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SchizophrenicMC

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  1. SchizophrenicMC
    I think the overarching concern isn't just in the F-35's ability to fight close-in, but its overall survivability, which is hampered by its single engine, and moreover by its poor maneuverability. Its role isn't long-range air superiority, either. The F-35 is designed to infiltrate and launch primarily air-to-ground ordinance. For that mission, high adaptability is necessary from a single-seat fighter-attacker. This isn't a bomber with tons of space for countermeasures, and a squad of escorts to draw heat away, it's a single-man infiltrator. So it has to be able to do everything. The fact is, once the bomb bays open up, the F-35's stealth is entirely defeated, giving it a clear position on anyone's radar. That's not even to mention concerns that the multi-aspect stealth design of the jet isn't up to the task of subverting modern radar systems. And it's not like the plane is invisible to visual or infrared tracking. You can't always predict the scenario, and intelligence can be incomplete. I don't know if I personally would feel comfortable with the prospects for airframe survivability in less-than-ideal operating conditions. All it takes is one misplaced digit, and some pilots won't be coming home today. I know that those are major reasons many in the Navy aren't exactly pleased with the notion of being forced into the F-35, and they're among the reasons Canada's air force has a faction that is pushing to drop the JSF program completely- they've already ordered a number of Super Hornets in the meantime, citing the lower cost and greater reliability of having twin engines as being important to their aerial mission.
  2. SchizophrenicMC
    This is an old Cadillac. There are enough people who think Cadillac = good that there are people who do actually love the late 80s hearse aesthetic. A hearse or an ambulance also have a connection to ghosts, and neither of these wagon-body caddies is quite as depressing as a minivan. These are the choice of somebody who, despite having no solid reason to anymore, still has his masculine pride, more than the good sense to buy an old Toyota minivan because look at how spacious it is, and reliable too. Besides, the original car was just a 25 year old junker in its time. All the taxis hailed from around the same period, and they were all junk too. Late 50s Cadillacs didn't become classics until the 80s destroyed them all. The Ecto-1 from the originals was the result of one man's odd taste in cars (and his tiny budget with which to buy and maintain one). I think that carries over just perfectly with the new car.
  3. SchizophrenicMC
    I only have time for gunpla these days because I decided I'd had enough with my job at the Honda dealership after a disgusting incident where the service manager lost his crap in front of the whole department and fired one of the service advisors by telling him to "get the f[expl] out of here, you're fired". I was under the impression this job I had interviewed for with IBM was lined up a bit more closely, but while I've been in contact with the manager I interviewed with, even he's having a difficult time getting a hold of the recruiting department, and I've only recently learned that IBM has 13 layers of management, plus an additional 3 at the Softlayer Technologies division, to which I'm applying. So I lost that gamble, now I'm dead broke, and that was my only real shot at getting out of retail. Which also means, not only do I not have time for gunpla moving forward, but no money either.
  4. SchizophrenicMC
    I need to get into a field of work where bonuses- or being recognized at all for hard work- are a thing. As it is, I'm hovering between retail and dealership work, which is really just more retail. The 6-day work weeks are murder, and the $8/hr pay is even worse. Somebody save me from retail. My soul is crushed further by the day.
  5. SchizophrenicMC
    Man I wish I could afford to blow $900 on gunpla in one go. That'd keep me busy for a long time.
  6. SchizophrenicMC
    While I'm not enthused about the remake, the car is exactly what the original was in the original's time. I agree with that production decision.
  7. SchizophrenicMC
    If MegaBot doesn't boot up with "Reactor: Online. Sensors: Online. Weapons: Online. All Systems Nominal" I'm going to be a very disappointed Mechwarrior.
  8. SchizophrenicMC
    The Japanese mech may be prettier, but I've always favored function over form. I'm rooting for Megabot. MURICA!
  9. SchizophrenicMC
    Seriously, someone needs to tell Bandai this is the pose Real G Gundam needs to be in.
  10. SchizophrenicMC
    That's a really cool beam rifle. I only just now noticed. I'll have to add it to my group of references for a custom model I'm trying to put together.
  11. SchizophrenicMC
  12. SchizophrenicMC
    Leave it to areaseven to have the YouTube hookup. In other news, I got my Nu decaled and clear coated. This Nu Gundam isn't just for show!
  13. SchizophrenicMC
    Well, Syd's a busy man. He's been caught up in a move for awhile, and he's like half of HLJ's marketing and PR team at this point. Also, warehouse work and a daughter. Presumably many of these same factors hold true for the other major gunpla reviewers who have fallen off the radar.
  14. SchizophrenicMC
    I like HobbyLink.TV, though they usually don't go into the depth that Rrobbert184 or Prime92 do. There's also Vegeta8259, who does less review and more tutorial. I do agree about Prime92. His reviews are decent, but would it kill him to stop using that audio filter? He could put his real voice in videos and we'd still have no idea who he is, nor any desire to find out. (I hate YouTube people who are into anonymity. There are 7 billion people, and you think people are gonna be able to pick you out of that crowd just because we know what you sound like over a potato camera?) I'd also recommend 2Old4Toys, but he's not very active either. You might be best sticking with text reviews a la Good Guy Dan and Gaijin Gunpla (Syd from HLJ). Video gunpla reviews seem to have fallen by the wayside.
  15. SchizophrenicMC
    So, the part I want to know is, why are all the dinosaurs constantly hungry? That's been something that's bugged me for a long time, dating back to the original movie. I mean, the T-Rex eats a whole goat, a lawyer, at least one galimimus, and is still hungry enough at the end of it all to try and eat 2 raptors. And the raptors. They can't weigh much more than 200lbs each, and between the three of them they eviscerated a whole cow. If I ate a third of a cow I'd be full for a week. At least they address that bit in Jurassic World, stating the I Rex is killing for sport. I dunno, it seems to me a lot of Jurassic problems could be managed better by keeping the dinosaurs fed. It's not like these are an endangered species with a breeding program to try and save them, so wildlife conditions have to be simulated. They're extinct. They can't reproduce. (Assuming they re-engineered the sex-change genes at some point, which seems likely enough) There's no need to have starve days or anything like that. Just keep the damn things fed so they don't try and eat everything they see. Sheesh. Jurassic World is less a parable about controlling nature and how that's bound to fail, and more a story about corporate ineptitude.
  16. SchizophrenicMC
    Last Shooting is my favorite RX-78-2 pose. As for your compressor troubles, you and I must not have gotten the same regulator. Mine will give me steady 8psi all day, no problem. The compressor was also really good about supplying steady pressure to the regulator. Of course now that I'm using this big Husky that's even less of a problem. In other news, I started decaling this Nu Ver.Ka. SO. MANY. WATERSLIDES.
  17. SchizophrenicMC
    Well, that makes things all the more interesting. Actually I spoke to a former Lockheed structures technician while test-driving a Jeep yesterday. (The people you find when you live in D/FW) He said every single stage of the F-35 program was a mess. Beyond the design, mismanagement of production resources were causing significant delays and unit cost increases. Drilling teams were moved to assembly, and assembly guys were put on drilling, and so none of the bolt holes were coming out straight on the first pass, so engineers would have to come in, diagnose a fix, and implement it, and up goes your unit cost. And this was happening on everything that was coming out of Lockheed-Martin Fort Worth.
  18. SchizophrenicMC
    Yeah, the movie is less Dinosaurs: The Movie and more Ineptitude: The Movie. Then again, if you've ever worked at a theme park, you know that the staff are pretty inept, so at least it's not horribly inaccurate.
  19. SchizophrenicMC
    However, it's already been proven that the modern sensors technology and avionics can be installed in 4th-generation airframes. Look at the F/A-18E/F and F-15SE for example. Not to mention those are both airframes that have long been able to mount the AIM-9 and AIM-120 missile systems.
  20. SchizophrenicMC
    Well, even if the F-35 doesn't outmaneuver the F-16 (and well, it doesn't. It's not designed to) the purpose of the ill-reputed JSF is to take out targets beyond visual range by exploiting "multi-aspect stealth" and advanced radar technologies (most of which have trickled into other aircraft in the intervening decade since the F-35 missed its production deadline). The real purpose of the F-35 is air-to-ground attack, though A-35 is a harder designation to sell I suppose. And therein lies the real disappointment: the not-a-fighter F-35 hasn't even proven itself capable of its actual design role, let alone being outperformed by its predecessor in combat for which the plane was not designed. Of course, I have to sympathize with the article's sentiment in a way. It's foolish to assume the aircraft will always be invisible long enough to target, fire, and bug out. This is a plane which simply has no contingency for being seen. Radar technology can improve, enemy patrols can spot it visually, and it's not like it's immune to traditional ECM that can be used to hide enemy forces. Not to mention, its "multi-aspect stealth" is defeated as soon as it opens its missile bays to fire. There is always some unforeseen reason why relying on stealth as we know it today can fail, which is why an aircraft designed for deep airspace penetration like F-35 needs to have contingency in case of the situation going less-than-ideal. And, frankly, the aircraft doesn't have that. Even if the article is bunk, academic study of the plane's design suggests that it's incapable of outmaneuvering anything 4th-generation. The poor wing loading has been a known issue for a long time- it's a given that the plane will have dick for nose rate. And all of this glosses over concerns that the multi-aspect stealth on the F-35 isn't as effective as was originally hoped, as well as the fact that the plane, simply, is still not production ready. A lot of countries have opted for updated versions of tried-and-true 4th gen fighters, in lieu of available F-35s, which offer all of the technical advantages the JSF was originally billed to have, minus the high stealth the JSF is supposed to offer. (Though still with reduced-radar-profile, thanks to materials and some design modifications) I'm just not convinced the F-35 has been worth it.
  21. SchizophrenicMC
    It's implied that the on-screen tour vehicles have only recently been built. It's stated that this is the first actual full tour any of the vehicles have taken. For that matter, we only see EXP04 and EXP05 in the film, though EXP06 and EXP07 are visible as being queued up next on the control room display. In the novel, there are 24 tour vehicles, though the novel version of the park is actually much farther along in construction than the movie version. With that in mind, it's possible the engine is from EXP08 or a later model which was in the process of conversion. Mind you, after the Isla Nublar Incident, park operations were abandoned immediately. Only top-level asset recovery was pursued by InGen itself, with everything else just left to rot. With all that in mind, I can see it- if the prop used matched the vehicles.
  22. SchizophrenicMC
    They were. Though, the gas Jeeps were Jeeps in the novel as well. The red stripes were also in the book, as it was noted that they discouraged triceratops from charging the vehicles. Just a note.
  23. SchizophrenicMC
    They were, which would explain why a V engine would be sitting in the motor pool (having been removed from a tour vehicle), if it matched that of the Explorer. Only, having a round air cleaner and what looked like 8 runners on a carbureted manifold means it couldn't have been an engine from one of the tour vehicles. In 1992, the only engine option for the Ford Explorer was the 4.0l OHV V6, which used a box filter and had multiport injection. (The movie tour vehicles were 1992 Ford Explorer XLT 2WDs with their gas V6s replaced by a rail-powered electric motor setup and BF Goodrich TA/KO All-Terrain tires in place of stock Michelins; the novel tour vehicles of course were 1990 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ80s with their engines replaced by a similar electric setup) Notably, the Explorer tour vehicles retained the use of dedicated vehicle batteries to run the vehicle electrical systems, presumably as a backup in case the power went out, or if a vehicle left the rails for some reason. It would keep the cabin monitoring systems running, though a program error was causing the tour vehicle headlights to run on the vehicle batteries, rather than the park electrical system. It is implied that the vehicle batteries did not charge on the power feed from the park. Though I'm starting to feel like this discussion has wandered a bit now.
  24. SchizophrenicMC
    They sounded roughly like I'd expect a Jeep 4.0 of that vintage to sound. I would believe it if I was told they recorded the actual engine noise for that scene- those Jeeps were the same ones from the original film, which had sat in storage at Universal since 1992. As far as oil, a 4.0 could probably run on 25 year old sludge, and the rest would probably hold together well enough to be usable, but the gasoline would have been practically incombustible after all that time. Not to mention the batteries would have been entirely useless. It's possible they could have pop-started the Jeep with a good enough run-up- they were manual, and YJs have self-exciting alternators- but the scene doesn't show that. I'd also imagine 25 year old tires sitting in a tropical jungle would have rotted away, or at least leaked out completely. I love that scene, don't get me wrong, but the auto technician in me says it wouldn't have worked. I also noticed, in the scene where Claire and Owen find the garage, every single auto part on display there was irrelevant to the vehicles of the Jurassic Park motor pool. From the round air cleaners on the shelf (90+ YJs use a square filter) to what appeared to be a small block V8 sitting on an engine stand (even if it wasn't out of a Jeep, the Explorer tour vehicles were V6 powered and again did not use a round air cleaner, which was seen on top of the engine) just nothing fit in. For that matter, the battery pulled from #29 was a Kawasaki battery. That Jeep should have still had its Mopar battery. It also didn't appear to be the correct group size, but it's tough to tell. I also have concerns regarding the intactness of the battery terminals. They should have been corroded to all hell. I'm overanalyzing, though. It mostly comes from how thoroughly I've researched the Jurassic Park YJs, and the fact that I'm a Jeep guy anyway.
  25. SchizophrenicMC
    I did use copper for the joints, and I'm probably going to use it to bring a bit more color into the gunmetal I intend to paint the thrusters. I still need to decal this guy up, panel line his weapons, and clear coat him, but I'm pretty pleased so far. This is actually the first time I've done this, but there's a fair amount of aluminum used in its construction. Of course, I used aluminum rod to hold the fin funnels together on its back- that's a well-known issue with the Nu Ver.Ka- but I also replaced the hydraulic pistons in the legs with bits of aluminum rod. I think it's the little details that set off a custom build over a straight build. An MG looks good out of the box, but I think it's the small things that make it look great. This is shaping up to be my favorite result at the end of a build.
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