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Valkyrie Driver

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  1. Valkyrie Driver
    Well, yeah. The A-10 has 11 hardpoints and 16,000lbs capacity with which to carry anything in the US fighter weapons arsenal (save radar guided missiles). The A-10 is a dedicated CAS platform, and dedicated platforms are always superior to multi-role platforms (The F-16 was designed as a fighter, sold as a fighter, but was discovered to be good at other stuff). What I don't get is why the US is trying to replace the F-16 with a jet that costs more than the jet the F-16 was supposed to supplement. The F-16 was supposed to be a lower cost supplement to what would become the F-15. What is needed is a straight-up replacement for the aging fighter fleet, I wouldn't mind seeing a contract version of the Eurofighter Typhoon enter the US arsenal.
  2. Valkyrie Driver
    So I guess I'll throw in my two cents about the use of Metallic Hydrogen in Macross. As Seto said, it's only real benefit would be packing efficiency, so, I'd say if anything it would be the way to store VF fuel aboard ships, for refueling purposes. Anyhow I think we may have strayed way too far off topic here...l
  3. Valkyrie Driver
    I think the most likely reason for forward swept canards is because they look cool (I guess?). I mean your logic isn't bad, and as far as I know, you're not wrong. Also, in most modern fighters that use canards, they're using them as a control surface, in the absence of a tail plane. The Flanker series is a notable exception, but even then I think the canards are still control surfaces, adding to the super-maneuverability of the fighters.
  4. Valkyrie Driver
    That's a direct quote from my dad, who flew the RF-101 and the F-4C/D. Though the F-101 and F3H were both outgrowths of the XF-88 Voodoo. So neither of us is strictly wrong.
  5. Valkyrie Driver
    ^^ This. Also the F-4 was a patchwork of aerodynamic fixes to an F-101 Voodoo. By all rights it shouldn't have flown, but it did. Also true, though for some different reasons. Without computer controlled stability, the F-117 would fall out of the sky. The F-117 has no problem generating lift, it has a problem with departing stable flight.
  6. Valkyrie Driver
    If we assume that the Siegfried is a development from the Kairos (which makes sense), it's entirely possible that the 25mm Railgun was not found to have significantly less capability than the 27mm gun, and it was subbed in for other reasons (possibly cost, as Master Dex suggests). Perhaps the 27mm gun had function issues when coupled with the other modifications to the Siegfried? Regardless, the 25mm gun was effective.
  7. Valkyrie Driver
    I may have been off on the power conservation end, but, the rest of the theory still stands I suppose. It might be a siple matter of the walkure support equipment and the different engines combined, that resulted in a need to conserve space. I mean the air frame is only so big, so when you start making modifications, something's got to give. Maybe in an effort to preserve as much missile armament as possible, they needed to sacrifice some space used by the larger railguns, in order to get everything else in. Unless we have physical specs on the new engines (we can assume that they fit in the leg, but with how much modification I don't know). It's entirely possible that the new engines needed some additional bracing, that necessitated the smaller guns. I do think that there was some design consideration, or rather redesign consideration, that necessitated the swap to a smaller gun. It may not have been power consumption, though that certainly will be an unintended side effect, but it may have been required by physical constraints. Perhaps, the mechanism itself is of a different design that lent itself to the application more readily. We can't even be certain that the damage potential is tremendously different. Perhaps the 25mm gun was more suited to anti-mecha use, due to increased armor penetration (after all, the Var did seem to take an alarming number of NUNS personnel...). It's all just speculation though so...
  8. Valkyrie Driver
    In regards to the Smaller Caliber railguns, it might be a bit simpler explanation. Here's my reasoning: 1) A smaller round requires less energy to accelerate through a rail gun. 2) The Square-Cube law dictates that mass increases faster than surface area. Meaning that while the difference in size is negligible, the difference in mass is not (example, the 7.62x39mm round has superior ballistic performance to the 5.56x45mm, with similar powder charges, the 5.56mm bullet is a 62gr where the 7.62mm is around 122gr, and while the 7.62 is slower, it delivers 252 more ft-lbs of energy, just as an example). 3)With less weight in ammo, the feed mechanism doesn't need to be as substantial. Thus granting further weight savings, and decreasing the size of the overall mechanism. 4) The above 3 points all lead to a savings in weight and energy draw. Which leads me to my final point. 5) The weight and energy savings, as well as the decrease in physical size of the weapon, may have been necessary for the additional equipment required to support Walkure. The 25mm railguns are proven to still be a potent weapon, but the additional equipment may have dictated a decrease in weapon size, or a loss of capability in supporting walkure. Given that Walkure was considered invaluable, they may have felt that a decrease in firepower was warranted to allow the extensive modifications to the air frame. 6) It's also possible, that the engines necessitated the decreased size of the weapon, rather than the tactical sound unit support equipment. Any way you slice it, something in the Siegfried's design demanded a smaller gun. Now, granted we know that most variable fighters don't suffer from a lack of available power, but a plane that is dedicated to supporting a power intensive group like walkure, might need to have all the extra power it can get. That's just my thoughts on the matter, and it makes about as much sense as any theory...
  9. Valkyrie Driver
    That was pretty thorough Seto. Thanks for the breakdown, and I must say it read like an intelligence brief or something out of a Jane's book, well done (I used to read my dad's old Jane's books when I was a kid). Might be worth copying and pasting to a section on M3. I'm surprised to hear some of those things to be frank. I actually expected the VF-31A to be an improvement over the VF-25, but to hear that it's more or less the same, only with more internal armaments is a tad disappointing. Though, it is an improvement to keep the VF-25's performance while having a larger weapons payload. I had the impression that the SV-262 was a better fighter than you made it seem. Though, I might need to go back and rewatch delta to see what you're talking about. Is the ARIEL II system an outgrowth of the original YF-19's control system? I seem to remember it having a System named ARIEL.
  10. Valkyrie Driver
    So, now that a few months have passed since the end of Macross Delta, do we have any new info on thee VF-31 or SV-262, that warrants discussion?
  11. Valkyrie Driver
    I liked Rogue One. It changes some things about the way you view A New Hope, but at the same time not drastically. The story in ANH still holds up, while some of the characters seem to have ulterior motives, and Rogue One actually makes me hate the character of Tarkin (in the way that you're supposed to hate the villain). Some of the Movie did seem a bit forced, and the characters needed a bit more time to develop, but at the same time, it gave the movie a sense of urgency. When you're suddenly thrust into a situation like that, there's not really a lot of time to express personality, so it had an air of authenticity about it. I did like Cassian Andor, he was very much a nod to the Original Theatrical release Han Solo (#HanShotFirst). As for the lightsaber fights, the Original Trilogy, and TFA had some of the best, they weren't overstated like the Prequels. Though, TPM had good fight sequences in general since Ray Park (Darth Maul) was also the fight coordinator (IIRC). For those who don't know, Ray Park is a bona fide martial artist and has played a few roles that use that skill set (Darth Maul, and Snake Eyes most notably). He is mostly a fight coordinator/choreographer. Individually the Original trilogy movies are the best of all the franchise. The Prequel Trilogy was fairly weak overall (due to overuse of CGI to the exclusion of practical effects, and generally poor directing and character writing). Having done a little bit of research, one element of the original trilogy was not present in the Prequels, and that was Lucas's ex wife, who was one of the editors. George Lucas's ego brought the Prequels down from what they could have been. Still I think Rogue One is an excellent addition to the Stay wars story, one that I thin we've all been wanting for a good long while. As for the big battle at the end of the movie, well that too has some basis in reality. One of my favorite sayings is that "No OPLAN (Operations Plan) ever survives initial contact [with the enemy]". I thought that the whole thing happening the way it did, reinforced the notion that the Rebellion was in dire straits. I also felt that the Firing of the Death Star was a fitting response by the empire. Still, all in all, I liked it.
  12. Valkyrie Driver
    The F-111 was much maligned in my house as a kid. Dad hated it, because the USAF got stuck with it (and it couldn't do what it was advertised to do). He would acknowledge, though, that it was a pretty good medium bomber, and when equipped with and EW suite, it was a good platform to have around. For the record, my dad flew, and also hated, the F4. As we all know the F4 is probably one of the most celebrated American fighters of the cold war period. Dad did fly it's USAF predecessor in the Form of the RF-101 Voodoo. Compared to that and the F-106, he felt that the F-4 was a patchwork of aerodynamic fixes. So that should give you some insight into his thought process. I'm very much convinced that the loss of the F-111 did indeed leave the USAF with a gap in capability (one not adequately filled by the A-10, F-15E, or B-1B). We lack a good Medium Bomber with supersonic capability. The B-1B is too big to fill that role, and the F-15E lacks the load carriage (By 8,500lbs) that the F-111 had. The B-2 is also not an adequate successor, since the B-2 along with the B-52 both belong to global strike command, leaving Air Combat Command without a medium bomber, for conventional in theater operations (Which the B-1B and B-2 are not). The Results of the F-111 project were mostly positive, the Air Force got a capable medium bomber (after they figured out what to do with it), and the Navy got the F-14 (which was the VFX program that resulted from the F-111's failure to meet Navy requirements). Sorry for rambling...
  13. Valkyrie Driver
    Also when you consider that Hydrogen is most volatile (you can't fuse liquid hydrogen, as of our understanding of physics ATM, nor can you burn it) in it's gaseous state, you have to allow the hydrogen to heat and expand before you can react it. This means that a variable fighter carries it's fuel in a very efficient manner, and effectively carries far more fuel than conventional fighters do. Thermonuclear Reaction Turbine Engines (Which I will abbreviate as TRTE, for ease), from my understanding are very similar in layout to a conventional jet engine. The difference is how the fuel is reacted in the chamber. In a TRTE, instead of fuel being burned, it is squeezed through manipulation of gravity until the Hydrogen atoms fuse and release energy. Essentially you create a miniature star in the burner can. We know that stars generate incredible amounts of energy, and that Hydrogen is a very efficient fuel for TN reactions. This will mean that given 6-8 of these tiny stars in the reaction chambers of the engine, will generate much more power than a conventional jet engine. This also means that equivalent amounts of fuel have much different power potentials. Which will contribute to higher engine output and thus higher performance. Coupled with lighter weight materials results in the figures we see associated with macross publications.
  14. Valkyrie Driver
    According to one of my friends (who is in reality a physicist, chemist, and Nuclear Engineer), the mecha we see in macross are at the limits of what modern materials could build with any regard to durability. This is in accordance with the square cube law. Now if you use lightweight (read: high strength, low density, [a misnomer since weight is a function of mass and gravity]) materials which allow larger and larger structures to be built while keeping the volumetric and surface area ratios closer longer, then the whole universe makes a bit more sense. I'm neither a physicist, nor an engineer, so forgive me if this was cumbersome or made no sense.
  15. Valkyrie Driver
    A Yamato 2199 type redo of SDFM would be pretty great (though all the characters should stay unchanged, even if the changes in Yamato 2199 were actually good). I might be one of the few here that liked delta, even if it was a bit pedestrian compared to some of the others (SDFM and Plus being masterworks of the franchise).
  16. Valkyrie Driver
    So, with the latest episode out, it makes me wonder how the VF-31 and SV-262 compare to each other. On one hand you have ace pilots that can push the plane hard, and get fantastic results, but the SV-262 seems to be a bit better. Is it just that Windermerean pilots are better?
  17. Valkyrie Driver
    Holy crap, this episode... It was slow going at first but it escalated quickly, and I didn't even realize I was holding my breath during the last sequence. That climax though, hit me right in the feels.
  18. Valkyrie Driver
  19. Valkyrie Driver
    I was about to say the same thing. If the nose were a bit more pointed and had a probe above the cockpit, it would almost be a dead ringer. The in wing engine nacelles and the shape of the vertical stab are right, as is the general shape.
  20. Valkyrie Driver
    The movies certainly have been a bit more focused on LGBTQ issues, I'll admit. The original source material was more general in terms of civil rights. Its message of tolerance and acceptance was more broad than the movies have been. I wouldn't be surprised if Bryan Singer and Ian McKellan had used the movies as a vehicle for that message, but I'd rather prefer that it was coincidence. I'd hate for a movie (though comic books and science fiction have long been vehicles for cultural criticism) that should be able to be enjoyed by everyone, to be hijacked by a political agenda. I hate it when people do that. But then, I'm someone who tries to follow Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's words, "Judge not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." I have friends of many different skin tones, and sexual orientations. I have friends with differing ideas and opinions. And if Mutants existed, I'd probably have friends who were that too. I'd even likely have friends who were all three.
  21. Valkyrie Driver
    Not so much LGBTQ, as an allegory for civil rights. Remember the X-Men was a franchise born out of 1960's sociopolitical ideology. As for your last point, it did do something new and/or interesting in that it kept closer to the source material than any of the others (excluding first class and Days of Future Past). Days of Future Past actually reconciled the original trilogy of the franchise with the source material and First Class gave DOFP the backdrop to do so. X-2 was kinda meh, and X-3 was awful, and I don't really want to acknowledge Origins. Then First Class and the wolverine came along and revamped my interest, and then DOFP and Apocalypse now generally have me excited for more X-Men movies. I've been getting kind of burnt out on Superhero Movies, as that really seems to be all there is that's in my realm of preference these days...
  22. Valkyrie Driver
    So the Numbers actually represent a progression in capability in the 5th Gen fighters? I know that's fairly archetypical of fighter designations in general but it seems more apparent here. For comparison's sake how did the VF-19 compare to the VF-22?
  23. Valkyrie Driver
    I was greatly surprised at this movie. I went in fully prepared for it to suck, and I was blown away. I was genuinely glued to my seat.
  24. Valkyrie Driver
    That's pretty sick. Would be nice if we would procure them. I've always loved the F-15, even though she is a big bird. Back when I was first going through college, I wanted to fly the F-15E. Mostly because of the fact that it would get the most combat missions and actually get things done. This Advanced F-15 looks pretty capable. The big thing is though, that's a blatant violation of treaty. Simulated attack runs against naval vessels are an act of aggression, which could turn become an international incident. All it takes is one mistake, one Aircraft with loaded wings to do it, and then we shoot it down. Then we're at war with Russia. Putin has been pulling a lot of these shenanigans lately, blatant violations of treaty in order to expand his influence, and prove us weak.
  25. Valkyrie Driver
    Looks like Russia is spoiling for a fight. Either that oor they know they can intimidate us into doing whatever they want...
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