David Hingtgen

You have NO idea the depths of my nit-picking when it comes to airliners. It IS scary. Of course, a lot of it is backed up by the sheer existence of Airliners.net and their super search engine. If it ever flew for an airline, that site has 500 pics of it--there's no excuse for paint errors etc when the ultimate reference site is RIGHT THERE. It's amazing how many people will swear by a memory they had of a plane they saw once when they were 7 years old, and say the 140 photographs of that plane and the 3,000 photos of it's 42 sisterships online are all wrong. I know memories can be wrong---to this day I still have a clear memory of finding a G1 Arcee toy in a Kaybee toy store. But since it never existed, I'm pretty sure that never happened.

Hase model kits are much cheaper, but much smaller. Other companies' kits, usually being resin/garage/limited can be as expensive or more than a Yamato, depending on the valk.

All of us airline enthusiasts debunked it the moment we saw it LONG before any site mentioned it was a fake---nothing like having the paint scheme wrong and the wrong type of engines to make us think it's a fake... I spend a LOT of time nit-picking 747 model engines online, I am VERY well-versed in the variations, even if most model companies (and fake graffiti taggers) aren't. Ironically, it's actually more accurate than the 747 they used in the "Air Force One" movie, which was WAY off physically. Paint scheme on that was a lot better though.

2007? That's a long ways off. Especially with Energy/Over-G Air Force coming in June. Still, seeing as how I really hate the 360's noise, I might just wait for the PS3 and buy it with my now-returned 360 money, then get a 360 in 2007.

I found Sephiroth much harder this time around---haven't beaten him yet. (Only tried twice though).

Agreeing with what F360 said---going only by the outline of the profile is misleading IMHO--I mean, in sheer "silhouette", a AGM-86 cruise missile and L-1011 airliner are pretty close, since by only using the outline you can "ignore" any sort of three-dimensional issue or things in the horizontal plane. Example: F-16 and F-16XL. Almost identical profiles, but very different planes due to one being a tailless delta. Of course they are very similar, but by going solely by their profile you get the impression that they're 99% structurally identical, when really they only share fuselage parts and v.stab. Or, for an extreme example, from head-on, a bowling ball and a cheap pen are utterly identical--perfect circles.

Is there any gold in the paint or is it just the lighting? Because that instantly reminded me of bare titanium, like the A-12.

Just finished it. Overall thought it was inferior to KH1. There were just hours and hours of "doing stuff without advancing the plot at all". It was like: Play through Beast's stage. "Find Riku yet?" "Nope, I'll keep looking". Play through Aladdin's stage. "Find Kairi yet?" "Nope". "You'll find her eventually" Play through Mulan's stage. "Find Riku yet?" "Nope, I'll keep looking". Play through Halloweentown. "Find Kairi yet?" "Nope". "You'll find her eventually" Basically, if you're not at Twilight Town or Hollow Bastion, there's no plot. The middle 20 hours of the game not a thing happens. KH1, while also suffering from "lots of time spent not advancing the plot" didn't have it nearly so bad, and I liked the music better. Though Wonderland and Tarzan's Jungle just sucked--I still hate those stages---the 2 hardest/most confusing stages in all of KH, and they're the first 2 of the first game--I bet a LOT of people stopped early in KH1 for that reason.

The Long Beach plant will be turned into a planned community, but the "Fly DC Jets" sign will be saved because it's a national historic treasure/landmark etc---but they're going to move it. A lot of the buildings are already gone. The DC-8/9 assembly building will become a big warehouse. Here's Boeing's website for it--buy land in "Douglas Park!" http://www.douglaspark.org/ Who wants to be the first?

Ok, we're now completely OT. Back to discussing the VF-1 or take it to PM please.

We've got TWO vice-mods participating, we'll keep things in check.

That's a big issue for most all WW2 engines---liquid cooled inlines tend not to do well for battle damage---one bullet in any line will stop them dead really fast, while air-cooled radials tended to suck up a lot more punishment, as well as usually being easier to armor.

From the side, you mainly see the angled intakes and the engine nacelles---neither of which the F-18 even has. And the overall profile of the nose is F-111, as has been discussed. Which isn't surprising since the F-14 really is the F-111B hastily redesigned for air combat with a bunch of A-6 parts. THAT's a project for tonight--look for A-6 stuff in the VF-1.

The thing is, the VF-1 has a ton of small, specific details that are almost direct copies of F-14 parts. IMHO the intakes and wing glove alone preclude most any F-18 elements--two angled, widely separated intakes with a tunnel between them mounted below the glove right up front is a completely different design from round intakes on the sides of the fuselage mounted well aft behind a LERX that lead to side-by-side engines. The VF-1 has no spine nor LERX. Also it has the F-14's beavertail, which is incredibly distinctive and makes the entire rear fuselage like an F-14's. I just don't see any F-18 in the VF-1 from any angle except POSSIBLY having the fins mounted a bit forward from normal.

I'll quickly chime in that I think it's fine how it is and shouldn't change. Second point is that nothing ruins a forum faster than discussing politics. Most every board I go to has a "no politics/religion" rule, and the only one that doesn't is 10x crazier than the others put together.

"Roy's Rules" My default mod-answer for anything nowadays...

Especially since the mold they include the decals with is the least accurate one they could possibly have chosen. They really should have used an F-14D kit...

IMHO That's the worst version of Super Mega God Fire Convoy I've seen---I base mine on the first/most famous version from Japan, but for the hip armor I use the parts exactly how they are in "fire truck trailer mode" and they fit perfectly and look really nice. Always surprised I've never seen anyone else use them like that, as it looks better and is fairly "obvious" since you don't have to fold them or anything. Maybe I should go get mine and take a pic.

Along the same vein as my earlier post--what version? British P-38's sucked as we discussed just a little earlier. The definitive US P-38's rocked. Why do you think they got up to version "J" so quickly? They were fixing problems left and right, with many subvariants for each letter. Same for the Ta152---there are dedicated high and low altitude versions.

I was going to post that, but was waiting for someone else to do it first. A Zero can TURN and should never be dismissed. Zero's main problem is sheer durability--what would be light/minor damage on most planes is fatal to a Zero.

Umm, P-51D vs BF-109 and P-51D vs ME-109---what's the difference? Also, the 109 has a HUGE range of variants, you've gotta at least specify E, G, K, etc.

The board is supposed to be PG-13 (though we often creep higher), so try not to get too much past that discussing various "aspects" of Major Kusanagi's construction/anatomy etc. Secondly, we do have female board members, though I doubt they'd be perusing this particular thread much.

One thing missing from that is the VF-11 accent color change--the elbows/ankles/hands/feet went from a dark teal to a medium grey on the FP version.

Now that they're out, I'm waiting for Graham to reveal the "neat new features/improvements" he hinted at and couldn't tell us.

Not quite a scan, but better than nothing: http://www.1999.co.jp/dbimages/user/hobby/.../10027950n2.jpg The bureau number is 161621 BTW--though I'm 99% certain that's purely Hasegawa's idea, not canon at all. Box photos: http://www.1999.co.jp/dbimages/user/hobby/...g/10027950a.jpg