David Hingtgen

What, no pics?

1. 20th Ann Prime. (pre-ordered)

2. UP FEF-3 4-8-4:

3. CR SD80MAC:

4. Lots of 1/400 DC-9's. http://www.sma-models.com/400/images/photos/DC9s.jpg

5. Maybe the new 1/72 F-15E's will be out by then.

6. Maybe Escaflowne, I need to see lots of pics of the final version before I decide.

Nied--I'll have to go read up on F-22/AMRAAM some more to reply. (I do love a good discussion)

ewilen--yup. Vectoring nozzles for pitch (and roll should certainly be possible). Verniers could help a bit. As for roll--there's LOTS of ways to roll. The spoilers would be a lot better than wingtip thrusters/verniers. (Unlike an airliner, a fighter's spoilers are pretty much used only for roll and are often the primary/only means of roll) (yes the F-14 is an exception)

Canted rudders: not canted enough/big enough to do much. Yes, pulling them both in will *help* pitch you up, F/A-18's do it all the time, I'm sure F-22's will too. But pushing them both out/down won't do anything to move you--it's a powerful airbrake (it is in fact how F-22's slow down--they have no spoilers, no dedicated airbrakes---they just push both rudders out). The only plane with tail surfaces canted enough to have a downwards pitch is the YF-23 (of course) and that's because they're actually more horizontal than vertical. It's not really fins canted out, it's a tailplane canted up. (it's not canted at 45 degrees out, it's 50 degrees out from vertical--thus 40 degrees up from horiztonal)

More like, if you've already masked it, and want to seal the edges of the tape, what should you spray over it? Might try the krylon crystal clear.

Other question: what's the absolute "best adhering" stuff there is? I need something that'll stick to my "repels everything" gloss clear... Krylon primer? Some sort of clear? Tamiya something?

Ferris camo is disruption camo---designed to confuse, not hide. Makes it hard to tell what angle you're seeing, which way it's going, etc. Actually easier to see overall, but very hard to tell WHAT you're seeing, and which way it's going. More common on ships than planes.

Nearly every Ferris scheme ever is here, complete diagrams with colors:

http://users.skynet.be/exotic.planes/htm/o...her/schemes.htm

Example 1: Standard F-14 scheme:

Note false canopy on bottom.

That's just your standard F-15 Heater-Ferris camo. Plenty of pics/decals out there for it. Also try the F-14's Heater-Ferris for variation. F-4's, too. Very famous type. (Often simply called Ferris, as Heater-Ferris is pretty much F-14/15-specific)

1. Yup, Su-37 is the most awe-inspiring fighter there is.

2. Hey, some Flankers have rear radar, and Russia has developed a rearwards-firing missile.

3. F-22's radar doesn't have totally passive missile launch mode. It MAY sometimes allow a completely passive AMRAAM launch, but don't count on it. (You need multiple F-22's sharing data for that, or a really long, multi-pass sweep on a non-manuevering target) If it makes just one active sweep, Flankers will pick it up in a second. (AMRAAM's are not the 100% totally independent missile they are made out to be, they do rely on the mother plane's radar, just to a lesser degree and for less time than the "paint till it's dead" Sparrow)

Well, I've found out that while gloss is a good sealer, it's horrendous for paint adhesion. The flat black is literally flaking off. Will have to repaint the waterline entirely. (Will re-do after the red is done).

For modern jets, feel free to flatten the tires, but don't bulge them more than about the thickness of the paint. You'll see massively bulged tires on WWII planes due to their low-pressure tires for grass strips. F-15E's (and YF-21's I bet) have their tires at over 300psi, and they don't flatten too much, and they only BARELY SLIGHTLY bulge.

Best color shot I took: (and #4 is piloted by a fellow Iowan, BTW)

I still want to see you do an F-14/15/16 in 1/72 for some scale comparisons.

Also--quit fretting about making the deep blue paint look convincing/real, it exists in real life:

Yes, the Avenger II. Better known as The Flying Dorito. Got further than most things though, I believe it got so far as the wooden mock-up stage.

Looks like a B-2-ified A-12. (Not that many people will get the reference)

PS---Lockheed's proposed making pilotless F-16's, as we have so many old ones, and they're so cheap. It won't be long before we run out of F-4 drones for target practice. Might as well see if a drone fighter can do more than just be shot at. Once you remove the pilot and his seat, there's lots of room for electronics--and F-16's are already FBW. Heck, you can get rid of lots of things--canopy, O2 supply, instrument panel, rudder pedals, etc.

No, the "attacks non-existent enemies" was just plain annoying in FF1. I found the new one MUCH better, for that reason alone.

Still hate FF2 though. Played through probably 75% of it though on the new version. (Not like it's a long game or anything). But man, that has to rank as the worst levelling-up system I've ever encountered in any RPG or any other game, ever. I stopped at the Tower of Ultima, as I do believe it's impossible to beat, at least without say 10-20 hours of modifying people's stats.

(Let's see, absolutely no anti-confuse items/armor for purchase/stealing/finding, it'd take 600+ casts of Esuna to build it up to remove confuse, and you tend to encounter 4-6 enemies who all cast confuse-all every time, every round. It's worse than fighting Pink Puffs in FF4) And even if 3/4 of the party learned Esuna-6, it's no help when 4/4 of the party is confused before even 1 character can go. And on the odd chance 1 or 2 people have it wear off, the enemies will just cast confuse-all 3 times in a row, guaranteeing you'll be confused.

And yes, I've cheated like crazy throughout the game, taking out major bosses in 1 round, and it still sucks and is too hard.

IV *rocks*. It wasn't until like the 3rd time I played both VI and VII that I had to move IV down from #1. Still my fave Bahamut, due to speed. (Bahamut's better than Flare on a time basis--Flare takes twice as long to cast, but is less than twice as powerful--also takes a good 70% more MP to cast) Also the best Holy--Holy ROCKED in that game (and was fast). I still want FFVII-style Holy someday.

Junctioning made the game SLOWER, because since everybody could summon all they want, they expect you to use it. (This is not a summoning animation-length rant, though it could be)

Anyways, FF8 had the highest HP enemies ever. Normal enemies could be 20,000 to 100,000HP easy. Basic, normal enemies could take like 3-6 summons to kill. It was the only way, unless you want to "Fight" 20 times in a row... Most spells were worthless, and unless you've junctioned 255 Holy/Ultima to strength, your weapons aren't going to do anything either. So for the first 80% of the game, summons are to only way to do any damage at all.

Basically, normal fights took many, many rounds, lasting several minutes. Compare to FF10: so long as you use the right person (Wakka against flyers, Tidus against agile, etc) most people go down in one hit, most groups in one round.

FF8's fights often seemed worthless---sure, I could fight a given enemy, but it'd take forever, and you didn't get much EXP. Much better to fight the weakest enemies possible, to kill them quickly. A 5-minute fight (for 2 or 3 times the exp) isn't worth it, when you could do 30-60sec fights. Now if 5-minute fight enemies were worth 10x the exp, then it'd be worth it. That's how most FF's are--blue dragons, behemoths etc give LOTS of experience. But in FF8, they're simply MUCH harder to kill, no real benefit. Any enemy more than 10 hours into the game doesn't give all that much EXP relative to it's toughness---toughness goes WAY up, exp gained does not.

Finally--no boss exp in FF8. That REALLY pi**ed me off. That's always been one of the best ways to level up, and makes a 20min fight (heck, 45 in FF8 if you're using Bahamut/Leviathan summons) worth it. Except that they removed it for the .0001% of FF players who desperately want to win on as low levels as possible. "Woo, I won at level 18". Which is pointless, as most people want to be as buff as possible and whip the boss, and it's even more pointless to do so in FF8, since levels affect your stats little--junctioning is 10x more powerful for boosting stats.

Despite all that, Quistis is one of my all-time fave FF characters, and Seifer's gunblade Hyperion is the coolest weapon ever.

Iowa (the state) warmed up this week, so I can continue working on Iowa (the ship). As the camoflage on the hull is done, but the hull bottom isn't, I am taking every possible precaution is masking off the camoflage pattern.

Anyways, I've got it masked, and have sprayed on a heavy, thick coat of "dull cote" (Testor's lacquer). However, I'm wondering if the gloss clear would be better to seal the tape? Or would that possibly mess up the color(s) to go over the clear? (Flat black and flat brown primer). Never tried spraying flat black over clear gloss.

Anyone have experience with using various clear-coats to seal masking tape?

Despite being harder, I much, much, much prefer CA as a filler as opposed to any epoxy/putty. No matter how fine, they all have grain, but CA does not, and it utterly doesn't shrink. It also "flows" and self-levels a bit---smoother filling/seams. I always mask off the surrounding plastic before sanding. And if need be, you can polish CA as smooth and clear as glass--it's certainly the only filler you can use on clear parts.

PS--anyone know of a SLOW-drying xylene/toulene (like Testors) out there? When you're gluing 18+ inches on each side, one piece, it almost always dries before I can get cement all the way around the hull, and have sections that don't adhere. (Nothing's worse than the "pop" sound made from a submarine splitting in half, then finding the glue dried before you even got the two halves together)

Dang. I do believe it is the best one yet. Even *I*would shy away from those yellow decals... (Though I'd rather decal than paint any day)

PS--weathering's fine, IMHO. Not that I've seen any real-life demonstrators. They work HARD though. Nothing like a cold-soak test in winter Norway to distress a plane... (Airbus did it in Siberia for the A310 though)

Am I the only one who really likes the show? (And yes, I've read dozens of Titans comics--just not hundreds, and nothing older than the 90's)

I think I'm at the same level of "fandom" as I am for LoTR: read the books, but not so into it I nit-pick every word of dialogue in the movies. Same for Titans: basic familiarity with the characters and major storylines, but I don't instanty cross-reference the show with 400 issues looking for inconsistencies.

General rule: stuff dries darker, and with more intense color.

Example: a medium blue-ish grey, when dry, will be a darker grey, with a stronger hint of blue in it, compared to what you see in the bottle.

I always just use car polish (paste in a a tub) for clear parts. Sure it's a bit more physical effort to hand-buff something, but no worries about it running or leaking. My Lakota's warp nacelles are foot-long hand-polished clear parts. Took hours, but they're friggin gorgeous. Most people believe they are actually clear crystal-acrylic sapphire-blue parts, not painted and polished like that from normal clear plastic. "Mother's California Gold" I think is the specific brand used, got it at Autozone.

I'd start with FS 35237. Medium dark blue-grey.

Cool, I can use that new light-up Akira to go with the Ent-E for a First Contact diorama.

Airbrushing is affected by the barometer, time of day, wind speed, wind direction, time until the vernal equinox, and various planetary alignments.

In other words, mixing it up drop-by-drop identical to a batch you did yesterday, or even an hour before, will not guarantee success. Always, always test out a newly-mixed batch on scrap plastic.

Also, overthinning is 100x more common than underthinning. Add as little as possible, and see if you can get it to spray by adjusting the air/paint flow. Then if you can't, add more thinner. I usually put like 80% of the thinner I think, then add more *if* necessary.

Finally, distance from what you're spraying. The thing I least pay attention to, but may be something to watch for. Every inch is a BIG difference.

Post-finally: did you stir everything really well? Stirred paint is thicker than paint that's sat. And did you still the thinner into the paint well? I've never said to myself "I stirred it too much", but many times it wasn't stirred enough.

::can't ignore opportunity to rant::

Or we could all go watch Pearl Harbor, with it's modern VLS-equipped missile destroyers...

Not to mention that every single battleship was wrong. (They didn't make each ship individually---they CG'd a few dozen "generic US battleship parts" and put different groups of them on the same hull to represent the various ships--so they had the rough general appearance of each ship they were going for, but every single detail was wrong). And that was really stupid, as:

1. Anyone who didn't know the ships wouldn't know anyway whether the overall shape/outline was right or wrong or the gun arrangement was correct--could have just used a dozen Arizona's and they wouldn't notice.

2. Anyone who DOES know won't be fooled for a second by an "approximation". New York-class bridge+Pennsy-class tower does not equal Colorado class, even if the guns are right...