Nied

Because both the US and the Soviets (later Russians) outgrew making carbon copies of advanced German designs and went on to build completely original aircraft. The Chinese on the other hand have one maybe two designs that aren't copies or kitbashes of someone else's aircraft. Their airforce is almost nothing but copies, the J-7 is a Mig-21 with minor tweaks, the J-8-II is a enlarged Mig-21 with the nose of a Mig-23 scabbed on, and the Q-5 is a modified Mig-19. Those planes are in the process of being replaced by the J-11 (licensed built Su-27), the J-10 (carbon copy Lavi as has been discussed here), and the JH-7 (about the only original design to come out of China). Compare that to say India which was able to develop a completely original design for a indigenous fighter (Tejas LCA), hell even Iran is is making stuff more original than them. For it's age, the Chinese aerospace industry has shockingly underperformed.

The avionics fit of the J-10 is based on that of the Lavi as well, and if you look closely it even has panel lines in the same place as the Lavi (take a look at this photo of the lavi and compare it to the panels on the J-10 below). Hell I didn't realize it until I made the image but the odd hump on the J-10's back exactly mimics the contours of the Lavi's canopy fairing (since the J-10 is much larger it's canopy is smaller in relation to it's fuselage and thus fairs into the rest of the body further ahead of the "hump"). The Chinese have taken fighters and made "giant" copies before: the J-8 is just an enlarged Mig-21/J-7 with twin engines.

I think you're mistaking the word "copy" for "exact copy." I never claimed that parts between the Lavi and the J-10 are interchangeable, just that the Chinese took the Lavi design and copied it with some modifications to fit their industrial base. The resulting aircraft isn't identical, but it's very clearly copied from it, as Knight26 said it's a bootleg Lavi. By your logic the J-7 isn't a copy of a Mig-21 because very few of their parts are interchangeable, even though it's a known fact that the Chinese reverse engineered the Mig-21 to build it.

To quote the movie Zoolander: I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here! Aside from some changes to the wing (explained by the immature Chinese composite industry) and the squared off intake it's just an enlarged Lavi. The canards, the twin ventral fins, the tailfin, hell even the landing gear deploys the same. Chengdu even went so far as to copy the speedbrakes on the Lavi. The main changes the Chinese made were to use all metal construction (vs the heavy use of composites in the Lavi) which required a bigger engine (AL-31F vs the PW1120 which is roughly the same size as the F/A-18's F404) which required a larger airplane. Changing the size obviously changed some minor parts of the design but it's clear the Chinese engineers took great pains to maintain as much of the Lavi design as they could.

What jury? The planforms of both aircraft are nearly identical, the only real difference between the two are their size and the lack of composites on the J-10. Even it's radar is based off the EL/M-2032 that was developed for the Lavi.

I had this weeks episode on my DVR and watched it last night. It's quite good but every so often they use pretty slapdash looking meshes for the airplanes. The F-15s and Mirage IIIs in the last episode looked really off (the canopies were way too big) and I've noticed that the sidewinder model they use in most episodes is atrocious. I was hoping that this would improve as time went on but it actually looks like it's getting worse (the F-15s in the last episode were losing and gaining ordinance in every shot). Also I'm getting tired of seeing naval engagements, the show is called "Dogfights" not "Naval Battles that Vaguely Involved Aircraft."

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Mig was experimenting with a drop down section on the LERXs to help improve lift on the Mig-29KUB. Perhaps we're reading a poorly translated description of that?

It is! I mean look at it!

The APG-73 currently fitted to both Super and Baby Hornets is widely considered one of the best airborne radars flying today, and the APG-79 currently being retrofitted to Super Hornets is basically the F-22's APG-77 with a smaller Transmit receive array. Neither is crappy. As David said it's more of an issue of compatibility. The APG-79 with it's amazing frequency agility is probably technically capable of being compatible with the Phoenix, but by the time the Navy had gone through the trouble of clearing it on the Rhino, and witting up the fire control software the AIM-120D will be in service and it'll be redundant. AFAIK the AIM-120D is going to be similar to the Meteor but with a more advanced ramjet motor which should give it a little more range, one pretty close to the Phoenix's, but without the dud rate.

No offense T.V. you're new and probably didn't know, but that's the fourth or fifth time that story has been posted in one of the incarnations of the Aircraft vs Super Thread. We know. It's a testament to how much lift the Eagle gets from its fuselage that it was able land safely.

You actually see that kind of thing all the time. just because a technology is invented doesn't mean its mature enough to be put into production in the thousands of numbers the VF-1 was built in. Real world example the YF-22 prototype used advanced touch screen displays, but the F-22A uses more conventional buttons because the technology didn't work very well. The F-35 on the other hand is slated to get the more mature and workable version of the same technology. Wee actually see that in the anime. The VF-0 is constantly being worked on, overhauled, and upgraded with jury rigged solutions. The Asuka is supposed to have several squadrons of them but they only seem to be able to get a handful airborne at any given time. Sure it might have a few bits of advanced design and technology but what good is that if they land them in the hangar all the time?

This has been a pet peve of mine for a while. 1.) The VF-0 doesn't have a 360 degree wrap around cockpit. we see a sort of stylized shot in the first episode that gave everyone the misconception that it did, but later shots (and indeed a close look at that shot) show that it uses plain old flip down screens like the VF-1. 2.) There's no evidence that the VF-1 and later model valks lack the eye tracking system in their helmets they just aren't explicitly shown. We do see them shoot down incoming missiles in the exact same manner as Roy's VF-0 so there's no reason to conclude they don't have the same or similar system installed. As for size I think Mr March hit it on the head. The VF-0 was a technology demonstrator, it was supposed to prove that you could build a plane and make it transform into a working mech. They only had working conventional engines at the time so they built it to a size that could fly using conventional engines. The VF-1 was built to match what was thought to be the size of a standard Zentradi (the UN had no way of knowing that Zentradi came in two sizes) which could only be accomplished using more advanced propulsion technology. If I had to guess I'd say that later Valks like the VF-17, VF-19 and VF-22 were designed bigger to overpower Quedelun-Rau and Nousjedul-Ger battlesuits.

Are the GDs necessary? Since most kinetic kill weaponry would be ferrous anyway (especially if fired from a rail gun) wouldn't a magnetic field as powerful as the one you're talking about trap or alter the course of a KE projectile? At the very least you'd expect it slow down a ferrous KE weapon limiting the amount of damage dealt. The only problem with this is that the KE from projectile weapons would be transfered to the shield generator so it would have to have a heavily re-enforced mount, this might be easier than armoring a whole ship though.

Because they have a disputed license to (in the US) a third tier 80's cartoon show that has at best a small cult following? That's not exactly something to entice most US toy makers (especially for Macross/Macross saga merchandise which can't be sold in Japan). On the other hand international licensing for a show that has it's own small cult following in Japan in addition to the one it has here in the states, to a small boutique toy manufacturer with it's own cult following (both in Japan and in the states) makes a lot of sense. Honestly I'm surprised HG hasn't tried it before.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Macross licensing mess were resolved in HG's favor (a big if admittedly) that we would see Yamato 1/48s and 1/60s being repackaged for US sale (either as Robotech or Macross). Yamato is a company that has proven they can make quality products. HG might not be able to sell their Macross products (although you can bet they wished they could) but why wouldn't they take the opportunity to have Yamato make high-quality toys for one of their undisputed properties?

I'm planning on doing some minor customization work on my Millia 1J sometime in the near future and I'd love to get this info as well.

Like I said at the beginning of the thread they're more likely to be thrust diffusers than heat diffusers. Even with the two halves of the feet splayed out, without the diffusers thrust is going to come out in a pretty much cylindrical column half a meter wide. Add 23000 Kg of superheated supersonic thrust and you could easily punch a hole right through quite a few things (like a runway or a nice expensive carrier deck). It's called ground erosion and it's one of the biggest concerns when designing VTOL aircraft.

You know since Skull Squadron stole the Wolfpack's squadron number and horizontal nose stripe, I always thought it would be funny to see a Valkyrie in modified Wolfpack markings, with the squadron number SVF-84 (or 103) and a diagonal nose stripe.

In batroid mode his main engine thrust would be augmented with backpack thrusters, "armpit" thrusters and an ungodly amount of verniers (21 going by a quick count on my Yamato) all of which would provide instantaneous thrust while the main turbines catch up. Actually since the intake shutters are closed in Batroid it could be that the engines revert to "rocket" mode and are just dumping RM in instead of using air like they would in space.

And as I originally stated the only place I've seen instantaneous thrust is in space. In atmosphere it acts like a normal jet engine. The best example off the top of my head would be Hikaru's infamous first kill, you can hear and see the engine spool up over the course of about a second before frying that poor man. If you've got some specific counter examples I'm all ears but until then I stand by my claim.

I'm aware of the lag time between throttle commands and the engine spooling up, I just don't see anything that a Valkyrie can do that can't be explained by a good FADEC verniers and FBW. As JB0 pointed out the amount of heat generated by a fusion reactor is going to stay pretty much constant, the only diffence is how much air you transfer it to. If anything you'd risk overheating at lower throttle settings, not higher.

For the most efficiency liquid or even powdered solids would be best as areacton mass. I alwasy assumed that reaction mass would just be sprayed right into the core of the engine in space.

I'm not sure what you mean by instantaneous reaction, Valkyrie engines behave the same as traditional jet engines in an atmosphere. They do seem to have the ability to switch on and off in space pretty quickly, but the compressor wouldn't have anything to do with it there since there's no air to move. Third stage reactor mixer? Again you wouldn't have to worry about melting the engines because you're also moving more air through them as well which helps them maintain their temperature. Air isn't only acting as a reaction mass it's also cooling the fusion reactor, in later designs like the FF-2500Es in the YF-19 or the FF-2450Bs in the YF-21 the FADEC has to limit their power in atmosphere because they simply aren't capable of sucking in enough air to cool the engines. I won't deny that using an overboost setting might screw with the TBO of the engines, but that's why there are rules to limit it's use today and almost assuredly in Macross.

Indeed that is exactly what I've been saying. Air is moved through the core of the engine where it is superheated by the heat exchanger. The compendium mentions MHD is involved somehow as well, my guess is there's an MHD section after the heat exchanger to accelerate the superheated exhaust further. Or you can heat a large volume of Air/reaction mass to a very high level simply by throttling the engine higher. Though the fusion reactor might be producing more heat, that heat is also being transferred to the Air/RM at a higher rate as well. Nonsense! You've got the equivalent of a miniature star to produce heat, a chemical reaction is almost wasteful in that kind of environment. Just push the throttles further and dump more air into the heat exchanger so that it can be superheated. "Afterheating" as you call it is redundant, you'd get the same effect by heating the core exhaust to a higher temperature and having that mix with bypass air, and that's in the atmosphere. In space there'd be no bypass air in the first place. There's just no need to do anything close to an afterburner in a thermonuclear turbine, and there's quite a few good reasons not to do it.

Actually running more reaction mass through the engine would cool it not heat it. Remember while similar a thurmonuclear turbine (at leat as it's explained in Macross) is not a jet engine. Heat from the fusion reacion is transfered to the reaction mass instead of igniting a fuel air mixture, the more heat transfered to the mass shooting out the back, the less there is in the reactor, it's basic thermodynamics. If anything the danger would be in cooling the reactor down to a point where it can no longer sustain a fusion reaction. Dumping anything into the exhaust afterburner style would be extrememly ineffeicaent. The exhaust from the core is rapidly expanding and thus cooling (again thermodynamics) so dumping reaction mass into the exhaust stream would if anything it help cool it further thus reducing its energy. Bypas air is reletively diffuse (and judging from the cut aways of the engine there isn't very much of it) compared to the higly compressed air moving through the core so dumping plasma into it wouldn't give you more than a miniscule kick. Actually overboost is distinct from afterburner and exists in modern jet engines (I've only heard of it in military fighters though). Overboost just consits of running an engine past 100% for short periods of time with a consequently lower TBO. IIRC the Su-33 has 133% overboost setting that is only to be used in conjuncton with afterburners during carrier takeoffs. There's only one fusion toroid visible in the cutaways of the engine, and it's impossible to get a slef sustaining fusion reaction to start in the aft end of the engine is close to impossible. And if it were I'd hate to be anywhere within 100 miles of the rear end of a Valkyrie when it lit off as it would be spweing gamma readiation. The 'combustion' sound of a modern jet engine is merely the result of the high speed superheated air from the engine interacting with the slower cooler air outside. It really wouldn't matter if the heat is provided by a fusion reactor and the high speed from a magneto hydrodynamic element youd still hear pretty much the same roar.