ewilen

Thanks, David. This is a bit puzzling at first: But this at least clarifies the rationale: http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/chan...ws/JSF12154.xml Not that Rumsfeld bought it.

I think Shin just had a heart attack Very nice. Very, very nice.

I don't know, but you might try the forums at afterdawn.com. It's probably a FAQ over there.

If anyone is still wondering, I think the "r" sound described here is also similar if not identical to that found in certain upper class British and American accents. The American version has all but disappeared, but you can probably find it in wealthy matrons in Marx Brothers movies; as for the British version, it's typically the accent of military officers in any number of war movies, including if I'm not mistaken Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) in Star Wars.

I am referring to the brass.

I don't have it personally, but it sounds like the recent Figure Ou issue featuring Macross might fit the bill somewhat. Not hardcover, though. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=9735&hl=

Note that "Viva Maria" refers to Maria, Max and Milia's daughter. Robotech makes it even easier to get confused because the same episode is titled "Viva Miriya" in RT (if I recall correctly). Anyway, remember that in theory the name Milia is Zentradi. Zentradi gets transliterated in Japanese using katakana, but in the official English spellings it contains both R and L. E.g. "Regult", "Queadluun Rau", "Glaug", etc.

It's ミリア E.g. http://www.toki-meki.com/shop/category/cha...ther/0965_4.asp Not to contradict Neova, and I don't know Japanese, but I've been told that the reason for using R vs. L in transliteration was essentially esthetic. For example, a restaurant in my neighborhood is called "Kirala" basically because two r's or two l's at the beginning of successive syllables sounds bad in English. This site has a note which explains that there's only one sound, regardless of the characters used, and it isn't strictly an R or an L. This is a point that is somewhat obscured by the conventions of transliteration & Romanji.

With whom he is unpopular with? Much of the uniformed military, nearly all the Democrats, and many prominent Congressional Republicans. (But he remains popular with jingoistic yahoos.) Bush have already stated he's backing Rumsfield instead of his critics.That may be with regard to keeping his job (although Bush always says he's supporting people right up to the moment that he discards them); but I was referring to the question of who would have final say on the F/A-22.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that there's a very powerful and Navy-oriented Senator from Virginia, John Warner. At least the Navy isn't confusing things the way they did in the 1850's, when they didn't even bother to officially decommission a ship before transferring its name to a successor. (They did this to hide the fact that they were building new ships--they would tell Congress they needed money to "repair" an old ship, when in fact they would just break it up and build a new one in the same Navy yard. The most famous and controversial case being the old frigate Constellation which was "overhauled" to become the new sloop Constellation.)

Some more links about the Polish F-14 parts: http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:q2Q0U...l+swidnik&hl=en http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:ECluC...l+swidnik&hl=en (These are cached versions of MS Word documents) http://www.mcgillcorp.com/news/news040909.html http://warsaw.usembassy.gov/poland/pzlswidnik.html#top To which I say, interesting, but didn't someone post a while back that retirement of ALL F-14's had been moved up by a couple years? I suspect this is of more importance to US-Polish relations than to the survival of the F-14 per se.

Can't vouch for the accuracy of Silkworm, but it does have internal terminal guidance. The Russian equivalent was used to sink an Israeli ship in the 1967 war. This article discusses its capabilities while arguing that it's not exactly the "carrier killer" that it's often made out to be in the press. http://www.network54.com/Forum/thread?foru...3&lp=1081185278 (But note that a lot of the press about the Silkworm has concerned, not a conflict with China, but its potential use against US naval units passing through the Straits of Hormuz, where it would be impossible to stay outside the range of Silkworm installations in Iran.)

I was aware of that exception Ewilen, but the navy has a tradition of reserving presidents for aircraft carriers, cities for cruisers, states for battleships,etc. The last 8 or so carriers were all named after presidents or secretaries of navy/defence, though some of the presidents were in fact army men. Wonder will they ever give names like Ticonderoga, Midway, Coral Sea, Kitty Hawk.etc ever again. Actually, the traditions are totally f'd up, due partly to developing technology which has quickly made one class of ship the "star" of the Navy and then another, and partly due to Navy politicking and/or political meddling by the civilians. For a brief time we were naming guided missile cruisers after states (e.g. California) but last I checked we were giving states' names to Ohio-class (Trident) SSBNs. Previously, SSBNs were named after famous Americans (George Washington for example). Aircraft carriers originally picked up the naming tradition of famous frigates and sloops which in turn got their names largely from battles, but they started taking over the famous American names. The worst in my opinion is the Stennis which not only is named after a Senator that most of us have never heard of, but who was alive at the time the name was chosen. That was one of the first cases, if not the first, in which a USN ship was named after a living person; the trend has continued with the Reagan, the Carter, the Bush (plus a couple others I can't recall)--you'll know the Republic has really hit a lowpoint when they don't even wait for people to retire and start naming ships after sitting Presidents, their wives and children.

Actually, the main processor in the F/A-22 is the i960MX, which is both underpowered for the full mission that the F/A-22 is ultimately supposed to perform, and no longer produced. So (a) we don't have enough processors to build more than ~155 F/A-22's with "baseline" capabilities, and (b) getting them to full capability will require additional costly development. (From the GAO report.)

The Carter is already a nuclear sub, and appropriately so, since Jimmy Carter served seven years active duty in the Navy and was one of the pioneers of the nuclear submarine program. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq60-14.htm

I've noticed that with the exception of a certain non-American poster, the vast majority of people who are unable to read, understand, and/or follow the Macrossworld rules are those who make anti-Democrat cracks. Can we please drop the partisan politics?

Shin, the F/A-22 is supposed to have strike capabilities, so your comment about that is partly redundant. Except that it's very much to the point, since the program actually overpromised on strike capabilities in order to stay alive when the air superiority threat disappeared. Did you read the GAO article I posted a link to? Here is it again (PDF format): http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-391 (No, India isn't an issue, for reasons that have been hashed and rehashed in previous threads. Similarly on the issue of individual aircraft abilities--Flanker-whatever--vs. numbers/infrastructure/training. I'd note that Chunx has also had some interesting comments about all the Flanker hype over at SimHQ.) And if we do what the AF supposedly wants according to the articles, buying fewer F-35s, then we end up unable to meet our worldwide commitments as F-16's are retired. I see once again the tired old saw about the USN wanting an upgraded Tomcat and being swatted down by bad old Dick Cheney. For the nth time--nope. The USN wanted the Super Bug; at most a faction wanted the ST-21/ASF-14, but the Navy as a whole made the decision.

In earlier threads it's been noted that McCain said the F/A-22 might have be cut due to Iraq war expenses; now the Pentagon (i.e. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) are on the verge of saying exactly that: end F/A-22 production after about 160 planes. The Air Force is apparently pushing back, and they have allies in Congress (due in large part to the way production is spread around the country), so it may not stick. http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/10529582.htm http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-b...iness-headlines http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?t...storyID=7201567 (possibly the best article) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2004Dec29.html As I've said before, I think this is the right move, as opposed to the Air Force's desire to cut F-35 production in order to save the F/A-22. But if that's the alternative, the politics are complicated--the F-35 surely has as big a political constituency as the Raptor, and it's built by the same prime contractor (and many of the same subcontractors). Add this to the increasing unpopularity of Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz due to the difficulties in Iraq, and it's hard to see who will ultimately exert leadership.

Thanks, David. From looking at his comments in SimHQ, Chunx is a strong supporter of the F/A-18E/F, and he has argued that it was the right choice vs. upgrading the Tomcat and/or Intruder. (Here's one choice thread: http://www.simhq.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cg...t=007446#000005 ) He also doesn't give much credence to the various writings by Gillcrist & Kress in Flight Journal and elsewhere.

A pointer: it would help if you could be a bit clearer with your inquiries. That said, this link might get you started: http://www.schwag.org/~rocky/btech/Retro/Lost/ Also this: http://brianscache.com/unseen/ Maybe you'd have some more luck asking in a Mechwarrior/Battletech forum (?)

While looking for reviews of the Cooper & Bishop book, I came across an additional anecdote on the F-18E/F debate... http://www.simhq.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cg...t=004225#000005 (The author, "Chunx", is an administrator of SimHQ and purportedly a Navy pilot who has flown both the "baby Hornet" and the Super Hornet.)

No, of course that isn't necessary. The details may just be too complex to summarize; all I was saying was that it would be nice to know the criteria used for "confirmed". For example, is there corroboration from the Iraqi side? By the way, for those looking for this book, it's readily available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...g=UTF8&v=glance But if you look at the reviews of an earlier book by the authors, Iran-Iraq War in the Air, it seems that some skepticism is warranted regarding their research methods and conclusions, especially considering that they often present a "revolutionary" viewpoint compared to the common wisdom.

I think the one posted earlier was from the cover of one of the Entertainment Bibles. These may be from the (legitimate) VCD set (?) Nanashi?

I don't follow. I think you may be saying that, given the size of the war, the numbers are plausible. What concerns me (and probably Retracting Head Ter Ter) is how well the numbers are corroborated and whether they may reflect inflated claims by the Iranians.

Yes, Shawn took care of it last week. http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?...opic=12500&st=0