David Hingtgen

Designed as a counterpart to Hercules gunships, this is certainly the smallest plane to ever be armed with four AIM-7's and a M197 gatling (the Cobra's gun), the AU-24 Stallion: 17 built, all went to Cambodia. Nobody believes the Sparrows went with them nor could actually be launched (kind of hard without a radar), but some joke they could be a form of improvised JATO...

How much of Computron do you have? It's usually easier/cheaper to buy a whole one than search for parts. You'll end up paying 10 bucks for one little gun...

What it actually is, is a tab from the inner liner of my car's glovebox. It seems to have no purpose other than to snap when you take the the part the glovebox attaches to off, when you replace the air conditioner's fan. (Annoyingly I found you can EASILY bend it out of the way to remove it without snapping, but you can only see that it's possible if you're upside down laying on your back on the passenger seat's floor, looking up from below the dash)

MEK will melt MOST plastics, as it's a ingredient in many model cements/glues. Many people use raw MEK for gluing models together, few things are better (nor brain-cell-killing).

Generally, yes. (go for acrylic)

Most every plane from the F-15 on has the computer automatically move the rudder(s) to counteract the yaw induced by firing the gun. If there were a problem with the system, I'd think it'd be easy to correct. Anyways---most people are thinking the ADT-X is a twin-engine plane.

What type of plastic snaps along an incredibly clean line? It's like glass-smooth on both sides. No tears/jags/peeling/bending.

If you're really concerned about the match, test a sample and let it dry. Colors can change a lot when they dry. (though this affects pale grey/white less than most)

Nope, not acetyl/Delrin, I'd recognize that in a second. (I dabble in HO scale)

99% of these turn out to be something else, but this is popping up a lot of places (as in good places, not BeyondTopSecret): Said to be the RCS model of Japan's ADT-X fighter, with a model to be flown later this year. It's the low-fat version of the F-35.

Nied--don't you mean F-16 h.stabs, not v.stabs? And I don't think it was a problem so much as an improvement. Ironically it seems easier to fix aerodynamic problems than mechanical/electical problems, historically. It's not the planes, its their systems... Anyways--ironically, the F-16 has actually had one of its ram-air avionics cooling scoop deleted recently----unnecessary.

I do believe it's thermoset---Plastruct can at least have SOME effect on most anything, but not this--it was like using water. The wire might work, but actually I found out tonight that the loss of the tab is inconsequential---it doesn't do anything other than break as far as I can tell...

Recent Lego ships that could float had a single-piece hull, as well as a special "ballast" brick or two installed low in the hull. However, early ones did have multi-piece hulls, but I don't know if they could inherently float---they had attachement points for individual motors and floatation devices below etc, it may be that the hull flooded but the add-on parts kept it from sinking. Very similar to many toy/model ships you see today, that have removable motors for display.

Not a model, but I have a plastic tab that snapped off something and it is absolutely impervious to everything I have---standard styrene cement, Plastruct's solvent, superglue. Will epoxy hold at all? Does JB Weld work in situations like that?

DS9 went in-depth enough that the third-tier characters were better fleshed out than most series' main cast. Heck, even *Morn* got an ep. Also, I'm always impressed that when they got the Defiant, it remained DS9, and not "ST: Defiant" (with pit stops at DS9). Defiant was used as necessary (mainly battle scenes), but DS9 was always the center. Final point: DS9's battles showed something that is rarely portrayed----most stuff in war is not top of the line. Yes, there were a few Defiant and Akira class, but the vast majority was Miranda and Excelsior (and they didn't last long), with a few Galaxy tossed in as command ships. (true that's mainly due to what the studio had, but it is probably very close to what the Federation fleet's true makeup is).

Graham IS evil. We knew that before, but not to what extent.

My point was this is among the few places where ONE piece makes a HUGE difference. We saw it in the Model Grafix YF-19--it makes the whole thing way better in both modes, but especially fighter mode. It's worth it. (I've argued this for years, and still feel this way) Removable nose gear=makes a YF-19 that looks AWESOME in fighter mode and better in bot mode. And again, it's not even really a removable part for transformation---it's only for gear *down* in fighter mode, not needed for fighter mode itself. Nor GERWALK. Same as the FP YF-21 FP-only gears. (bad example, but only one I can think of) Only needed for one particular set-up of fighter mode--I transformed my FP YF-21 plenty of times without dealing with the removable main gears---just did gear-up flying displays with the armor on.

Time for nitpicky comments: 1. Nosecone curves wrong in side view. Should be more shallow top to bottom, straighter. 2. Seems like all aerodynamic surfaces are small. Wings, tailfins, ventral fins, canards. 3. Don't know if it's just from the bulge underneath, but "intake to tip of nose" distance seems short. 4. Personally, as I stated years ago from the nigh-perfect one in Model Graphix based on the Hase kit, making one single small removable piece makes it 100x better--and that piece is the nosegear. Surely we can accept ONE piece that's removable if it make the entire underside of fighter mode THAT much better. C'mon, do people complain that much about the VF-1 TV-style hands? They make the arms THAT much better---otherwise you have to use tiny little fold-away DYRL hands. YF-19 should be the same. If we can have JUST the nosegear removable to clean up the entire forward fuselage, it'd be well worth it. And technically it'd still be perfect transformation---working retractable gear isn't part of the transformation. So long as it can go from plane to battroid without removing parts, it's a perfect transformation. Sure you'd need a display stand for gear-less fighter mode, but we're all going to want one anyways. The sculpt seems SEVERELY compromised for simply having a RETRACTABLE nosegear. ....already making plans to hack mine apart and make the nosegear removable, to clean up the underside of the fuselage--one little mod for vast appearance improvement.

Buried in my first reply is that they are the "booms". Specifically, tailbooms. Same concept as a crane's boom. Cranes have the hook at the end of their boom, with the other end connected to the main cab. F-15s have tailfins (all of them) at the end of their booms, which are connected to the main (center) fuselage. The booms run alongside the engines on an F-15, and most planes don't have enough structure there to really have booms. I wouldn't consider a Flanker to have tailbooms, some people might.

Despite being pro-vehicle-mode in all things TF, I liked the original design better. Technically, it's not the fins I have issues with, it's the booms. (The booms are the part that the v.stabs sit on top of, and that the h.stabs attach to the side of---the booms run along side the engines, from just behind the wings) If you rip the fins off, you have 100% boom hanging off the hips. I wonder what the Japanese reaction is? AFAIK G1 isn't the cultural icon there that it is here---it's not so much "sacrilege" to change SS there, he's not nearly as iconic/beloved. Wonder if Kawamori (or Takara) will change anything if they see an incredible backlash and preference for the old design.

I don't check the toy section for ONE day and this happens... Anyways---yup, make the wings bigger. ALWAYS helps in every YF-19 model/toy I've seen yet.

A little late, but I have ST 5 on DVD--I can explain! Best Buy put all Trek movies on sale, AND all Paramount movies on sale. And both discounts applied simultaneously. It was cheaper to buy the ST 1-6 Special Edition box set, than the three I wanted (2, 3, 6). I'll watch Shatner's commentary on 5 again, see what he says.

Is that any more credible than the Ben Affleck rumor?

I only just now downloaded the high-res versions, and noticed in the photo with the Shornets and B-2 at the bottom, you can easily make out the Diamondbacks CAG, and I think VFA-27 CAG, but what's the one on the left? It's an E model, so that eliminates a lot of squadrons, and it has black tails---checking around the Navy site makes me think its VFA-115 from the Reagan. But I can't see ANY yellow on it, and their yellow should be visible. VFA-14?

There's more pics, if you want to see the ships themselves in formation and doing manuevers: http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=35951 http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=35945 http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=35946 Fact: The Navy has the best website photos of the armed forces by far.