David Hingtgen

The SR-71 has the massive advantage in that its payload is only a couple of cameras. The XB-70 was supposed to carry enough nukes to zap the USSR into the stoneage. Can't do that with a small plane. The XB-70 is the biggest fast plane, and the fastest big plane. Also the SR-71 was DESIGNED to be stealthy, the XB-70 was not. You can't hold stealthiness against a design that wasn't supposed to be. (Unlike say, YF-22 vs YF-23, when they're both supposed to be stealthy) Anyways, the XB-70 cancellation can be summed up in 4 letters: ICBM. Missile tech advanced WAAAAAAAAY faster than they thought. They thought the ONLY way to nuke would be with very fast, large bombers. Then they made nukes 1/100 as big as before, and missiles that could go much faster and farther--and thus, no need for hideously expensive bombers. It's not that the XB-70 failed in any way, it simply wasn't needed. It'd be like making a dedicated ship class just to carry Tomahawks, when most any Navy ship can be retrofitted. From the time of the XB-70's first design sketch, to its first flight, its purpose vanished. PS--yup, an SR-71 has been hit by SAM shrapnel. The SR-71 wasn't designed to be utterly invulnerable (or like 99.9999999999%) (that'd take Mach 3.5, or another 10,000ft), only to be able to evade like 99% of missile launches. So if you fire enough SAM's, one's bound to get lucky. PPS----XB-70's are HUGE. There's pics of guys having lunch inside the intakes. Nice place to hide from the boss.

Got it, haven't watched it yet. FYI, that's the best the Jolly Rogers ever looked. They only did the high-vis white-belly for 1 year, which is when they filmed. They had similar schemes for years, but for the ultra-famous often-modeled scheme you see here, that's it. (I still wonder why Top Gun had fake squadrons, and all ultra-low vis, when there's many cool squadrons to use, with better paint).

The toys. Nothing gets my attention like a cool transforming jet. ('twas Jetfire, it all comes from that).

This is a great chance to post what is probably the neatest F-16 photo taken in years:

The pilots are rubber, not plastic. They spring back to shape no matter what you do. Heat will instantly ruin them. And it's not the legs. They are simply too big in every way. Height, width, etc.

I tried everything, and the pilots just won' fit in well. If you take tweezers and REALLY smush them in, if you ever try to take them out, they'll catch and pull the instruments panels and the stickers. Best to just leave them out. (Yes, it means pilot-less planes when "in flight" on a stand, but that's better than a damaged cockpit)

I don't know off the top of my head what the Hase VF-1 spinner looks like. (I actually haven't bought any 1/72 Hase kits yet---YF-19 if anything, but they cost as much if not more than Tomcats)

Yup, first one has Sivil.

Well it looks to me from that pic that the VF-0's engine has a nice short, rather flat spinner. (AKA modern) As opposed to the kit's long, hemisphere-tipped tubular one. (There's LOTS of ways to describe that shape, only a few of which are G-rated)

Got them to work by cutting and pasting the URL. As was said, shot 1 is the turbine/burner-ring. Wrong end of the engine. But Hase got it right! Shot 2--shows the blades, but can't see the spinner at all. Spinner: the pointy-rounded part in the middle of the fan, all the blades are arranged around it. So I still don't have a pic of the 1st stage fan's spinner, which is the only part I'm concerned about. The only reason I brought it up is because it just looks so 60's-ish to me. Either Hase guessed, or Kawamori made a rather unusual choice for a modern spinner design. Of course--a head-on view (which is what 99% of engine shots will be) won't help much, since you can't see anything but a circle. I really need like a cutaway, or a schematic of just the engine itself. (The best way to see spinners is to stick your head up the intake yourself--which I do whenever I can, but that won't work in this case)

I'm getting "page unavailable". Also, I said the fan SPINNER looked funny, not the fan blades.

Seems I'm wrong. Those aren't for the F-14's nosegear steering. They are however, the links that raise and lower the catapult strop. But they sure look like and are in the right position to be the steering links. Now if I can only find the steering mechanism... I also found out that the little part of the main gear that sticks into the fuselage is called the interlock strut, and it is to help support the main gear, by giving it another attachment point to the fuselage.

I really want planes to stall in prolonged/tight turns. No more 1080's until you get behind the guy. There's a reason planes have both an instantaneous and a *sustained* turn rating... (as well as minimum speeds for a given bank angle--no 80 degree banks at 200kts) Plus I want F/A-18's to have massive drag and all that entails. And I'll be checking to see if the Super Bug's pylons are all messed up, just like the real one's. Acceleration characteristics would be nice, but are generally ignored (boy would it alter high-speed/high-altitude fights--F-4's would QUICKLY become a much more popular choice). (And Super Tomcats would actually be at a disadvantage) And I'd take the F-111 if the goal was speed, speed, speed. Probably outmanuever the pig that the MiG-25 is, and actually have a decent load-out.

Many schedules aren't finalized until later (ESPECIALLY Blue Angels) but here's a good start: http://www.stevesairshow.com/fighters04.html F-14/15/16/18, A-10, etc http://www.stevesairshow.com/jet-teams04.html TBird/Angels F-14 demos are down a lot from last year, several squadrons disbanded or transitioned (VF-2, VF-154, etc). However, nowadays if you get a Tomcat demo, the odds are VERY high it'll be a Super Tomcat. Fewer Hornets, too. (Though it could just not be finalized, the Navy isn't nearly as "into" airshows as the Air Force---they finalize later, do a lot fewer shows, and have no official sites for the demo teams)

500lb bombs don't weight EXACTLY 500 pounds, btw, if someone's trying to calculate explosive percentage. Also, the bigger the bomb, the higher the percentage explosive. It's still ROUGHLY half and half, but a 2,000 pounder would have a notably higher percentage than say a 500 pounder.

Dang, it wouldn't be that much smaller than the 1/48 Blackbird I built, and bigger than any of the teen series.

I'd have to do a bit of searching for exact numbers, but one of my best books says "roughly" 50/50 for all Mk80-series bombs. And that is part of the "General Purpose" designation. Those with 65% explosive are "demolition" bombs, and aren't nearly as common. (They also tend to be larger--3,000lbs+) izzyfcuk---the hard part is trying to remember the JDAMs, much harder, for they're not in order. Mk81/82/83/84 are 250/500/1000/2000 lbs--easy. But JDAM's are like 31/30/29/32 or something, in ascending order of size. I always have to look up JDAM weight/numbers. (It would have made sense for them to number the JDAM's in order, so of course it wasn't done that way)

It's exactly what we want. If we want sims, we go play sims--plenty to choose from. If we want arcade-style, we play Ace Combat.

That reminds me---one of the best things about AFDS is the wingmen have a brain. Unlike every other game ever, if the mission is to bomb something, and you take like an A-10, your wingmen can actually fight well enough to keep the Mig-29's off your back. In most games, no matter what, you need to load up on AMRAAM's to defend yourself, no matter how ground-oriented the mission is. AC's wingmen are usually pointless.

Darn, I forgot to mention the F-16 CFT's. However, I don't think it's Block 60, as it's now official that the Block 60 is the F-16E/F, and they also have the Dorsal Spine, not just CFT's. (Though if the spine is there, then the game's got Block 60's) Flanker fetish--ugh, 60 of AFDS's 130 planes were Flankers. All that, and no F-8's, no original F-4's, etc. I sure hope maybe they'll model the F-14's flight controls right this time. Doubt it though, I think they've convinced themselves they're right. PS--F-14's are more manueverable than most people think. They are right up there if not surpassing the F-15 at high speeds. The F-14's wing loading is much much lower than most people realize. Swing wings do rock, the F-14 has almost none of the disadvantages "traditionally" associate with them yet every advantage.

EA-18G Growler, electronic warfare replacement for the EA-6B Prowler. See, the idea is to not only get rid of the Tomcats, but all Grumman aircraft. 6 (maybe only 5) Hornet squadrons per carrier! 2 squadrons of F/A-18E's, 1 F/A-18F's, 2 F/A-18C, and 1 EA-18G squadron, that's my guess. Though E and C will be interchangable for a while. Maybe add in an F instead of a C.

I always go with Magicbox for news/pics: http://www.the-magicbox.com/Mar04/game032504a.shtml F-14's look to be D's, and even appear to have the correct rear fuselage. Yes, sure looks like that's an EA-18G Growler. (Though I'd like to call the E/F/A-18 just to make fun of the Hornet's designation) And of course, the big question is if they'll have the YF-23 and other prototypes. (I LOVE AFDS's inclusion of the YF-17, the Hornet's predecessor so rocked--I like F-20's a lot too) PS--SpacePirateNeko---those ARE gameplay screens. (At least all the ones I've seen at Gamespot so far, and all the ones at the Magicbox) If you saw AC4, you wouldn't be surprised AC5 looks like this. Nobody can get the PS2 to pump out graphics like Namco, they even surpass Square IMHO.

I'll be back in a few days, getting the demo. (not that I nit-pick flightsims or anything)

Yup, nothing like carpet-bombing for using up old bombs. The most common loads for Hornets and Intruders in Desert Storm were Mk.82 LDGP bombs. And dumb bombs can be pretty accurate, that comes down to pilot skill. (and a good pipper with CCIP can help a lot too!) Quick bomb review: Mk.82 is the 500lb, Mk.83 is the 1,000lb, Mk.84 is the 2,000lb. And to stave off a question: weight is total weight, not weight of the explosive. Assume around 50/50 explosive/casing. (Shrapnel from the casing might actually do more damage than the explosion itself)

Any low-vis Tomcat looks just like that pic. Sometimes nicer, sometimes worse. It's simple--corrosion control/prevention. Any little spot that looks less than perfect, gets sanded/primed/painted right away at sea. And they only paint the exact little spot, not the whole panel, so it looks really patchy pretty soon. (Crews would like to do a whole panel at a time, it'd make the planes look a lot better, but the Navy says no) And paint batches don't match anyway. And sometimes you're out of Dark Ghost Gray and need to use Light Ghost Grey. AC4's X-02: It's a YF-23 with switchblade wings embedded in the leading edges. (And new engines, ventral fins, folding stabs). But it's 80% YF-23, much like AC2's XFA-27 was mainly an F-14. Angel's Fury: a quick explanation of canards is that they are basically the opposite of horiz. stabs. Unless you're an F-16 or X-29 or anything else purposely realyl unstable, a plane's center of lift is aft of its center of gravity. That is basic stability---if lift is forward of center of gravity, you're unstable. ::tries to find pic:: Ok, more extra stuff than I wanted, but it shows it well: Big black vertical line (W): center of lift from wings. Yellow dot: center of gravity. Lift pulls up, gravity pulls down. Imagine if you attached strings to the center of lift and center of gravity, and pulled in opposite directions (down from gravity, and up from lift). Since lift is aft of gravity, the plane will tip nose-down. Not good. Now look at the h. stabs---the big black line labled T. That's the force from the tail. It is small, but aft of the wings, and pulls down, thus righting the aircraft, thus level flight. That is how most planes fly. If a plane weighs 100,000lbs, you actually need like 120,000lbs of lift from the wings, since the tail will probably be pushing DOWN with 20,000lbs of force, to keep the plane level. So---what's another way to keep the plane level? The exact opposite--a small tail pulling UP, AHEAD of the wings. Which would be canards. Generally seen as superior, since they add to the lift of the wings, rather than trying to oppose them from behind. Best example is takeoff--you're at the end of a runway, trying to get lift to get off the ground--then to pull up, you push DOWN with thousands of pounds of force on the tail----not the best way to get UP. You can kind of think of it like this--to make a balanced force against gravity, you can have either a huge lifting force from the wings and a downforce from the tail, or a medium lift from the wings and a small lift from the canards. Tailplane downforce generally is more stable, but canards are lighter and quicker. Thus you see airliners with tailplanes, and many fighters with canards. You also see many modern fighters with tailplanes instead of canards--why? Well, some designers just don't like canards (this is why F-16's don't have them). Heck, it's the reason most don't have them. Also---it is easy to add a canard for additional stability/control, like you see on the X-29 or S-37 or the XB-70. It is however very easy to add a "bad" canard and have a really messed up plane if its the ONLY source of pitch stability. SAAB is certainly good at it, but many companies/designers are not experienced with it. Canard-only designs are AFAIK harder to design than tailplane/h.stab designs. Finally---you're much more likely to see canards on a delta-winged plane. Look at XB-70, most modern European fighters, etc. It mainly has to do with how elevons work on delta-winged planes, and especially the "takeoff" situation I mentioned. Also, since delta-winged planes are generally quite stable in pitch anyway since they have such huge wings and a spread center of lift (unless you design it not to be), they usually use canards as a supplement, not the only source for pitch control. (Since it's usually the wing itself for pitch control----look at a Concorde---nothing but the wing). So in summary a YF-19 would probably use its small canards simply as an additional source of pitch control, since it has thrust-vectoring like almost every other valk for its primary source of pitch stability/control. Canards (like most any control surface if you want) can also be used differentially for roll control, but the -19's are so small it's probably pointless. "Supplemental" canards are awesome to quickly pitch-up (the main move fighters do) because if you have a normal tailplane--that means you've got a downforce at one end of the plane, and an upforce at the other--and you will very quickly rotate the aircraft about its axis like that.