David Hingtgen

AFAIK it wasn't anything like a dogfight--they flew at separate times. They basically put on airshow demos. F-14 had the better show. From what I've read from F-15 pilots, they have no challenge from an F-14 in a knife fight. (Of course, they're pretty biased and may embellish a bit--or a lot)

Not to mention the back one's just a screw hole, and I think both are completely inaccessible in fighter mode. You can only see the back one when it's mis-transformed with the shield too low. I still like my "new shield" theory.

YF-23 #2 is still "missing"--nobody's seen it since they took it away from the museum where it'd been for years. News/rumor was always the FB-23 bomber program, but basically--someone should have heard SOMETHING by now. Which makes me think it's more likely being used for tests at Area 51 or something... (which does not imply aliens or anything, it's just a fact that Area 51 does do a lot of secret testing, even if it's rather "benign") F-22: 2 operational squadrons at Langley currently I think. There's more in the test squadrons than operational at the moment I'd guess.

They were destroyers until the political climate made it sound better to build "larger" ships, and cruisers are bigger than destroyers. A billion dollars is a LOT for a "mere destroyer"---but to get a big cruiser for that kind of money? Deal! It's all about what you can convince congress to fund... It was originally DDG 47 Ticonderoga, DDG 48 Yorktown, 49 Vincennes, 50 Valley Forge. Then they decided to call them CG's, so they were "renumbered" or whatever. And then the Burke class picked right back up at DDG 51, right after "DDG 50" Valley Forge. If you ever wondered why the Ticos start at 47 instead of 42 (the last Virginia class is CGN 41) that's why---they were originally DDG's, and the last one was DDG 46. And of course, the majority of CG's were actually built as Destroyer Leaders (DLG, DLGN)...

Ironically, the JSF should be the F-24, if not for a few secretaries and generals having no clue for how planes are nor should be named... http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav...s.html#_MDS_F35 X-35 does NOT lead to F-35. X-15 isn't the F-15, X-20 isn't F-20, X-29 sure isn't going to be the F-29... (Of course, the X-35 shouldn't even really have been the X-35 anyways, the X-32 and -35 should have been the YF-24 and YF-25, thus the JSF should really, actually, truly be the F-25)

If you want to get into the etymology of the name: The full name is SUBMARINE destroyer. As in, they are designed to destroy submarines. That is still a defining capability of theirs, but the name is shortened to simply "destroyer" as sub-hunting is just one of their many roles now. It also goes along with their escort duties---frankly, what is the point of assigning a smaller, weaker ship to escort a heavily armed, heavily armored ship that's going off to fight similar heavily armed and armored ships? Because it can't take care of itself? No. Because ANY ship is vulnerable to submarines, but not many can fight subs. So they need dedicated anti-sub escorts---thus, submarine destroyers. It doesn't help that what the US calls a destroyer generally disagrees with the rest of the world, and that frigate has changed from "the largest ship after a battleship" to "about as small as it gets yet still considered a warship and not a patrol boat". See the 1970's for ships being changed from destroyers to frigates, frigates to destroyers, destroyers to cruisers, etc. It's pure politics what stuff is called---most of it came because of various perceived "gaps" with the Soviet navy--none of which existed, it simply looked that way depending on how you name and classify ships. It's still purely political what ships are called. Ask the British about their "through-deck cruisers". And compound that with the problem that "submarine destroyer" is named for what it destroys, but "missile destroyer" is named for what it destroys with...

Thrust/weight isn't everything. Otherwise the F-4 would have easily beaten every MiG in Vietnam. And the F-8 wouldn't have whipped the F-4 in every mock combat that took place. From what I've read about the infamous F-14 vs F-15 fight to get the Iranian order (which really wasn't, they wanted exactly what the F-14 excelled at and had researched the decision for years---watching the F-15 fly was more of a formality to not tick off the USAF), it was mainly "who was willing to push the envelope harder".

As in the "$10 at Wal-Mart" one? Then yes.

That setup would still cost less than any currently available 1080p TV, much less two.

Nobody's talking about the latest from Kutaragi----what the $600 PS3 can do with its 2 HDMI ports? You can connect *two* 1080p HDTV's side-by-side and get a super-widescreen image. Yeah. For the one guy who has two identical 1080p TV's to devote to the one or two games that might support that. Sony---pushing the limits of technology that nobody cares about.

What about wings angling down? Hmmn, you knew about this before the CAD was published, and that was June. Just how far in advance do you get stuff?

BTW--does that mean Yamato's been intentionally mis-transforming the YF-19 all this time to hide the shoulder hinge? Every one at every show and photo-shoot? Makes me wonder if they don't have a "gullet shrinking" hinge somewhere they're waiting to spring on us in fighter mode...

We've been talking about it for weeks in the main VF-0 thread: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=19101

That's been known since the first unpainted battroid pics. (moving canards). And it was also readily shown in the first post of this thread, since the individual canards were at noticeably different angles to each other in fighter mode. That's simply due to transformation, not really a feature IMHO. That'd be like listing "Z-hinged elbows"---it's there because it needs to be, not an extra gimmick. There's still 3 features to figure out. Yang/second seat is unlikely. I think the arm-mounted weapons are a good idea, but would bet they're in the FAST pack set. Also, we never see them move on screen AFAIK (we see many other parts move at some point)---they may be fixed canards which isn't that uncommon on a plane---in the YF-19 aerodynamics thread at MN, my guess for their existence would go well with them being fixed (as well as their extreme dihedral), setting up a vortex under a specific condition---very much like most airliner's dihedralled nacelle strakes. And according to the line art, they don't flip 180 for battroid mode either. (Anime magic means they don't need to when drawn--but in real-life 3D, they need to or they won't fit) Making them movable could very well be INaccurate according to on-screen info, but needed for transformation.

I plan on taking the arms apart for tweaking anyways, so I might try this. Any negatives found yet?

The neater the plane, the neater the shockwave it makes:

The Constitution-class bridge from the Mirror Universe eps in ENT was great. It was the original design, but done to current standards. Red and green and yellow displays all over, yet would look at home on a Galaxy-class. It's not the design that's dated, sheerly the materials and budget they had to work with. Makes me wonder how a "new" TOS uniform would look. Same design, just different materials, etc.

Interesting, I didn't know they had links to Trumpeter. I'm well aware of the copies of most every 1/350 and 1/400 large warship kit out there---they're everywhere nowadays. Can't blame them TOO much though---Tamiya keeps jacking up the price on theirs, even though the molds etc have been unchanged (paid off) for 20 years. No new costs, yet 20 bucks more now than 2 years ago? Little different than how Hasegawa's 1/72 F-18C costs $26 now, when it used to cost $8 WAY back in 2003. Same kit, new decals=triple the price. Constantly increasing the price of "the same old molds" won't help convince people to buy the real thing. (nor does the rationale of increasing the price to recover from lost sales) Maybe if Tamiya retooled the guns, and included say options to model the Iowa from the Missouri kit, then that'd be nice amd worth buying. Tamiya's new 1/700 Iowa is a perfect *Iowa* (I know the ship well) so they certainly have the research drawings---just make a new "USS Iowa" sprue and toss it in the Missouri kit, and sell it as the Iowa. And they could easily make a small sprue update to the New Jersey kit, to allow all 4 to be done in the modern config. A slight change to the air defense level, a few details for some radars, and a new bow gun tub. And the Tirpitz REALLY needs updating. With all the pics and info found over the years--the kit gets an "F-" in accuracy nowadays. There's massive amounts of brass out there, you need to replace almost half the superstructure to make it right. And I'm not talking small super-detailing, we're talking "not enough decks" level of errors. The sheer quality of fit of those kits is still top-notch, but they really offer little incentive to buy nowadays, compared to Trumpeter's newest ships. This kind of goes against what was said earlier---but with how much reference is out there now, a "3 view drawing" based modern warship is more accurate than 30-year-old Tamiya. (Though Trumpeter F'd up big time on their 1/700 Iowa, and I swear I'm the only one who notices---the entire forecastle has stuff over 1/2 inch off position-wise---and on a 10inch ship, that's a lot) Plus they tried to make all 4 ships--and ended up making none of them actually, despite 3 different sprues.

I just snagged Titanium Thundercracker yesterday. I was kinda disappointed to see that he comes with a booklet showing all the others--and the prototype looked so much better! Much richer blue, and black instead of grey. And longer guns. Black is an important color for Thundercracker, more than most any other TF. For every spot where Skywarp is purple, TC is black. TC=blue and black, not blue and grey. Having black accents is as important to getting TC's scheme right as it is having purple accents on Skywarp.

As said in the description--is the nosecone of a Hikaru VF-1J and a Milia VF-1J the same exact color? I know there's various "whites" that Yamato likes to use and it's hard to know what's what without owning them all. If not---is there any 1/48 valk besides a Max or another Milia that will match the white parts of a Milia valk?

Paging Anasazi, line 1...

Not much. There's *a* wrong panel line, and the missing vents in the cockpit instrument coaming. The DACO "Uncovering the F-16" book is the ultimate reference. I'll get a link later.

Could you just draw a stick figure version? All we need is comparative head heights.

Well if there's a choice of tail markings, that wouldn't work if the rest of the plane was specifically Shin's.

Trumpeter doesn't make an Enterprise. But they do have the Nimitz. I'd be impressed if Tamiya could make the case that it's such a close copy that it infringes upon their rights, while simultaneously being a completely different ship.