F-ZeroOne

You guessed it! C,mon it was the Silver Age! 399220[/snapback] You know the worst part? Matter-Eater Lad was at least in the Legion of Superheroes. There were several groups formed of members whose powers were so bad, they had to form their own "legions" because they couldn't get in the real one.

Details seem to be a little thin, but 100KM + seems a fair estimate. Incidentally, and something I've only just realised recently, is that the Meteor perhaps shows the difference in design philosophy between the UK and the US: the US historically, has always had to "go there and do that". The UK, on the other hand, has generally always had to "let them come here and then we do that"...

It looks great in Ace Combat games, especially once you unlock the "Black" scheme...! The only thing I don't like is that you don't get the most advanced AAMs, unlike the F-22. Once Meteor enters service, the RAF will be shooting down aggressors across the oceans from Biggin Hill...

Guinness.

Okay, couple of things: 1) Its unlikely to be "a" round. Modern automatic wepaons have quite high rates of fire, and even a single barrel cannon is going to have a (in theory, anyway) ROF of at least several hundred rounds a minute. 2) Same goes for 23mm - the standard Russian AA gun of the 80s was the ZSU-23-4, which had four guns mounted on the same chassis. 3) Theres numerous reports of pilots - dating back to WWII - being shot down by either small-calibre rounds or lucky hits. The great Canadian ace "Screwball" Beurling once shot down an aircraft with less than five rounds... I guess you could debate whether Falcon is being "realistic" or just "mean"...

Hmm, Vinnie, you ever hear of a UK computer games programmer called Jeff Minter by any chance? Because thats the only way I can connect llamas and Macross...

MiG-23s are supposedly quite fast, they apparently have a fair bit of thrust: Russian 30mm guns are meant to be quite powerful; 30mm is quite a big round and there are reports - although I can't confirm them - that the gun on the early MiG-29s would often jam after a few rounds were fired, but the target was toast by then...

One other "Bangor" tidbit I forgot - Bangor was home of Anime Projects, a UK based anime company. Anime Projects released AnimEigo products in the UK, and one of those AnimEigo products was... Scramble Wars! Spooky or what?

A limited edition Kikis Delivery Service cel portrait from the Studio Ghibli museum. I can't remember the exact price - possibly I have wiped it from my mind - but £250 (about $450) is probably close to the mark...

Nice! I think Kawamori should hire you - seriously!

"Scramble Wars" and "Ten Little Gal Force" are very funny, at least if you know your 80s anime. Incidentally, Bangor, the "goal" of the race in Scramble Wars is a real place - in Wales. And, for those of you that read Magister Negi-Magi, Wales is most definitely not "in England"...!

"What do you want?" "Information." "You won't get it!"

The RN and RAF also saw a little bit of action over the Falklands. Might come in handy that, if someone one day wants to make a new V/STOL fighter...

395526[/snapback] Edit: oops. Next time, check the link first before making comments.

Ah, thanks, David. Sorry, my memory was playing tricks on me regards the F-4.

David can probably answer this one in more detail, but the subjects come up before (most famously, in relation to the anime series Area-88, where an aircraft is able to survive a cunning trap by folding its wings in flight) here. IIRC, the F-8 Crusader can fly in certain flight profiles with wings folded, but not the F-4.

Werewolf episodes are tricky because they've all been done before. I thought it was neat how the emphasis wasn't on the mystery surrounding the werewolf, but on other elements. And really neat make up on Queen Victorias teeth - someone remembered that history hasn't always had a dentist lurking just off-camera! Incidentally, the Scottish accent used by David Tennant in this episode is his real, native accent, not an affected one!

He, I felt gyped myself when I picked up mine, but I think the "glasses face" is for the chase Valk pilot figure, not the Q-Rau's 392862[/snapback] Okay, thanks for confirming that. I thought it might have dropped out or something... Its funny how the gashapon/traders box market can work. I had a hell of a time trying to pick up a Char figure for a friend of mine; I eventually got him one of those voice Quattro Vageena i-dolls because that was the closest I could get. I kept a look-out, and eventually found just one. Its kinda odd yet makes sense at the same time considering how popular Char is...

Turn-A Gundam, the answer to your Gundam burn-out needs.

Hey, I picked up one of those loose Max Q-Rau pilots as well. Did yours have the "glasses" face in the bag? Mine didn't...

The Spiteful was a very late war British design; it entered service a bit too late to see action in World War II. It could be described as a very late model Spitfire with a laminar flow wing, plus other modifications which essentially made it a new aircraft (although its lineage is obvious, and I think in the film "Reach for the Sky" a couple of Spitefuls are actually seen acting as "Spitfires"...!). For the record, my favourite Spitfire is the Mark IX, which combines the elegant looks of the original with performance. As for it being the Worlds number 5 fighter...? Not on this side of the pond... Sad news about Scott Crossfield. Sorry to hear it.

My Takatoku toys "X-Bomber" Big Dai-X DX. Its just such a lovely piece of toy metal.

Someone once said of the Thunderbolt that "the only thing it could do well is dive!" (while the RAF said it was so big you could evade enemy fire by running around the cockpit...!). However, the Thunderbolt had power, which at high altitude is very important; the Luftwaffe found that at altitude the Jug could be quite agile. It also had a reputation for being very, very tough. The Zero was always dangerous in a dogfight situation; it had many disadvantages against later US aircraft but that doesn't mean a P-51 would have an automatic win (the "Hayabusa" or "Oscar", the Japanese Army fighter, was also obselete by mid-war but was so incredibly agile that a lone one could still be dangerous if well flown; four P-38s once tried to engage a single Oscar and basically went home "talking to themselves", as one pilot described it). David makes a very good point about aircraft variants - a Spitfire Mk. XIV was a very different beast to the Spitfire Mk. I. The early P-51s (A-36s, IIRC?), for example, were fast low down but sucked at altitude due to the Allison engine; it was only when the Merlin was installed that they became the truly great fighter of late war.

Okay, we've heard a lot about the fighter jocks. They make the headlines. Who makes the history, though? The bomber crews. A few that I know: Guy Gibson, VC, goes almost without saying. He completed 174 missions over Germany (although 99 were actually as a night-fighter pilot in Beaufighters) and his leadership of the specially formed 617 Squadron is practically as much a part of British folklore as King Arthur and his knights. Slightly less well known was Leonard Chesire - also VC - who must have been one of the most experienced bomber pilots in any of the combatants air forces by the end of the war; he flew 100 operations and his 101st was as the British observer at the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. He followed Guy Gibson as leader of 617 Squadron, and developed a technique of dive-bombing V-1 launching sites - in a Lancaster bomber. Finally in my brief selection, Donald Bennett, who led RAF Bomber Commmands Pathfinder Force. Before the war, he developed an expertise in long-range flying, and was one of only a handful of pilots at that time to hold a masters air navigation licence - at a time when aerial navigation often meant dropping down to read the signs at a nearby railway station! During the war, and before his assignment to the Pathfinders, Bennett was shot down during a raid on the Tirpitz and walked back to freedom through Sweden! Needless to say, he had extensive experience of bombing operations and knew navigation backwards and forwards - in short, not someone you accused of not knowing what he was talking about!

A personal favourite of mine is a chap called Adrian Warburton. Some of you may recall news stories about a missing British "ace" whose remains were only recently recovered in Germany a couple years back. Further information can be found in the books "Warburtons War" by Tony Spooner and "Fortress Malta" by James Holland. 391584[/snapback] Sounds VERY interesting! What did he fly? 391607[/snapback] The short answer is "almost everything". He started with Martin Marylands - typically of Warburton, he wrecked one on take-off - but went on to fly recon Spitfires and Lightnings (he particularly liked the Lightning, as its contra-rotating props largely eliminated the torque that caused him so much trouble on take-off. On one occasion when an engine failed, he was catapaulted from the crashing aeroplane. When a ground crew arrived to clear up the mess, they asked where the pilot was. A bystander had to point up at the sky, where Warburton had already walked away from the incident and found another Lightning to use!). I believe he also flew the Mosquito on a number of occasions.