David Hingtgen

Graham needs a bit more time, he probably also had a few lessons from his Sith master as well. "How to hint without giving anything away" "Teasing for fun" "Samples and prototypes III"

360 games look better than Xbox games, period. It's only that the amount of improvement depends on the TV you have. Get the 360 now, get a new TV later when they're cheaper. TV prices constantly drop like a stone. 360---it MAY be 50-100 bucks cheaper in the next 18-24 months. But any new TV will be a lot cheaper in 6-12 months. Any game with hard to read text on a normal TV is just poorly designed IMHO. There's NES games where it's hard to read the text. Font is as important as size. And if it's hard to read on a normal TV, an HDTV will still be "readable, but small". If a game comes out that basically requires HD to be able to read it, it means the devlopers only ever played it on the highest-end TV money can buy, and they thought it was ok. Even a "lesser" HDTV could easily have issues with the most notorious of small-font games.

If we had at most 102 respondents, and around 1000 valks, that means those who responded have around 10 valks each! If all of MW is like that...

Big difference between *allowing* a twist to be made when on the stand, and *forcing* it whenever it's in fighter mode. I don't think anyone's reporting it behaving as it was designed, if that's what it was meant to do. It's not "normally straight but can be angled for the display stand", rather it's "always off-center and cannot be straightened". They really screwed up or have their priorities backwards if they wanted it to be *able* to be angled. I think the number of people who want the gunpod to be straight far outnumber the people who want it on a display stand in fighter mode with gunpod attached.

I would ask Anasazi--he most likely has some decal artwork files that can be scaled as needed. Probably used Hasegawa as references. Also---another thing to be aware of is how thick the outer border is--some have it as thin as the kite's edges, others have it very thick.

Well I always thought the shoulder armor fit the area between the shoulders and legs just perfectly in fighter mode, never thought there'd be another part in there for no apparent reason.

Valks (all of them) are unbelievably light, we usually just write it off as using OT and that hypercarbon is far lighter than any alloy or composite.

Never saw it either. The blue parts must be completely underneath/inside the shoulder FAST armor in fighter mode, as you can clearly see the shoulder armor is all that's visible. Though that means---how the heck does it fit in fighter mode? That area of the YF-19 is already the most space-compromised of all, and requires massive anime magic---the new Yamato has the legs too tall and too low in fighter mode, just to make it half-way decent in battroid. SHE was better, but even it I don't think could accomodate this. And now there's supposed to be room for another layer of parts, between the shoulders and legs in fighter mode with FAST packs?

...and probably has samples of them on his shelf.

I vote for vectoring in battroid and GERWALK mode, as the nozzles are spread open then and unable to vector (or at least, not as well) as in fighter mode. Thus, the slots are "supplemental" vectoring vanes.

Going along with the gunpod and gear issues: MAKE FUTURE FIXES AVAILABLE TO PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT EARLIER VERSIONS. Nobody is going to buy a whole second YF-19 when the fixed version comes out, just to get a straight gunpod. Whatever part they change---have them sell it separately! And yeesh, they could gouge the heck out of us, and we'd still pay. One little piece on the forearm to fix the gunpod? $20. Far more than it's worth, but we'll pay because it's a lot cheaper than a whole new YF-19.

A Gundam marker is 99% identical to a Sakura Micron-Pigment pen, and AFAIK most people in the US actually use those instead of actual Gundam markers/pens since they're much easier and cheaper to find. But Gundam markers/pens come in a much better selection of colors---browns, greys, etc. I only have one "true" Gundam pen, a medium-light grey. For brown and black I use the Micron-Pigment.

There's always real F-14 Wolfpack decals. Though there are none in 1/60 scale as that is not a modeling scale. Currently, the only easily-acquired ones are CAM's: http://www.brookhursthobbies.com/camdecals...amaction=decals Though I think Yamato's stickers are a bit closer to 80's than 70's markings. Only source I can think of for 80's Wolfpack decals at the moment is Hasegawa's recent 1/72 kit. Far fewer good pics of 80's Wolfpack planes, despite being longer-lived and more recent, but here's a decent one: This is a mid/late-80's CAG plane. The regular squadron planes lack the nose markings. Early 80's had red ventral fins, and markings on both sides of the tailfins.

Lots of things you could do for Wolfpack markings, depending on if you want 70's, 80's, or VF-0 style camoflage. (the toy's stickers seem to be a 70's/80's hybrid) Things to consider: Black glareshield ahead of canopy. Tan radome tip. White rudders. Red ventral fins (with white trim striping) Red fin tips BTW---The Wolfpack's callsign was "Wichita". Go here and scroll to the bottom for many pics of an excellent model: http://maxi.gotadsl.co.uk/models/Hasegawa_F14A_011.htm

Easy solution: same plane wore multiple schemes. Very few planes remain with the same squadron for their entire existence. The famous Heater-Ferris splinter camo F-14? That was actually the original Wolfpack CAG plane. It went straight from high-vis red to splinter greys. And if you accept the Hasegawa decals as canon, then a Sundowners CAG plane, which was also the Black Knight's 50th Anniversary plane, later became Shin's F-14! And heck, it went from an F-14A to an F-14A+ Kai (which is no different than the many real F-14A's converted to F-14D's) So, the 2 "remaining" VF-0S's could have worn several more schemes each, until scrapped or sent to museums. Though being such rare planes, with the VF-0 being replaced by the VF-1 before it even really went into service, probably means they were all scrapped at a young age. And if we assume F-14-style conversions, it's possible some VF-0A's were converted to VF-0S's as replacements for the ones Roy destroyed.

Wiki says Air Asia currently has 14 A320's, and 19 737's. (bigger than I thought) And they have 130 A320's on order, possibly 200. Wow, I didn't expect to be proven right only 24 hours after I made that post about "smaller airlines making hyper-optimistic orders 10x their current fleet size".

Ah, that makes far better sense.

AFAIK "letters of intent" and "firm orders" are usually confused/merged in reports. I think an "order" is technically reserving a slot/time on the production line. You could sell it to someone else without penalty--so long as the slot is used, Boeing etc won't care who's using it. I know planes are built as they're paid for. 10% down to start production to pay for the parts to build it. Pay more as the plane is built. When it's 100% done, you should have paid 100% of the cost.

FYI, current USAF F-15A-D's are quite a bit darker than 80's ones. The new scheme came around after Desert Storm, but was initially only used on F-15's in the Pacific, then Europe--didn't spread to US-based ones until the mid 90's. Only planes using Gunship Grey (and pure black F-117's) are darker than current F-15C's. And I still think they intended to make Starscream Gunship Grey like F-15E's, but somebody screwed up, or is colorblind. As for the mystery holes---they're perfect for an F-15E's LANTIRN pods. Like the conformal tanks, they are not permanently mounted, but there 99% of the time. First pic: Freshly painted F-15A in current scheme Second pic: F-15E belly showing intake-mounted pods

That's my point. There are hundreds, thousands of "announced orders" that will never, ever happen. Both Boeing and Airbus. They (and the media) always talk about orders---never deliveries. 500 "orders" with 495 planes actually built and delivered, is a lot better than 600 orders with 450 deliveries. Part of the problem lately is "little start-up airlines that experience 150% growth in their first 6 months---then expect that to continue and order appropriately". I am not at all exaggerating when I say the average new airliner order press release looks like this: "Piddly Airlines, a new low-cost carrier which has surged from 4 planes to 6 over the last year, has ordered 115 A320's to fuel their expected growth, with deliveries scheduled from 2010 to 2013". Never mind that they're gone 3 months later...

Sales and orders mean nothing, nothing counts until it's actually being built. I'm still waiting for USAirway's 400-aircraft order to be delivered. And TWA's launch order for the A330, and the CO A340 order...

Back to how a fusion turbine etc works: Is Skull-1's explanation for atmospheric ops only? And are we going for "pure rocket effect" in space, basically ignoring all blades/fans/stages?

The F-15 has a "beyond normal limits" button, but it's so piddly it's not really worth mentioning--thought pilots sure like to brag about using it. It's like 2% more N2 and a 4% higher EGT limit. Of course, F-15 normal engine trim is like 98% of rated thrust (a little less thrust gives a LOT more reliability and engine life), so it's not really "beyond", but more like "back up to full spec". Airliners (except RR-powered) have take-off thrust set at over 100%, with a 5 minute limit (10 in an emergency), usually in the 103-107% range. Skull-1 could certainly expand on that. The MD-11 is the only one I can think of that has something really notable: If you push the throttles beyond their normal stop, and break past the stop, they'll go up to 117% rated thrust through sheer increased fuel flow/temps. Good for about 20-30 secs before they'll overheat. Never heard of it being used, but it's there. As for noise: jet engines have 2 main, distinct sounds: The "whine" of the machinery, which is part fan noise but mostly turbine noise (though a "buzzsaw" noise usually means the fan is louder than the turbine--exclusive to high-bypass AFAIK), and the "roar" noise which is literally jet noise---rapidly moving air. Thunder is the ultimate expression of jet noise---super-heated air moving super-fast. As opposed to "quite hot" air moving "quite" fast. Lightning gets the air hot and moving far better than any engine. Best way to quiet an engine is to slow down the air---and colder air has less energy. But that'll decrease thrust, so you need more air. 777 engines are the best example--they are QUIET, despite being the most powerful jets of all. Sheer quantity of air, moving quite slowly by jet standards.

I'm saying that we have little to no evidence at all how "overboost" works. Perhaps it's an entirely different system somewhere in the engine nacelle, akin to JATO or something. Maybe it's super-heated liquid quartz sprayed onto the stator vanes, which reacts with some exotic OT metal to create glowing blue thrust... My point is, it shouldn't be called an afterburner because we don't have the slightest clue how it works. Since it's obviously based on a real-life afterburner, it was *probably* intended to work roughly the same. But we don't have any indication that it is in fact at all similar, AFAIK. If it's to be called an afterburner, then we need evidence that: 1. It occurs in the exhaust, after any of the engine's own stages. If it's in the turbine/reaction chamber, it's not "after", it's "core". 2. It involves heat/burning. Maybe the blue glow is electical in nature, or visible magnetic field effects. It could actually be ice-cold for all we know. The only thing we know is that it's blueish----maybe it's actually a micro-warp-engine, stolen from Starfleet.

At a certain point, EMS is actually cheaper than SAL (very heavy items)---which is why they won't ship SAL for heavy things, as EMS is faster AND cheaper then. I usually get SAL stuff in 10-14 days from HLJ. But I usually ship EMS, SAL I usually just use for small items, so I don't know how long something larger like a valk would take for SAL.