-84 and VF-103 had yellow wingtip markings at the time. FYI: AA is the tailcode for the 17th wing. http://www.jolly-rogers.com/cvw-103.htm The stripe on the nose is known as the vagabond stripe. PS--I wonder if even VF-84's 1959 flaming intake scheme would be enough to make a Super Bug look cool... Note, the h.stabs should have stripes too, they forgot.

Gotta nit-pick, since this is the topic of discussion: Rotating about the central axis is ROLL. BANK is actually turning/changing heading. (the "pulling up while rolled to the side" part) And which is usually coupled with yaw. You can roll without banking or yawing. Your standard 360 roll for example, or a 4-point roll. Flying with the wings swept: F-14 can get 90% of its lift from the fuselage and gloves under some circumstances, and I think gets 60% from the gloves in normal "swept-back" high-speed flight. VF-1 isn't quite a smooth in that area, but certainly has gloves, probably has some effect. Though it SURE doesn't even have .001% as lifting of a fuselage as the F-14 does, and that hurts it. F-14 is still one of the most aerodynamically efficient aircraft designs ever, period. And because of the glove/fuselage design, it can fly with large chunks of the wings gone. Roll etc: same way the F-14 does, tail+spoilers when unswept, and differential tail when swept. Of course, VF-1 would use differential thrust vectoring, having no h.stabs. But the vectoring'd be very effective with the engine spacing. Having no ailerons is not a problem. B-52's don't. B-1B's don't. Tornados don't. F-111's don't.

Ok, more info coming out: 1. VF-103 requested a high-vis plane for #101, Boeing said no, that wouldnt be to mil specs. The real answer is that it would have cost another 2 bucks of paint to add some black and yellow stripes... Repaints come out of the squadron's own money, not Boeing's contracted money, so we'll have to wait until the squadron gets ahold of them. 2. They'll probably have dark grey (36081) tails for most of the squadron. 3. The showbird (likely #103) will have *black* tails, regardless of what some higher-ups want. 4. To quote the CO of the Jolly Rogers regarding the new Boeing-applied logos-- "That crap's coming off as soon as we get back! "

Navy does have B and D models, but you can't use them operationally on carriers, the Hornet is SO pressed for weight, the 2nd guy is enough to preclude their use. They are only with the training squadrons. So there's like, 5. Blue Angels have probably the only operational B model in the fleet. In addition to range, the main goal of a Super Hornet was to increase the allowable bring-back weight of a Hornet. So that you can actually USE 2-seaters. Almost all F-14 squadrons (that survive) are getting Hornet-F's. A few are getting E's, but most E's are going to former C-model users and just a few re-established VA squadrons, ex-A-7 users and such.

I think they should go ultra-flourescent-high-vis to counter the admiral's rules. All yellow-tail, black skull, white accents. Most likely thing they'll do IMHO: Late 80's grey-tail variation. Also gets around the tailcode rule by having them on the inside. Of course, maybe just maybe there'll be enough of an uproar that the rule will change, and the Black Knights, Black Aces, and Jolly Rogers can have black tails again. Blah, the friggin Tophatters get to have black tails because they've got E-models....

Rear view: You'll notice it'd look a lot more "right" if the tailcodes were on the rudder, and there'd be room for a larger skull.

Disclaimer: I didn't paint them, Boeing did. PS---the Jolly Rogers are currently on deployment with their F-14's and aren't on-hand to "customize" the markings. But the squadron commander apparently isn't happy, and basically plans to repaint as soon as possible. PPS--apparently there is some admiral who doesn't like certain paint on Super Hornets, notably no tailcodes on the rudders, (many squadrons have had to have them moved) and worst of all--NO BLACK TAILS ON F-MODELS! So nobody knows what they're going to do. This is why the Black Knights don't have black tails anymore. PPPS--full credit goes to Brian Marbrey at ARC, aka "VF-103 guy".

If they are double-slotted fowler, then they're drawn/deployed wrong. The slot's pretty non-existant in everything we've seen. Double-slotted? Probably. Fowler? Not IMHO. Few things more complicated than fowler flaps. Here's a relatively SIMPLE double-slotted fowler flap, the ones used on DC-8's. 1950's design.

I don't think I've ever seen double-slotted flaps that only move the secondary (rear) flap rearwards while the main one stays in place and merely pivots. That basically makes it much more complex without much benefit. But, that is how it appears in the design works. As for the outer panels---wow, the animation shows a YF-23 level of movement. (practically straight up) However, almost all drawings show the hinge area as being identical to the flaps, and almost exactly like the F-14's flaps. Which would prevent them moving upwards. It's a flap hinge, not an aileron hinge. I don't know of any good/official drawing that shows them moving upwards. Sure you can animate them like that, but doesn't mean they'd work like that. It'd be like bending your knee the wrong way---you can draw it that way, but the design doesn't allow that in real life.

Searched hard drive, found good pic of the wingtip launchers: (This is VFA-83's just-repainted CAG plane with new big-horned skull-like ram's head on the tail, due to being called the "My Little Pony squadron" by the Jolly Rogers on their last cruise---the previous ram's head wasn't nearly aggressive enough to be paired with the skull and crossbones) Original logo still on center drop-tank.

Weird. Sidewinder's in the right place, the rail isn't. I think (after checking pics) the rail is too short on each end, but the middle is mounted in the right spot, so the missile mounted in the middle ends up in about the right spot (maybe a LITTLE too far forward), but the rail itself doesn't go fore and aft enough. PS---Trumpeter's next big kit is a 1/32 Su-27. Should be out this fall.

F-18's have flaperons, they drop their ailerons with their flaps. For the VF-1, I would make it all flaps. No ailerons/flaperons, otherwise you'd need to re-do the entire hinge and overall appearance of the "outboard movable surface". Just have the entire trailing edge be flaps, but have the inboards a more complex, double-slotted version. (Happens all the time on airliners, their inboard and outboard flaps are often different) As for the F-4: Each wing has a single aileron, and a large spoiler right in front of it. To roll right, you put the right spoiler up and the left aileron down. Just a little oddity of the Phantom. And their airbrakes are in the same spot as the spoiler (similar size and shape too), just on the underside of the wing. Heh heh, watching "Mail Call" at the moment, showing A-10's blowing stuff up.