David Hingtgen

Kind of surprised this showed up here, and got such a good response. I love airliners far more than military planes, and have been following this since just hours after it happened. It wasn't known that it lost hydraulics until days later, then it became apparent just how awesome the pilots were. Article nit-picks: nobody calls the main fan of a jet the "rotor". Rotor is what helicopters have... Also, it does mention how underslung engines make you pitch-up, and that the 720 was hard to fly. However, it does not mention that the MD-11 has the ideal configuration for controlling via engine thrust alone. (It's still impressive that it could do it, I have pics in some MD-11 books of it---but only the MD-11 could do it, or a modified DC-10, and maybe, maybe an L-1011) Finally---the UAL DC-10 was in even worse shape than sheer loss of hydraulics. With the #2 engine out, they were even worse off, since the the plane's thrust centerline was now out of whack. (too low) While a plane like a DC-10/MD-11 is the best for controlling via thrust alone, that's only with all 3 engines running. If the #2 is out, then it's worse than most. (1 and 3 are less important). An L-1011 is inherently worse at engine-only control for pitch, but inherently better for holding pitch in the case of engine failure. (But better at yaw than any other plane except a quad-engine) (There is no perfect plane---it just depends on what the situation is) And also, the UAL DC-10 had its rudder stuck to the right, and both inboard ailerons stuck up. Hard enough to fly a plane with no control, but even worse if said controls are stuck in extreme, contradicting positions.

If day 12 is like 1/48 FAST packs, you know it's someone who knows you well.

imode--most every weapon's different in how it's launched when underwater. Harpoon anti-ship missile: stuffed inside a special "flotation bubble" (basically a sleek capsule), shot out of the sub like a torpedo, floats to the surface, then fires its rocket motor and bursts out of the bubble to fly. Tomahawk: launched like a torpedo until it's 33ft from the sub (lanyard attached), then fires its rocket motor underwater, bursts through to the surface, then once it's above the surface it engages its jet engine. Nuclear missiles: propelled via *highly* compressed air all the way from launch depth to above the surface of the water, then ignites its rocket motor just above the surface. That's why you usually see LOTS of bubbles with an ICBM launch--all the air used to blast it out of the ocean.

"Kill them all!!"

Though I shudder to think what'd happen if you got sucked into a GE90 or RR Trent---their 1st-stage fan blades are bigger than you are. (A GE90's fan diameter is the same as that of the FUSELAGE of a 757)

I seriously doubt this is how it's done for a VF, but I bring it up as a relevant side-note: The main form of modern military ship propulsion is too drive the propeller via aircraft turbines. Does the same thing, works the same way---sucks in air, compresses, burns, spins turbine, thus spinning the propeller. Is actually a turboprop, just it's behind instead of in front. The LM2500, the "main" jet engine for ships, is much better known as the GE CF6, the main DC-10 engine, also used on the current Air Force One. (CF6 is the most common engine for widebody planes nowadays) Yes, most any modern US Navy ship runs on high-grade jet fuel. Ironically, jet-carrying carriers (even non-nuclear ones) don't.

Which is why I recommend vaseline. The worse it'll do is stain. Annoying as hell, paintballs at least wash out, but vaseline just STAYS. You need something to absorb it, like cornstarch. Vaseline---fun for MANY things.

I just thought of something. Vaseline. On your door, doorbell, wherever. Coat it. It's like an irresistible human response to try to get it off, but you can't. They'll be there for at least 5 secs trying to wipe it off before they realize they'd better run. And being clear, it's hard to tell it's there... just watch for someone running down the street trying to wipe their hands on their pants or something. And check the local phones for vaseline on the handsets.

That reminds me: Who do you hate? I really, really, really hate fighting Voldo. CPU or human, I just hate him.

Nightmare is far faster than most people think. It's just more fun/flashy to do most of the slower high-power moves (and the computer sure does). But the main thing is just to really nail down what moves are the stance-switching ones. Stances are far more important to Nightmare than to Mitsurugi or Ivy. Nightmare's various inifinite stance-switch combos rock, especially against newbies who've never seen him do more than a 2-hit combo. And with Nightmare, 6 hits is just about instant death... Standard->Knight Behind->Low->Side->Side Reverse is the most useful, but most limited (few variations, predictable). Usually skip Side reverse to go to low or behind again, or go to Behind again right from Low. (Alternating Behind and Side is the fastest, scrubbiest way to get an infinite stance-switching combo, you've probably seen even the CPU do it--useful for a quick short one, but not in the long run, unless you're agaist total scrubs) I just started playing the US version after taking like a 4-month break from the JP one, so I'm having to re-learn a lot of Nightmare's stuff. (None of the FAQ's seem to play at all like I do, I just go through the move list a lot looking to see what goes into what stance, and build combos from there) For every fighting game there is, I usually pick one of the faster (but rarely fastEST) characters, but I really like Nightmare. Still, I'm way better with Sueng Mina.

Well I think those proportions there are pretty good for a ZOE mech. Maybe slightly longer arms/legs, but not "bigger".

Or in the "obvious thing they missed" category, is that half the time in various Tekken games, Heihachi is walking around with 2 katanas, yet they couldn't "come up with" a weapon for him in SC2... (Or does he have a katana and a wakizashi? Always looked like 2 katanas to me)

And there's always F-22raptor.com as well as F22-raptor.com, and it gets REALLY confusing. (Frankly, I'd rate official/government sites as the least accurate)

LOL--simultaneous Li Long fan postings.

Hey, Li Long was way better than Maxi will ever be. Anyways, I've been using Sueng Mina since Soul Edge, as well as Hwang. Picked up Nightmare and Xianghua on DC. Can use Sophitia decently.

1,000lb and an AMRAAM? Hmmn. Globalsecurity *is* very good, and I generally don't question their stats.

Despite being an avid fan of SAAB when it was on, I never saw the last few eps. I swear some stations stopped showing it before it was "officially" canceled.

Good place to stake things out: your car. No one ever looks in cars. Easy to hide in your car in the dark, and look out. Or, learn not to blink, and stay up until the sun raises. They'll either give up, or reveal themselves.

I just read a lot, that's about all I can say. Also, I take little for granted, I usually always check things out for myself. "If 3 books all have the exact same numbers, then that just means all 3 copied the same source". If they disagree, then one of them went out and measured/checked for themselves. Find the one correct source, not just one that copied somewhere else. Even official sources can be wrong. Boeing's own 720B drawings and stats have a few errors---the tail IS different than the 720, yet they describe it as being identical.

I knew all-blue had something to do with weight, never knew exactly what. Should have asked our resident missile designer. PS--Knight26, what about ACMI pods etc? Usually all-blue or even all-red I think.

Well that's definitely not NATO standard AFAIK. I was pretty sure Australia conformed though. We do have some all-blue weapons, but those are pretty much only weight simulators used for training loading crews and the like. Generally only see AIM-9's like that here. Here, it's stripe color, and nothing else. Pretty sure Belgium follows that method exactly, I'd have to look up most other nations. Maybe NATO only specifies "blue" for dummy, and it's left up to individual nations to decide how that blue should be applied. I mean, I've never seen anything BUT blue for a dummy round. There's always pink bombs though, at least we've got some. I always presume way too much about where people are posting from, sorry.

Umm, no. Body color means nothing. Only stripes have meaning. Blue stripes=dummy. Yellow/brown=live (since it indicates the explosive type, as you said). All bombs are olive drab, both live and dummy. Stripes on the nose indicate live or not. Same with missiles--all of them are white or grey, stripe color indicates live or not. Same with torpedoes---generally metallic green or orange overall, dummies have blue stripes, live ones have yellow. (Since there are no rocket-powered torps, none have brown)

Yup, it's the 100th Anniversary of Flight this week, so it's all airplanes, all the time on most of the TLC/History/Discover channels, etc.

Yeah, squadron's got about the best selection there is. But you'll probably want to try larger scales---a 1/48 P-51's a LOT smaller than a 1/48 valk. PS--a lot of the "colorful" valks you see in Japanese hobby magazines etc are based off of 60's and 70's Navy planes--F-4's, F-8's, A-6's, A-7's, and early F-14's.

But the YF-21 has *two* gunpods. All in all, the original's the best to me--VF-1 !