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SchizophrenicMC

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  1. SchizophrenicMC
    Maybe I should give up my long-held view that externally linked images are better than attachments. Sure, they're not invisible to people who aren't signed in, but MWF's software also does a mediocre job of dealing with them. I dunno. What I do know is, I miss my FC too much not to get another one, but I'm too attached to my S13 to let it go, and I can't afford to buy, work on, or even store another project. Woe is me.
  2. SchizophrenicMC
    You probably should turn down a job offer from SpaceX, considering they only pay their engineers $70,000 a year to live in Palo Alto, where $70,000 gets you about as far as $30,000 in most of the country.
  3. SchizophrenicMC
    This was my RX-7 after putting it into a wall: Actually, surprisingly, there was no mechanical damage. Considering I was doing about 80 undisclosed units of speed when I lost control of the rear end, and around 40 undisclosed units when I hit the wall facing the other direction. To clarify: I aimed at the wall. It seemed like a much softer target than the oncoming Toyota Highlander. I also nearly missed a fire hydrant. I actually have a history of near-misses. Perhaps I'm so unlucky in most areas, because it's saving itself for when it counts. In any case, I wasn't hurt, nobody was behind the wall I hit, the damage was minimal, and I ended up selling the car for only marginally less than I'd bought it for. (When I say marginal, I mean marginal. Like $65 marginal) I suppose I could have fixed it, but it wasn't going to be street legal without that headlight, and the bulk of the repairs would have been needed to get the headlight working again, which I simply could not afford at the time. And I needed a daily driver. Still, I loved that car. I miss having an RX-7. I occasionally consider selling my 240SX to buy one. Cecilia is a fickle girl who takes joy only in getting my spirits up, and then dashing them. Even now, after fixing all of the problems that could have possibly caused the stumbling and hesitation it was having, after a period of sitting, the stumbling is back, as bad as ever. And the projected cost of all the stuff I want to do to it is in the $20,000 range. I don't know if it'll be worth it at that rate.
  4. SchizophrenicMC
    My FC was bulletproof. It was NA, granted, but it was reliable and fun. Until I planted it in a wall. And now I'm sad.
  5. SchizophrenicMC
    Flim-flam designs showing up constantly on the internet with poor engineering, as the independent clause of a sentence involving Elon Musk? The dude thinks big, but he's got no idea what engineering is. He's a dot-com-boom marketing guy, not an engineer, which is why he's great at stirring people up, and bad at delivering on the technological promises he loves making. The amount of energy it'd take to pump all the air out of a thousand-mile-long tube and maintain a vacuum is more than what it'd take to just push the bullet train you're thinking of through the air. Batteries aren't NEARLY there to make a $30,000 EV with the range you're looking for. We will not be going to Mars within your budget, and not inside of your rocket, which costs more than Boeing's rockets and doesn't work as well or as often. As far as I'm concerned, Elon Musk's popularity isn't due to substance, but just a cult of personality. People swoon for the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes persona. At least Howard Hughes built cool stuff that worked. The only reason Tesla Motors is popular is because the name conjures images of America's favorite mad scientist. He's kinda bad at running a profitable business, but he's probably a marketing genius. That deserves some credit. But let's not give him credit where it's not due. Not to mention, he's never stood up and said "let's build Concorde". Probably because he's Swedish and anti-Concorde. Damned Swedes.
  6. SchizophrenicMC
    Dude, modern HGs and RGs go hard. Not to mention they're so cheap. I love me some MG action, but for the price of one new MG, I can buy like 5 HGs and some paint.
  7. SchizophrenicMC
    Subsidized or not, they were flying full Concordes until the end. I doubt if there was ever a regular non-charter Concorde flight that didn't have every seat booked. The market is there. It just hasn't been capitalized upon. I still think there's something to this supersonic transport business. Even if it is just a statement of "we do it because we can." I think that sentiment has been sorely lacking of late. People always want to cut back and play sensible. They don't want to do the crazy, extravagant, groundbreaking scientific efforts anymore. We're all content with our new smartphone and bloatmobile car, sipping our chai latte or whatever. We're certainly not excited about anything significant, like the mission to the moon we're planning. Nobody is particularly enthused at Airbus' recent hypersonic transport patent. The world entirely glossed over the probe that just took close-up pictures of Pluto, which people have stopped insisting is a planet because they don't care anymore. And it seems all the people who do notice these things are the people protesting the progress we can make by pursuing these achievements. People who say we need to cut back instead of move forward. I say, damn the consequences, let's build a supersonic jetliner. Let's build New Concorde. We need grace in the skies again, and to prove that we can do something of that magnitude, just because we can. Isn't it our nature as humans to accept the challenge because it's hard? Money and sensibility be damned. People will be inspired, and they will flock from all around to fly on the wings of something like this. That's the kind of spirit we need if we want to keep from burning our environment out of usability in the next 50 years. Sorry for the rant. I work overnights, and for me it's like 3:00 AM right now.
  8. SchizophrenicMC
    The more underappreciated the FC is, the better. I need them to stay cheap so I can buy another one. If they start inflating like the FD did, I'll never be able to own a good rotary again. I miss my FC so much. Maybe more than I love my S13. But they did get a total miss on the FC. That car turned out to be, I think, even more memorable than the 944 it was made to trump.
  9. SchizophrenicMC
    I remember MotorWeek, Television's Automotive Magazine. John Davis is and always will be a classic name in cars, in my opinion. (Even if John Davis is the most generic name ever) Their official YouTube channel posts old reviews from the records every so often, in their Retro Review playlist. Lots of classics in there that nobody could have foreseen would be classics. Watching the retro reviews really takes me back.
  10. SchizophrenicMC
    Well it's funny you say that because, frankly, Concorde was profitable. There is a business case for Concorde. There are enough people who are willing to pay a high enough price to ignore cost index to get from London to New York in 3 hours instead of 6-8. Even today. There are really only 2 problems I foresee with supersonic jetliners: building in enough range to cross the Pacific ocean, and the long-standing US ban on overland supersonic flight. These problems restrict supersonic flight to really only one viable route: London to New York. San Francisco or LA to Tokyo is too far, and New York to LA is restricted to subsonic flight by law. There are large markets of people who would pay the absurd premium to fly supersonic from coast to coast in the US, but who can't because it's illegal. There are enormous amounts of people who would pay the premium to get from LA to Tokyo in 5 hours instead of the present 12, but that's not viable because the amount of fuel you'd have to carry gets you into Rocket Equation problems. If those two problems can be addressed, supersonic travel may yet open up to the world again. Because there are literally billions of dollars waiting to be spent to get from major business center to major business center in short order. Concorde proved the concept can be profitable, now the concept needs to be expanded to the scale it deserves.
  11. SchizophrenicMC
    Theoretically maybe, though in reality the only likely improvements you'd find for such an aircraft would be in the computerized controls portion. With modern computing, it would be easy to completely get rid of the fuel panel and all the engineering junk, and replace the analog fly by wire system with an active digital system that's even more capable of flying the plane efficiently, and these would see some gains to be sure. But the main efficiency drains would still exist: tons and tons of drag inherent to supersonic flight, and the general inefficiency of turbojets, especially at low speed. For all of NASA and others' research, the overarching conclusion still seems to be that high fineness is the best thing to do for supersonic flight. Concorde has that figured out, with about as much fineness as you can get away with in a passenger liner, so a new model won't be able to capitalize beyond that by too great a degree. And, of course, to maintain that low profile that doesn't generate tons and tons of drag, you need engines that don't present a large profile, so you have to go with turbojets or inefficient and noisy super-low-bypass turbofans like you see in fighter jets. And frankly, turbojets are probably the better option here, because for their size, the RR/Snecma Olympus 593 was a bunch more powerful than most afterburning turbofans available today. The same would likely be true of a modern replacement, but I really wonder about gains that could be had in efficiency. Turbine engines have always been rather efficient at high speed. It's just that you need 4 engines' worth of turbine running at all the power in the world to maintain supersonic flight for 100 passengers. Which means you're burning all the fuel ever to get 100 people transatlantic in only about half the time of more practical jetliners which can carry 4 times as many people on only marginally more fuel in still only 6 hours. Ultimately, I don't know if enough efficiency can be wrung out of a supersonic jetliner to make it totally practical next to superliners like the 747-8 and A380, but I don't think that's any reason not to continue engineering, building, and flying these kinds of planes. Why should we be caught out by feelings of "we can't" when we should really be asking "why not?"
  12. SchizophrenicMC
    I imagine the board meeting that led to this went something like this: "So, does the F-15 need to carry more missiles?" "Does Ichiro Itano crap in the woods?"
  13. SchizophrenicMC
    Yes but
  14. SchizophrenicMC
    Wow, and here I thought Porsche couldn't get more boring. Leave it to the Germans to outdo expectations.
  15. SchizophrenicMC
    AB blowouts are favorable to compressor stall, wouldn't you say? And the engine is still in service. I think they did finally effect a change to the injectors that reduced the tendency for blowout. I'd say the Navy massively screws up every aircraft program it takes on.
  16. SchizophrenicMC
    I feel like I have to follow that up with a 10-year-old fan video with like 3 pixel resolution:
  17. SchizophrenicMC
    The most painful thing about the TF30 was the Navy ultimately decided not to move forward with the PW F401, opting instead for the TF30 because it was cheaper. Even though the F401 (in its USAF guise, F100) would power the F-15 and F-16 to great effect for many, many years. I wonder how much money could have been saved by opting for the more powerful, more efficient, more reliable engines the Tomcat's younger cousins flew with. Really, the whole F-14 program was mismanaged all the way up until about a 5-minute stretch in 1991 when the F-14D was delivered and deployed. And after that 5 minutes was up, it went all FUBAR again until Dick Cheney, in all his wisdom, ordered the whole program literally scrapped. No doubt to give Haliburton more stuff to manufacture now that the competition is out of the way.
  18. SchizophrenicMC
    WatchMojo, more like "I've only seen it written" Top Tens. "Zero Zero Gundam Quan Tee", "For All Gundam", "Banagger Links", "Setsoona See-ee"? They also show Wing Gundam while talking about Wing Zero. What's up with that? The least they could do is be consistent. You can also tell immediately the list wasn't put together by people who have actually seen Gundam, otherwise some mention of Zeta would be on there, especially in place of Kyrios. All that said, I don't disagree with some of their choices. Say what you will, Turn A Gundam, Unicorn, Strike Freedom, Wing Zero, and some version of 00 all have their place on this list. God Gundam too, probably. And I'd add RX-78-2 and Zeta Gundam to that as well. That leaves 2 wild cards, which are up for debate- endless debate, I'm sure. I stopped paying attention to WatchMojo (not that I ever gave particular notice to them anyway) when they put Naruto near the top of their best-anime list.
  19. SchizophrenicMC
    Part of the problem was the maritime environment, part of the problem was the carrier landings, part of the problem was the long patrol rotations that caused it to rack up its allotted flight hours quickly, part of the problem was the exotic materials used in its construction, part of the problem was the massive weight those materials were implemented to keep down, but the biggest part of the problem was the mechanical complexity of the thing. It was an analog plane that the Navy was asking to do digital things. (Before fly by wire had even been invented) Lots of crazy hydraulics, mechanisms, and redundancies. One problem I remember the F-14 having early on was a specific titanium fluid line, would achieve harmonic oscillation under normal flight conditions and explode, causing a loss of pressure. The solution was to replace it with a stainless steel line. This was just one of many little issues. All told, combined with its penchant for drinking all the fuel ever, the cost of bringing its flight systems up to date, the lower unit cost of its replacement, its lack of versatility, and the declining need for its unmatched capacity as a long-range high-speed interceptor a decade and a half after the Cold War had ended, it was no wonder it would be retired. I just wish there hadn't been so much posturing about Iran getting spare parts leading to the destruction of all the F-14s. Say what you will about her, she was a pretty bird, and a Tomcat in flight was truly breathtaking. I don't believe Iran could have gotten F-14 parts from America, and I don't think they'd have done them much good if they had. Damn the politicians who voted to destroy this piece of aviation history. Damn them all.
  20. SchizophrenicMC
    Sorry can't help you, I'm too busy defying Mr Regular's sweeping generalization about S13 owners.
  21. SchizophrenicMC
    The flight system that gets the most attention is the entire F-14 Tomcat. It's no wonder they axed it.
  22. SchizophrenicMC
    Bit weird hearing the names chewed up like that, but at least the acting and direction seem quality.
  23. SchizophrenicMC
    Well, to be fair, Takara and Hasbro have a long-standing relationship where they sell each other's goods under their respective brands in their respective markets. It's why all the Zoids merch got Hasbro branding in the US and parts of Europe. It's not unusual that Hasbro items are being sold through Takara-Tomy, and while I haven't really paid much attention, I wouldn't be surprised if Hasbro sold some Takara-Tomy products. Of course, it's also my understanding that the Hasbro-Takara relationship is somewhat exclusive and wouldn't allow for any Bandai products to enter into the mix. (Which I also think sucks because I prefer Bandai's level of quality and detail to TT's.) Interesting how Revell brushed that one off. Somehow I find it hard to believe that they had nothing to do with it. All the same, they did work out a deal with Fine Molds, so maybe a deal could be, or was attempted with Bandai? (The latter scenario indicating failure on Bandai's part to want to make a deal?) What a debacle.
  24. SchizophrenicMC
    Yes that's the one.
  25. SchizophrenicMC
    In the 70s and into the 80s, it was another company- I can't remember which- that was making UK toys. But by the early 90s, Hasbro had bought up most of the international licenses to go along with its recent Kenner acquisition. But it's definitely true that the Western Star Wars toys, figures, and models don't hold a candle to the Japanese releases. And of course, instead of stepping up quality to compete, Hasbro is doing the American thing and shutting down its competition.
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