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Aircraft Super Thread Mk.VII


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kinda aviation question.... in the mid to late 80s there was a arcade game where you were a japanese zero and you shot down american ww2 planes. it was played from the perspective of afterburner, i.e. from the rear. i played it on Okinawa alot, but i only found it in the arcades on the military bases. i cant for the life of me remember the name.any one know what i am talking about?

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The major issues with the Zvezda kit are the spine and the size & shape of the canopy/forward hull. From what we can see so far, the Hobby Boss kit has the right proportions.

It lacks the gazillion of stencils for the upper surface, but there's already an aftermarket offer for that.

So far I only built a 1/72 Rafale from Hobby Boss, but the detail quality was easily on par if not better than Hasegawa. The decals sucked, though.

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One of the rules for getting a shuttle, was that you had to have an actual hangar to display in, so it wouldn't be exposed to the elements. Well, NYC got one anyways.

Plus---an earthquake strong enough to destroy the shuttle's hangar would be a "CA breaks off and floats away into the Pacific" one which is darn unlikely. While all it takes is a strong tropical storm (IIRC, that was the rating when it went ashore there) to damage one sitting on a carrier----it lasted what, 3 months?

There's a reason the USAF museum with many one-of-a-kind planes is in the middle of a field in Ohio. (and they too wanted a shuttle---and considering that like half the early shuttle flights were classified ones for the USAF, and the USAF's own shuttle launch facility in California still partially exists AFAIK, they sure had the rights/involvement to it, far more than NYC)

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The shuttles move to New York has already been a disaster having suffered water damage when they decided to be cute and float it up the Hudson unprotected, and now this. I don't give a damn about the museum being an aircraft carrier, most of the frames on that deck are very rare and should NEVER be exposed to the elements. The shuttle would be better off moved inside the New England Air Museum at Windsor Locks CT. Either that more preferably the USAF museum.

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No New England already has a shuttle with Discovery at NASM, the only New England facility to deserve one. New York had Zero to do with the shuttle program, so they do not deserve, nor did they earn the damn thing. Meanwhile, Houston, the home of mission control gets jack in terms of shuttles, only getting a museum display mockup and not a real shuttle, that is BS. Houston deserved a shuttle, earned a damn shuttle. Sheol, the navy even offered to deliver the Enterprise to Galveston Bay on the freaking USS Freaking Enterprise, how Gorram epic would that have been. Instead a bunch of freaking New Yorkers get it, that is BS. Even Edwards offered to take Enterprise, since well gee, it's the only place it ever flew. Any other museum out there that offered deserved it more.

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One of the rules for getting a shuttle, was that you had to have an actual hangar to display in, so it wouldn't be exposed to the elements. Well, NYC got one anyways.

There were/are plans to erect a permanent facility for the Enterprise shuttle. The Enterprise was under a temporary inflatable climate controlled pavilion when the storm hit. Generally, weather in NY is pretty mild. Storms like Sandy is extremely rare. Chalk this up to bad luck.

As for why NYC got one and Houston didn't... blame NASA and the officials in charge of making the decisions.

Edited by Vifam7
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Yes, in all fairness, New York City isn't known for its Hurricanes. It's still a sad sight to see and yes, I'm still baffled that Houston didn't get a Shuttle. A lot of the people my dad knew over there were very, very, VERY angry about that.

the USAF's own shuttle launch facility in California still partially exists AFAIK, they sure had the rights/involvement to it, far more than NYC)

It's now used as a Delta IV launch pad.

Edited by VF-15 Banshee
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  • 2 weeks later...

So that's, what, four Raptors lost with no operational kills? Seems like it is worth the cost.

Staying as unpolitical as possible. We don't know what caused it to go down, however, I think if more money were allocated to actually resolving the problem, we probably wouldn't be seeing this. I recall the F-111 was plagued with issues early in its career. Same with the F-14.

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How much real combat has this F-22 seen?

If you want to go to war don't fly the Raptor, the F-22 has no real combat time to speak of. The F-22 spends its time intercepting Russian bombers, saber-rattling in Asia & the Middle East & showing off at airshows around the world.

YF-22 Edwards AFB crash - 4-25-1992 - pilot survived/class A mishap

F-22A Nellis AFB crash - 12-20-2004 - pilot survived/lost airframe - 53rd Wing 422 Test & Evaluation Sq - quoted cost $130,000,000

F-22A Edwards AFB crash - 3-25-2009 - pilot killed /lost airframe - 411th Flight Test Sq 412th Test Wing - quoted cost $140,000,000

F-22A Elmendorf AFB - 11-16-2010 - pilot killed/lost airframe - 525th FS 3rd Wing - quoted cost $147,672,000

F-22A Tyndall AFB crash - 5-31-2012 - pilot survived/class A mishap - quoted cost $35,000,000 in damage

F-22A Tyndall AFB crash - 11-15-2012 - pilot survived/lost airframe - 43rd FS 325th FG - quoted cost $190,000,000

I wounder what the quoted unit cost will be for the next crash?

Edited by rdenham
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David, I am sure you know much of what I am going to say but just for the hell of it here goes.

If a SR ever fired a shot it would have been one hell of a trick considering it was a unarmed aircraft.

A Ballistic missile submarines reason for existing is to lurk around not allowing the enemy or possible enemy to know were they are and if hostile action are taken then and only then they turn the offender into ash.

The primary stated role of an F-22 is air superiority/air dominance and although the air to air guys have not had a lot to do for the past 10 to 15 years F-15C's are still being deployed because they work and if something breaks its usually because of fatigue. The most consistent things about the F-22 is that they kick ass on the practice range, break all the time, and have a ever increasing per unit cost every time they are in the news.

Edited by rdenham
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I'm not sure about boomer subs but the Seawolf attack sub is a good comparison. I think the F-22s cost might not be so high if we had actually opened it up for export to key allies. I think the IAF or ROKAF would do alot to get just a few of these in their inventories. The F-22 was designed for a role that has shrunk a great deal in last 20 years. I don't think that means the aircraft doesn't have a future nor does it mean that potential adversaries will always be small, dispersed and low-tech. The Raptor may have to adapt to a role it wasn't originally intended for and we've already seen in tests. There is a certain added punch when you can drop a bomb at over Mach 1.

That said, given countries like China developing their own 5th gen aircraft, I think the Raptor will still have an important role to play as an air superiority fighter in the future that contemporary aircraft like the F-15C just will not be able to fulfill.

Edited by Shadow
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Why couldn't they land it like the Talon's in the movie Stealth? Much more showy-er that way.

says someone who doesn't understand flight test. The first tests for this will be taxi and tow tests on the flight and hanger decks, it will still be a while before they fly the bird off the deck, or land it for that matter.

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