Nied

Shinnakazu didnt show up until after SW1, it was then that Stonewell-Bellcom (or what was left of it) split and Shinnakazu and General Galaxy were born, so Stonewell-Bellcom was running the whole Valk show until after the VF-4 was built. Actually you have that backwards. Shinikasu was born when Stonwell-Bellcom and Shinsei Heavy Industries merged. General Galaxy seems to be its own company.

Well the UN Spacy generally followes US military naming conventions meaning: The V would stand for Variable (in the current US naming system it denotes vertical takeoff such as the AV-8B Harrier or the CV-22 Osprey) The E would stand for Electronic warfare (like the E-3 Sentry or the EA-6B Prowler) The F would stand for Fighter, which really is a vestigal designation (like the EF-111 Raven) And the R would stand for Reconisance (like the RF-4 Phantom) As for the "Funny Chinese" name, it probably refers to it's apearance in batroid mode (that radome looks a little like a traditional Chinese hat).

We don't know that for sure, hell as Final Vegeta's picture illustrates, it could explain the four seemingly superfluous blade antenea on the VF-1's nose. I doubt that the VF-1 is devoid of countermeasures. However the GU-11 has higher caliber ammo and a lower cyclic rate, giving the pilot about the sime fireing time (and more hitting power). The design of the GU-9 is nearly identical to the GU-11 I don't see how one can incorperate a helical magazine and the other some kind of clip system. I'll beilieve it has one when I see it. But the VF-0 can only maintain it's maximum speed at full afterburner, meaning that it would run out of fuel after a matter of minutes at maximum speed. The VF-1 would be able to cruise along at mach 2.71 forever if it wanted. Note too that the VF-1 has a much higher thrust to weight ratio (3.5:1 vs 1.8:1)or the Sv-51 (2.3:1), giving it alot more options in a dogfight vs it's oponents.

Looking at the lineart it apears that the only way you could fit a crew in the back there is if there was no room for any kind of avionics, lfe support, fuel, or engines. Remember that a vast majority of the crew on board a modern AWACs bird perform sensor analysis, which right now is a task that's too complex for a computer to do reliably. Given the computer advances provided by overtech I could see how you could eliminate those jobs and leave one person to make the command and controll decisions (which apears to be what Misa did). Another thought: If there was crew in some back compartment why didn't we hear from them? Why weren't they anylised and interogated along with Misa Hikaru and Kakizaki?

Great work MG! That color scheme looks awesome. In the next iteration you might not want to repeat the tailcode on the inside of the fins, ditto with the UN Spacy on the inside of the nacelles.

No the decision to kill the F-14 was in fact made by Dick Cheney himself. It was also his decision to destroy the manufacturing jigs for the F-14 (ensuring that building more would be a costly afair), and he spearheaded efforts to kill the A-10 (though that was fortunetly reversed in time by the next "administration").

1) Air enters turbine 2) air is compressed over several stages of the trubine blades 3) Compressed air is uper heated as it is mixed with small amounts of Fusion reactor plasma 4) air exits at really high speeds.

I always figured that the VF-4 would have a cockpit that is nearly identical to the DYRL style VF-1 cockpit. In story terms you could say the the VF-4's cockpit came first and when they refited the Valkyries to Block 5 they modeled the cockpit after it.

Bill Sweetman wrote an article on this (who else would?) The X-31 program uses standard vecotring techniques, the X-44 is supposed to as well, at least at first. Go down to the fith paragraph under the heading of Supersonic cruise bypass Flights of fancy take shape

Again I don't know what to tell you. Lockheed seems to think it's possible. And why doesn't the X-31 count? How is the TVC reacting to random destabilizations caused by the rudder any different than it reacting to random destabilizations caused by no rudder at all (or the Vertical Stabilizor it's attached to). Everything I've read says that the engineers were confident they could go ahead with loping the tail off the X-31, they just didn't have the budget to do it.

They do? I didn't remember them doing that.

I always figured that since the Hasegawas pretty obviously model Block 5 Valyries, that the double folding fins are just another feature of late block Valks (like the new cockpits, hands , and FAST packs).

I don't know what to tell you, these things have been proposed and in the case fo the X-31 it's been tested (though they had to program the rudder to simulate the lack of a rudder). X-44 MANTA FB-22 X-31 (14th paragraph) F-16X

You and Lockheed are on the same page: F-16X - The Tailless Fighter

Not necesarily David. There have laready been several proposals for tailess aircraft, the afore mentioned X-31 modification (though the final stage where the tail was physically removed was axed for budgetary reasons), two F-22 variants (the X-44 MANTA, and the FB-22), Boeing has already flown the tailess X-45 UCAV, as has Northup-Grumman with thier Pegasus, and finnally Lockheed just proposed a modified F-16XL as a tailess research craft. Three of these aircraft are attempts at creating operational combat aircraft, not just X-plane flights of fancy. The MANTA is probably the most interesting though, since it proposes to control the aircraft entirely by TVC.

That shot is from "Pineapple Salad" during Max and Millia's battle.

Here's a thought: What if the leg bay is normally taken up with a fuel tank, but for special missions it can be swapped out and the resulting cavity can hold weapons. Of course doing that would require you to put some kind of external tank on, but we see precisely that in M7 (the leg FAST packs apear to be nothing more than fuel tanks).

Just for comparison a standard mission load for an F-15E is 12 bombs mounted on the CFTs, a pair of AMRAAMs on the Sidewinder rails, a pair of Sidewinders on the other two, and a pair of drop tanks below that (plus maybe a centerline tank). A similar loadout for an F-16E would have two more bombs, two more AMRAAMs and the same number of drop tanks.

ACtualy the F-16XL had a hell of a lot of load carrying capability. It had 16 hardpoints for bombs mounted almost semi recessed 2 more wing hardpoints, the standard wingtip missile rails, four semi-recessed hardpoints for Sparrows or AMRAAMs, the standard centerline hardpoint (which was wired for weapons), and two hardpoints under the intakes for LANTIRN pods. The only caveat is that if wing tanks were carried only 14 of those 16 hardpoints could be used. Note too that with so many hardpoints semi recessed or held extremely close to the body, the F-16XL could carry quite a warload with very little drag. edited to correct for my bad memory of the number of hardpoints the XL has

The XL had almost half again the range of a normal F-16, was capable of supercruise (very limited but still capable), and carried its weapons in a unique way that made for very low drag and lower RCS. You are correct in thinking that the F-16 wouldn't be a stealth aircraft which is precisely why the Air force killed it. It would have been close to the ATF requirement but it wouldn't be the ATF (stealthy but not stealth, supercruise but just barely, and an ancient airframe streched to it's limits). In essence it would be more like the Typhoon or the Rafale than the F-22.

The F-16XL actaully had limited super cruise capability, it also carried it's weapons very close to the fuselage without pylons, which combined with the F-16's already somewhat stealhty features made it tough to detect. The Air Force saw all this as a threat to the ATF program. They figured (probably rightly) that an F-16XL, with upgraded avionics and twin engines, would be cheap enough, and close enough to the ATF requirement that congress would cancel the ATF, and give them warmed over F-16s instead. There is some truth to this as the General Dynamics ATF proposal does share quite a few features with the F-16XL.

The seat doesn't just stay in the nose it actually elevates up into the chest. Ditto with the YF/VF-19 the seat rotates and moves up into the chest of the mecha where there is more room. lol "room in a plane" have you ever seen a plane in which ther eis enough room for a cockpit the size of my living room? we must admit here that it's a real mistake from the VF1 designers. Maybe they use some kind of technology to reduce the size of human beeing. Some kind of size transformation, the same sing used by zentraedi to become giants. You know what i mean It requires nothing of the sort. There isn't that much room in a batroid cockpit in the first place. I think the roomiest (the TV VF-1 cockpit) has at most hafl a foot of space between the pilot and the furthest object. Most later designs are quite small (though still slightly bigger than their fighter mode counterparts.

Well I've heard rumors that the F-16 has a pretty low RCS as it is (aparently that's why F-16s were one of the first fighters to get the gold tinted canopies, as a measure to further reduce RCS). I could see LM making a serious effort to put a better performing stealthier wing on the aircraft and try to capitalise on it even more.

Did they ever get that one up and running or did it just get completly blasted? Well it was attacked and purportedly destroyed by anti-UN forces in 2006, there's no word on weather any efforts were made to re-build. I'm sure that the (assumedly) large military facilites surrounding such a project would look like quite an atractive target from orbit. If the Grand Cannon II were in the area shown in the display I'd doubt there'd be much to re-construct.

Well I think that the RCS redustions are just that: reductions . I don't think that they are actually intended to turn an F-16 into a stealth aircraft, but they would reduce the range at which they could be dected, which is an advantage (the same could be said for the measures taken to reduce the RCS of the SUper Hornet). Just because an aircraft isn't stealthy doesn't mean you can't make it less detectable. Oh yeah and the Block 60 was first proposed for the United Arab Emerites (though many features from the final version have been incorperated into Hellenic (Greek) Air Force Block 52 Falcons).