kalvasflam

Not a big deal, Aloha got whacked on Monday. Let me know when one of the major legacies, like United, or Delta go away and then we'll be in a more stable market condition. But all this means is continued increase in ticket prices. I think overall, consolidation might finally start happening after the failed Delta/Northwest deal.

Talk about a gigantic mistake, didn't they learn anything from Denver?

Just finished watch Gundam 00 season 1, and I have a few thoughts. I thought the show was fairly well done for the most part up until the end. I swear the last four or five episodes started feeling like Bandai doing directions telling the team producing the show to introduce more models, and gin up more action for the masses who are just excited with big things blowing up. The good things about the first 25 episodes: - Fairly well structured story line - Good flow of actions for the most part - Show was fairly well driven by characters - Characters are fairly interesting, and I'm sure they'll be additional character development in the future (and I don't mean the Athrun Zala, Shin Asuka sob story) - I truly like the idea that even in undergunned suits and perpetually losing, but the characters thought about how to beat up on Gundams using strategy, tactics, in other words, they didn't rely on technology. The last few episodes though has not been quite as good as the earlier story, and I think the biggest problem is technology starting to supplant characters. - GN-X appears on the scene, and suddenly, both Kathy and Sergei who had been pretty smart about how to use their brains to compensate for inferior technology just turn into dumb robots. - An effort to get in one more giant robot, they removed the Graham development for a few minutes of fighting Setsuna. I actually hoped they hadn't introduced the giant mobile armor, I really don't like evil masterminds suddenly driving giant mobile suits. It would've been nice if Sergei had said withdraw, but Kathy countered by saying they had orders to keep up the attack even without backup. Then Graham showed up as their only backup. Alex could've been just killed on the spot by Ribbons, and there was a easy story that can be made up... i.e. Ribbons can't kill Aeolia, he needed Alex to do it, now he breaks Alex's neck, that would've been good. Then that would've left room for just a bit of Graham development, I see no reason why they couldn't have still wrecked Ptolemy and the rest of the Gundams with just the GN-X and the souped up FLAG. After all, the pilots with the GN-X aren't dumb, they have people like Sergei and Kathy leading them, who aren't stupid. They could've done what Alex did with just good tactics and strategy. So, this is a bit disappointing. Overall though, the show was still fantastic, I don't mind the time skip, kind of like what they did with BSG. Ought to be good if they can flush out more back story with Sumeragi, Alleuljuah, Soma, and a few other characters.

I'd go if Obamagirl is on stage first.

I like this: Boeing protests Northrup/EADS files for protest to be dismissed Boeing will then likely appeal the protest I wonder if the USAF will ever get a tanker at this rate.

http://news.airwise.com/story/view/1206524163.html And the hits keep on coming, ANA says to Boeing, if you're late again, you owe us money. This is probably already on top of additional compensation to other airlines which are facing delays. My guess is if Boeing has to pay compensation to each of the airlines delayed, it's going to start really hurting. 2008 is not going to be a good year at this rate. And with Boeing's delay on the 787, Etihad order might end up with A350 at this rate, talk about a bad ripple effect.

This show is definitely getting better, blows away whiny ass Fukuda by a long shot. Isn't the director the same one that did Full Metal Alchemist?

Ouch, more pain for Boeing, the key word here is design changes... meaning it has very little to do with suppliers, unless failure in supply chain is forcing a redesign which could mean even more of a problem. At this rate, Boeing can expect to ship their first plane on the same day Airbus announces their first delay from the A350XWB. Talk about being in trouble. Apparently, Boeing didn't learn a damn thing from the Airbus A380 mistakes. We can expect this to affect the Boeing bottom line and most likely a loss of market share when the A350XWB comes on line http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/080320/boeing_787.html?.v=1

Yeah, no Neo/Andy/Seed syndrom I hope. But they do need a few more dead characters though. I'm not sure I like the comic relief in the form of Patrick and Cathy since they don't seem to realistically provide anything. Patrick's successful blinding of Lockon not withstanding.

Well, the series is certainly getting more entertaining, the character deaths, so far most have been minor, but they've been evenly spaced out through the series, we finally get one semi major character die off. Although everyone's favorite character has been absent the last few episodes in a major way. Hopefully Graham will get a much more important role (not the dead kind) in the next two episodes, and hopefully that continues in the next season. So far, the series has gone above expectations from Seed. The storyline is not the most original, but good enough to keep me interested.

So what you're saying is that ANA will be secretly supporting Mitsubishi as they quietly try to build up their own portfolio of large commercial aircraft?

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/boei...4B0C81CD98CE%7D You know, the truth of the matter is, every delay kills Boeing a little more. Remember, there are always options to cancel orders, remember the A380F. A delay of a year means that opens slots are pushed out a year. A delay would also mean that as a company, Boeing will be paying penalties out the nose to customers. A delay means more opportunity for Airbus to compete on equal terms. This of course assumes the A350 doesn't face yet another screw up as well. On top of all that, a delay means longer time horizon for the 787-10, which may or may not happen. Boeing is going down the tubes because of this. 45 units delivered instead of the original 112 planned, that's a ton of penalty, not to mention unhappy customers that might flock to Airbus. Hell, considering how they'll be screwing over ANA, Boeing may as well be handing EADS the key to the Japan market.

The sad thing is, if Boeing put up the 777, they would've likely won Or heck, if they played fair in the first round of negotiation, they wouldn't be in this fix. As expected, the CEO of Boeing is literally screwing things over for everyone right now. This is the problem for McNerdy, since he took over, Boeing is not doing so well any more. 787 going down the tubes with delays, KC-X lost, wonder when he'll resign

Has that been confirmed that the KC-45 will in fact been built within the US? I thought part of the reason for the big ruckus as that the airframe itself would be built in Europe. Which makes the economics interesting given where the Euro is relative to the dollar. Beyond that, I had thought at one point Boeing was talking about the 777 in tanker format.

This is interesting, I remember the merits for the A330 being that it would double as a cargo aircraft as well as a flying gas station. I wonder how far this will actually go. Congress is already up in arms. The major concern ended up being that the majority of the aircraft will be built in Europe, so the job creation in the US is small in comparison if Boeing got the contract. I also wonder why Northrop bothered, their last major manned aircraft was the B-2. I don't count them for the F-35, since that's a Lockheed project. In some part I wonder if they even have that much capability left. May be this is somebody's attempt to get Northrop back into the aircraft production business. Although I don't think it's necessarily a good idea.

Boy, I'd love to see some real carrier warfare again, a la WWII Pacific.

The main question of Indian carrier comes down to logistics. They had a few of them before, but really, they were British baby carriers of the Hermes class if I recall correct. I wonder if India would have the necessary infrastructure and money needed to keep a super carrier afloat and operating all the time. I forget, can someone tell me what it costs to actually have a carrier operation on a daily basis. It won't be cheap, I know India is much richer than it was a decade ago, but I wonder how much their military could really afford keep a carrier like the Kitty Hawk or even the Ranger floating.

So, unless the Tomahawk has a greater than 80% failure rate, they can still be as cost effective as a D5 loaded with 8 MIRVs unless its a super hardened target. The penetration capability would be something, and the supplemental portion is also a good point, but at the end of the day, you're not much better off than a B-2 and it would only be a one shot deal.

Ok, here is what the B-2 is good for. It has the ability to retarget all the way up to the point the bombs are dropped. It has the range that isn't available to the tactical bombers you've mentioned. And it can hit moving targets, unlike conventional SLBMs, which pretty much locks in a target set in mind once you press the button. Delivery of nuclear weapons was the original designed function, but at the end of the day, it is still a capable platform for penetrating heavily defended areas and is still recallable, and can still be retargeted midway. Conventional SLBMs can't do that. You pointed out that B-2 is losing its technological edge, doesn't that mean that the B-1Bs and B-52s are also more vulnerable at the same time. If the other bombers can't penetrate the area, and if the target is moving, then your conventional ballistic missiles are worthless. So, what options would you have left beyond the stealth bomber. As for the silver bullets, that's only as long as the targets are stationary, and why would you do this if you could just overwhelm a target with cruise missiles anyway. That's why you have the SSGNs in the first place.

Didn't mean high speed, just the rather fast bank in. Should've made that clearer. It's pretty fun to ride on it that way the first time, when you see the runway moving away from you in parallel, then the pilot does a bank. Not high speed, but really interesting if they did do it at high speed. On the hypersonic bomber, love the idea, but with our procurement involved, we'll end up with five units, each costing $10 B. Though, the idea of SLBMs filling the same role is kind of silly. How many SLBMs would we have to procure here? Let's assume they MIRVed the darn thing, it'd still be limited to about 240 targets per sub. Then the reloads, etc, etc. What a pain.

heh heh, they still do this in Hawaii with Aloha airlines 737 from what I remember, although, the 180 probably isn't quite that tight. The poor Cathay Pac pilot, now he'll never get another job.....

The problem is that the US doesn't exactly have a replacement for the B-2 on the drawing board. Heck, given the low volumes, the attrition is a big deal. The only replacements are old B-1Bs, and even older B-52s. Too bad really, there should've been about 50 to 70 of these babies procured, so that one unit lost does not actually make a big dent. Alternatively, just build another 100 B-1Bs....

Offering means "free"? Geez, someone is being very magnanimous, what a cheap way to help Boeing. May be this is a round about way of paying for a new ATB since we're down to 20 B-2s now.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,332038,00.html Well, it's a good thing there are 20 more of these things.... and thank God the production line got shut down so no more can be built.

The first KOTOR was great, the second was rushed. If they do KOTOR 3, I hope they manage it with a continuation of the characters that were developed in the last two games. I always like an RPG with a good story, the game play in KOTOR wasn't bad either.