David Hingtgen

A few secs later, after aerodynamic forces have ripped off more parts, it's in an inverted flat spin. Left stab gone, right stab just the root is left, and you can see there's a lot less right wing than there should be (compare to the undamaged left wing). (remember the plane's upside down, so left is right, etc)

Actually, the wings WERE down. Only half-way, but still down. Even full down wouldn't have been enough, for they could only stabilize, not control. #2 lost like 99% of the right stab, and probably half of the left. No amount of wing-fold could replace 3/4 of your v.stab area being lost. Plus the fact that entire folded portion of the right wing was gone too. We're talking loss of 70% of all control surfaces. Sequence was right wingtip, right stab, left stab. Some were totally gone, others only partially. But pretty much everything was hit. ::searches hard drive:: Here, best pic of #2 in the initial pitch-up:

Supreme kaoishin--that statement's close to flamebait, IMHO, considering who's here (namely many Valkyrie/plane-lovers) How would MiG-25's shoot it down? Their real max speed is Mach 2.8, and only if lightly loaded. Of course, like most any plane they can overstress their engines and go faster for a few seconds before the turbines melt... And their altitude isn't high enough either. XB-70 is right up there with the SR-71 for the "too fast, too high" category. If the SR-71 is 99% invulnerable to SAM's and high-speed interceptors, then the XB-70 is like 90% invulnerable. If you're slower and lower than a plane, it's pretty darn hard to get off a shot. (Tonight I'll go look at my speed/alt chart for defeating SAM's, see if I can get an exact percentage for the XB-70) Anyways--the Concorde is banned from flying SUPERSONICALLY over LAND in the US, and most of the entire world. It can go supersonic San Diego-Honolulu because that's over water. It can go to Texas (as it did in service) by flying subsonically over US land. Just about every nation has banned supersonic overflights over land, regardless of type of plane. (Of course there's exceptions, like the middle of nowhere Nevada)

Yup, a recon plane's only weapon at times: use ALL the flashbombs at once, and just blind your enemy. And if you're lucky and you've got an RF-4C or maybe an RF-8U with the right load-out (a double-load of the high-power ones), you can get several billion candlepower going. According to one pilot who did just that: "I think that after all these years, there still might be VC wandering around the jungle blinking".

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.