Knight26

Very nice I can't wait to see it fly again

Man I love that.

what do you mean Shin, what about fighters? DO I know anything now that I didn't before? For fighters not so much, I am working on the C-17 right now and I am getting to know it pretty well and come to really like it too, I didn't before but now it has seriosuly grown on me. As for UAVs. I think in terms of battlefield recon and even to a small extent FAC UAVs are a good thing since they can stay on station longer then a manned plane and give more unbiased data. However armed UAVs like the newer predators I have mixed feelings about, some of the things they do are good, but it sets a dangerous precedence in my mind. Personnaly I feel that no UAV or UCAV should ever be allowed to go into combat completely autonomously. Besides a truly autonomous combat bird will never happen, human control must be maintained. The AI necessary to make a plane able to take on a human pilot won't be available for years and even if it is making AI that is programed to kill humans is a bad idea. I know it sounds like sci-fi doom saying but once a machine can think and is allowed to kill the lines get blurred and they can turn on humanity. The best idea for UCAVs in my opinion is how they were used in the original Macross, the ghosts were used as support craft that could stay out and do long duration patrols, but they still had a human watchng over and commanding them. The ghosts were basically used to suppliment the human piloted aircraft and give them extra firepower that they would not otherwise be able to carry. Imagine going into combat with three or four small unmanned fighters alongside that basically attack your target on command. Thing is once you do that so does the enemy sot he UCAVs end up fighting each other letting the humans battle it out, making the UCAVs unnessecary. Also you would need close control ECM on the battlefield would make a long range remote piloting too difficult. Well I have rambled on enough.

Not sitting out where I can see them, they are in hangers somewhere, at least the F-15SMTD, I'm not sure about the YF-23, if it is even on site as rumored.

Man sometimes I get too distracted at this base. Let me explain today on my bike ride I rode past the mini-boneyard and was so enthralled by what I saw, an A-9 fuselage, scale B-1, and B-2 aerodynamic drop models, multiple X-15 nose and cockpits, F-15 CFTs, and various other bits of aviation history that I wrecked my bike, ugh. Now I have to go get it fixed, and possibly replace a wheel, but man seeing that A-9 was just, wow, especially since I can see the NA/AW A-10B everyday when I go outside my building, it's sitting out on the flightline just past the CV-22s. Oh and today I saw both 22 flying together, the F-22 and CV-22, don't worry once I get a new camera I will snap plenty of pictures, of the unclass stuff at least. Oh and check out the new avatar, it's a Hank Caruso Aerocature of a Flight Test Engineer, I like it. You know I am thinking, if DH is a New Edwards Test Pilot in rank, shouldn't I be a "New Edwards FTE?" LOL Oh and get this an old buddy of mine from college is at TPS right now to be a test pilot and will stay on afterwards with the 419th as a test pilot there on his old mount the B-1.

it wasn't an ICBM carrier, that 747 was going to be a cruise missile platform, i have pictures somewhere.

ah I am back and loving Edwards, once I get my new digicam I will take pictures around the base of the various aircraft on display. I would have some now but my truck got broken into and my camera was one of the items that was stolen. I will go out and buy a new one around X-mas, but it was cool today on my lunch break I rode my bike up the NASA gate, and it has three gate guards. One of the lifting body test birds, the X-29, the F-8SCW, and F-8FBW it was quite cool.

So when does this come out?

WHy don't you experiment with dying the left over resin bits like the sprues the parts are attached to? That would give you a good idea of what the tolerances of the material are and what the dying results would be.

Can you use a HOTAS stick and throttle to play the space missions?

I know on joecustoms RIT Dying customs has become a big thing, you might try this: http://www.joecustoms.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=25680 and see how it works with other toys. It would be an interesting experiment but I would try it first with a small part you don't see much and don't mind getting messed up.

One Word: ZORK there is a movie that needs to be made, all text, lol.

Nice I will have to pick it up for making generic textures or for helping make new textures, thanks.

I'll stick to the real world, Lucas gets no more money out of me unless a new X-Wing type game comes out.

Best macross moment was when my buddy Kevin and I were watching the M+ movie and his roommate chip walks in. He comments about us watching a "Cartoon" then the YF-21 takes off and makes the sonic boom cone right after take off, shut him right up and got him to sit and wathc the whole thing. Of course there was also the time I was in bed with this girl I was dating and had DYRL in the DVD player it accidently came on and after we were done we watched the rest of the movie together.

I think in the end the biggest problem with the prequels is a lack of prior planning and writing. Lucas should have written them all at once, or more appropriately should have appointed someone to write them all at once. The biggest thing to remember when writing a prequel is that you have to assume that the audience has not read/seen what comes later, turst me it is a major pain. As I have said before if it had been properly written then someone who was new to star wars, never having seen the OT shoudl have been able to watch the whole thing in order and still have been surprised as to the revelations concerning Vader and Leia. Also I am not saying that ANakin neded to start off evil. Put a true decent into evil needed to be shown. He needed to be a bad @$$ from the start a kick butt fighter and a force to be reconed with. Instead we get a whiny teenager who get manipulated, fairly easily I might add. I liked seeing Palps as a behind the scenes manipulator, it fit the character well but it still didn't feel right at many points. Oh and of course my biggest issue, put some freaking guys in the trooper armor, the CG was way too obvious.

Stallone is a short SOB too.

If a remake is done well I say go for it, but when a remake is made within too short a span it makes no sense, like the rumoured Predator remake, it hasn't even been twenty years. That said I am looking forward to this it looks well done, much better then the mighty joe young remake, though that had Charlize Theron in some hot outfits.

Got mine yesterday as well looks great, cap'n A you are the man. Wait Captain AMerica is from Canada, I'm confused, lol. 12 days to edwards.

I watched a little of the extras and seriously what is Lucas smoking? He wanted to make Vader a more sympathetic/vulnerable/pathetic character, what a crock of horse dung. A pawn like that really doesn't do the kind of evil that Vader is implied to have done in the movies/novelizations/radio dramas. I think he made that garbage up because he wrote the prequels so badly. It would have been so much beasier/better to have made Anakin/Vader so much evil, but at the same time show a hint of the humanity that would eventually save him in the end. Think about it had he written it right Anakin could have been this total badass, you show him slaughtering jedi, but when he gets to the younglings he holds back and instead of slaughtering them himself he just orders the trooper to do it, or just stands by while they are slaughtered. Overall I will stay with my original trilogy and imagine my own prequels these just don't really work for me, I am so disillusioned, lol. Oh yeah and 12 days to Edwards.

I always thought that the first movie should have had anakin as a teenager already in Jedi training. His previous slavehood could have then just been explained and his relationship with Padme begun then, and the war could have started at the end. The second movie then would have shown his decent into darkness, and possible violent conception of the twins, relationship is no longer as loving. ANd of course end with his epix duel with Kenobi where, as descirbed in the RotJ novel he would be kicked into the lava pit and thought of as dead. The third movie would then be the jedi purge with a young badassed, mysterious vader wading in and wiping out jedi as the empire is born and the end of hte clone wars. Also the whole thing could be written in such a way that you don't know who vader is, so that people who have not seen the original trilogy can still be surprised by his revelation in Empire. THis could be done pretty simply really. In the first movie keep Qui Gon and have ANakin be his apprentice. Obi-Wan having just made knighthood then has his own Padawan, someone equally young and head strong. Qui Gon and Obi-Wans first apprentice both die, but no body is recovered from the first apprentice, he falls with Maul, whatever. Then when this new Darth Vader appears no one know who he is and hints are given that he could be either Anakin or Obi-Wans first Padawan. ANyway that is just my take on it. Really Anakin never comes of so much as evil in RotS as whiny, and selfish, no real evil, at least none you see on screen, though it is hinted that he slaughter Jedi Children and some of his slaughter of the Seperatist leaders was shown.

Hey Cap'n A, do you have any kind of tracking on the shipments, I ask becuase I have yet to recieve mine and you said that it was in the first batch to go out. I really hope that it didn't get lost, especially since I am one of the first on Anasazi's list of people to get a custom made using it. And on an unrelated note: 14 days to Edwards

I used to use launch.yahoo.com until my work banned it, I liked it, you're able to customize it fairly easily and if you want to avoid adds it doesn't cost that much at all.

Where is frank and sons I might want to check it out sometime.

DH- IR seekers in missiles are cooled just prior to launch. IT used to be that the navy had a nitrogen bottle in the launcher that cooled the seeker, and the airforce included the bottle in the missile, that is why the air force and navy bought different model sidewinders. However starting with the AIM-9M I believe they all have the nitrogen bottle in the missile now. The nitrogen bottle is openned when the pilot triggers the launch by the firing of a squib, which is how all of the missiles systems are activated.