David Hingtgen

And so many of their kids had blue, blue-green, green-blue, etc hair. Now, Mylene w/pink is just weird, but so many of the others seemed appropriate based on parentage.

Getting ready to put my 48 Milia nose back together, but would like to add some authentic paint/color detail to the ejection seat and the area behind it. Yamato's molding doesn't seem to match Kawamori's Design Works book nor DYRL, so I'm assuming they based it off the Hase kits or the TV series (of which I don't have a good enough copy of to reference from) So anyways---are there any screen caps from the series etc that shows any details/colors of the ejection seat (mainly the sides) or the rear cockpit area? I don't really want to leave the whole cockpit and seat grey, but also don't want to just "make things up". I really should get good copies of where her VF-1J appears before I start painting it. Ironically the seat sides are pretty close to a VF-0's it seems... PS--anyone have a list of where Milia's VF-1J appears? I think 25, 26, 27, 30, 34 off the top of my head.

Just had to post this:

F-15 movable intake lips are dual-role. The primary and most obvious use is to give the air the best route through the ramps and intake, mainly at high alpha---they can move down a lot further than they can move up. I believe they don't have much of a role for compression (that's what the ramps are for) but I do think they do move down a little at high speeds for SOME compression. I really should get the F-15's Dash 1 manual... Their secondary use is pitch control at high speeds. Not too far off from the glove vane idea of the F-14---the faster you go, the less effective the h.stabs are. F-14A uses glove vanes to unload the h.stabs to restore effectiveness, but the F-15 actually uses the intake ramps as canards for pitch control---I've read that when supersonic, the ramps have 1/3 the effectiveness of the stabs. AFAIK they cannot operate differentially for roll control---at high speeds the F-15 (like most fighters) uses only differential h.stabs for roll control. Even if the intakes did try to control roll, they wouldn't be very effective. Off the top of my head, the intakes can move down 15 degrees, and up 4 degrees, from the neutral position. The Ace Combat games modeled it amazingly well. Get an in-cockpit view, swing the camera around to look at the intakes, then try varying speed and pitch. How they can get something that subtle correct but can't get the F-14's basic roll controls right I'll never know.

FYI, air intakes are kept so glossy and pristine they are waxed with turtle wax. Skinniest guy in the squadron gets the job of crawling up the intake and waxing them.

Clear nail polish has the nice property of adhering enough to most plastic to stay put, yet can usually be removed with no signs it was there if you need to. I'm putting tons of it into my new 1/48 Milia...

DS Lite US release is June 11th. $129.99 White only. Nevermind their "we all know that's total BS" official statement 4 weeks ago of "no plans to bring it to the US at this point". I still want Navy really bad. Might have to import it if Nintendo takes too long to bring the other colors over. Anything BUT white. My GBA is white and I've disliked it since I bought it (only color they had). And I dislike all the GBA/DS milky/ice colors too. Just doesn't work. Truly transparent colors (like so many PSX/DC/PS2/XB cases) would be nice, but not the "1 step away from opaque" stuff Nintendo does.

Also, even fairly old jets have an "auto-rudder" to correct for yaw when the gun fires. (Assuming the gun's not on the center-line)

Clear nail polish is the solution to a lot of Yamato problems.

I went through most of the OVA last night and found the turbine shot. I'm currently thinking the animators basically scanned (or directly copied) a F110-powered F-14 or F-16---even the convergent and possibly divergent nozzles match, as does the afterburner duct---all things which don't match the other drawings etc of the VF-0, nor the Hase and Yamato versions.

Phalanx---planes have 3 or 4 FBW systems for redundancy, not "difficulty in controlling them". Any unstable plane with FBW will basically self-destruct (most likely to due a RAPID pitch-up or increasing oscillations) if the system completely failed, and a stable plane with FBW would be VERY difficult to control if it failed. AFAIK no plane's ever lost all 4 of a quadruple-redundant system. You can find the failure modes for most FBW planes if you look---most are designed so that if 1 fails there's no affect, 2 will lose some "protections" and maybe mild loss of response/performance, 3 will cause serious problems, 4 will either make the plane fall out of the sky instantly or be so hard to control the pilot will likely crash. Also, a lot of planes have a lot more computers in their control scheme than you'd think. The F-15 for one. Despite being "totally traditional" it still has the computer interpret/command some aspects of the control stick inputs. I'd have to go look it up, but it doesn't flat-out obey a pilot's commands like a P-51 would. And of course the computer controls the intake lips when they're acting like canards.

I'm impressed they actually have a TURBINE in the feet, and not just another intake fan like 99% of most toy jets do. (As does the 1/48 VF-1) Wonder why they used gold paint though. Maybe they were going for titanium? PS---it looks remarkably like an F110's turbine and that is what Shin's F-14 had. Can't remember if we see the turbines well in the OVA and if that's accurate. PPS--still waiting for a VF-0D. The 0S is just too similar to the VF-1 for me.

Landing gear (and their bays/wells) are painted gloss white so that any leak or crack can be easily seen. Same reason air intakes are gloss white. Black would hide any cracks, and most fluid leaks. But when you have a pristine white surface, every defect shows up.

I'm waiting for repaints/remolds of both. I want Thundercracker, and a VF-0D. Plenty of time to save $$$.

Testors Acryl is rather unique. It's Propylene gycol based. Testors Acryl has sh*t adhesion to anything other than Testors Enamel IMHO, but not much affects it once dry.

Just a slight comment--the Su-37 had (note the past tense) 2D nozzles. Even the Su-30MKI is 2D technically, but it can get 3D effects from them due to their off-axis pivot line. True 3D nozzles are rare---see F-15ACTIVE and MiG-29OVT/Mig-35. A Flanker with true 3D nozzles would be yet even more impressive than the -30MKI. Also I think people are getting confused by what FBW is. It is a method used to send the pilot's commands digitally to the control surfaces. As opposed to physical braided steel cables running from the control stick to the elevators etc. While it is needed for planes which are unstable, its mere presence means NOTHING about the plane's stability. The A380 is one heck of a stable plane, but it's fully FBW just because Airbus likes FBW. Definition of stability: When saying a plane is stable or not, we're talking about pitch. And it all depends on the relative positions of the center of gravity (CG), and the center of lift (CL). CG ahead of CL= stable CG behind CL= unstable If they're the same (hard to achieve, as CG and CL shift a bit during flight a bit) it's neutral. Also, most unstable planes are BARELY unstable (CG behind CL by a matter of inches), whereas most stable planes are quite stable. Further definition of stability: Stable planes will attempt to return to level flight if left to them selves (as in, taking your hands off the controls from any given attitude). Unstable planes will attempt to further diverge from level fight if left to themselves. Neutral planes will maintain their current attitude when left to themselves.

Part of (and possibly the main) the reason for having a separate name (any name) for the SUPER Hornet is to eliminate confusion over radio calls----you REALLY don't want the landing signal officer nor arresting gear crew to be expecting the other type of Hornet---so regular Hornets go by Hornet, and Super Hornets go by Rhino, so there's no chance of being confused on the radio. (And since there's no F-4's nowadays there's no confusion there) Of course, being an F-4 fan I too think Rhino should be reserved for the F-4 only... Anyways---my guess for the Super Hornet max speed is 1.6. Draggier and heavier than a Hornet with only a moderate thrust increase. And I'd guess the F414 is even more optimized for Mach .9 cruising than the F404 is. I do put a lot of credence in the "subsonic when loaded/low" though, as even very fast fighters won't get much past 1 when low, and many normal loads bring them below 1.5 at altitude.

Black landing gear? No way. Landing gear's gloss white for a reason, even in the future. Black wheels? Possibly, and has happened before, but every time they do it, they quickly go back to gloss white. (Russia is fond of green wheels for some reason)

But it'd be better than the DOA movie...

Well, real missiles are grey, even on all-black planes.

QAAM----Very true, but they are better than standard, and with how often you run out of time (instead of dying) on the final mission, any increase in damage or hit probability is much appreciated. PS---the Soldier (or maybe Knight, I forget) F-14 scheme is 100% Razgriz--even has the valkyrie/shield on the tail.

Current discussion on ARC is "What is the Shornet's top speed". Conflicting info from pretty good sources, including .9, 1.3, and 1.6. And we're talking airshow-clean configuration. PS---I've always thought the Super Hornet would rock in a dogfight. But it's still ugly and slow compared to a Tomcat.

I have a "mastered" AC5 save (All planes, all colors, all S on all ranks--except maybe 1 mission I think) and didn't unlock the Falken yet. Ok, even if XL/XMAA can hit Pixy, it happens so rarely it's a waste of time and ammo. QAAM is far better. PS--the MiG-21 has QAAM's, but I doubt you'd want to use it for the final mission! I just got the YF-23 (QAAM), I'll see how it does. I always feel invincible in the YF-23...

Based on what I've read, like most "unexpected" gun kill pics, the F-22 probably started out at a severe disadvantage for the sole purpose of seeing how a Super Hornet does at knife-range against a super-agile fighter. In other words, in a "real" scenario, the F-22 would have had a 99.9% chance of shooting the Super Hornet down before the Super Hornet even knew the F-22 was there. That is the F-22's main way to fight---basically a long-range assassin. I think in like 1 of 100 encounters could an F-15 even get close enough to actually dogfight with an F-22, the other 99 times it was shot down before it even knew the F-22 was there. Thus, the Super Hornet was probably intentionally allowed to find the F-22 first, at close range, and then see if it could manuever with it to get a gun kill. Or something along those lines. I can't imagine it was a fair "start 50 miles apart, and see who kills who first" I would guess the Super Hornet is the best US plane after the F-22 at knife range, and may even have superior high-alpha and nose-pointing ability (they have a 10G over-ride if they need it). However, no plane would ever have the chance to get in close to an F-22 in the first place---unless you've set it up that way solely for training.

XLAA and XMAA will never ever hit the last boss. QAAM or the "basic" missile are the only ones. I fired some 60 AMRAAM's and Phoenixes and AA-12's and never got one hit. Part of the reason I suggest the F-15C---QAAM's. Save most (not all) of the QAAM's for the 3rd form--they do a little more damage, enough to save a missile hit or two (since you get so few chances--sometimes he'll just refuse to come head-on) I found that doing the "run far away, lure him to come, then charge head-on" takes WAY too much time. Just keep turning into him at close range---he'll came at you often enough that you'll get more chances in the 5-minute window than if you "perfectly" set up head-on runs from long range. He's SO agile he can turn around and come head on whenever he feels like, no matter how close he is. My best run yet was like 2 minutes 7 seconds, for all 3 forms. I got a lot of 45-degree-off QAAM hits on the final form.