David Hingtgen

Well I'm currently engaged in a debate on another forum about the Witty Super Hornet's weapons. The AIM-120C and AIM-9X on it are gloss white. His current argument is "well MOST are grey but there's some white ones so they're still accurate". Well I'd be very interested if anyone has a pic of a real (not a mockup or prototype) AIM-9X or AIM-120C that's white. Even an AIM-7 would do, just so long as it's a recent air-to-air missile, and preferably on a Super Hornet. PS--anyone know the color of the very first testing AIM-120's? On the F-14? I know the pic is SOMEWHERE but it'd take forever for me to go through every Tomcat pic I know of. Same question for the AIM-9M--I know 9J's were white early on, is the M new enough to have always been grey?

Part of the reason VF-154 had such good results was that being the last F-14A squadron in combat, they had access and permission to use every last F-14A spare part in the inventory on that cruise! Nothing like having spare parts for a hundred planes to keep 10 flying... They didn't repair or test a thing--if something didn't work they replaced it. Plenty of spares, and no point to fix anything when the planes will be leaving in a few months anyways. Kind of the opposite of what the B-1B squadrons are having to do. They're scrapping young, perfect condition planes just to get parts for the others. The B-1B order apparently had NO spare parts and NO attrition planes. They've had godawful serviceability/readiness/availability rates since day one, purely do to lack of spare parts. It's practically "Iranian F-14" level---stuff is designed to wear out and be replaced every X number of hours---and the B-1B's just simply don't have them.

Dragon is just F-ing stupid in many ways. See their Super Hornet--which has HARM launchers carrying AMRAAMs, which can't carry Dragon's own HARM!!!! It's incompatible with their own weapons. And their CVER rack on the Super Hornet has lugs to mount 500lb bombs--but Dragon doesn't have any that fit because all of theirs are permanently mounted to F-16 racks! Yaargh! And then we could talk all day about the mold itself... Anyways---well, VF-154 did have among the most unique Tomcats at the end, being the last operator of the A model along with VF-211. So there's bound to be things off. Skull Leader--I've never liked the SD Knight version, and so have almost no pics of it. I never knew it had black tips---that's VERY rare on a Tomcat, only early VF-124 and 32 had painted tips AFAIK. Any good pics showing the black tips? My Witty Super Hornet should be here next week, will post a bit about it. I'll be very interested to see pics of the actual retail version of the FoV Tomcat, as well as Witty's. FoV listed for end of Feb, while Witty's is listed for March. Either way I think they'll both blow away Dragon. Revell is still #1 for accuracy so far, but it's got too many seams and screws, which is unacceptable nowadays. (And they've still only made 1 scheme for each type) PS--Witty's Super Hornet is a Hasegawa copy, and if their F-14 is too, it'll be VERY interesting to compare to FoV's Hasegawa copy.

That's been the news. I'm all for it. The more they buy, the more we can buy. Also, Japan is about the most trust-worthy country we could sell it to AFAIK. The vast majority of (and I think all of the "big") US military secrets are sold BY AMERICANS to foreign countries for the price of a new car. China's the last place Japan would give military secrets to.

No idea, but I'm waiting to see what the Witty F-14 will be like. Their Super Hornet blows away all the others (because it's a perfect copy of the Hasegawa kit). If they copy the Hasegawa F-14's they'll beat most kits! First release is rumored to be Black Knights final CAG F-14D. Being a D model we'll know in an instant how well they researched the F-14.

Yup, those are the two I have. Strangely, I can NOT get them to show up now! I've searched for that photographer, that serial, "NG 100", VFA-154, and every other way I can but A.net just doesn't seem to have them any more. Either way--that is the least-photographed Shornet out there.

I just have to chime in that I whole-heartedly agree. Most gamers are casual gamers, and buy crappy games that have big ad (read: covers of magazines) budgets. Want proof? Hang around EB or Gamestop for a while. You won't have to wait too long for someone to come in with a bag FULL of old PSX games. They'll trade in like 23 crappy games you've never heard of, plus 3 bucks, and buy a used crappy PS2 game. (Used being in godawful condition and a whole 3 bucks off MSRP) I once saw a guy trade in like 45 games and 50 bucks for a used PS2. They REALLY should have let other people (me) make our purchases first. (Yeah that was my yearly EB purchase, boy did I pick the wrong day)

I'll second the small/jeweler's files. There's a lot of times they'll work far better than sandpaper. I know there's got to be people like me who sanded and x-acto'd a piece for 30 minutes until finding that one perfect file that'd do the job faster and better. I'm fond of the "knife" style file, it's my all-purpose one.

A lot better (nothing's worse than yellow on a plane), but I still don't like the greens, especially the medium one. People spend a lot of time and money developing exact colors for camoflage patterns, and each one is dependent upon the others. That is the primary way how camo works for ships and planes--it's not the individual colors nor the shapes in the pattern--it's how they all work TOGETHER. You can't just change one color and expect the same effect, nor take colors from multiple schemes. (if you ever want a detailed look into developing paint camo, check out WW2 ship stuff---most of the info from that carried over to this day, including the colors and theories behind the patterns used for aircraft--the whole concept of low-vis came from ships--previously planes were always mottled or splotched to match the ground, or no camo at all) Yamato seems to have just thrown random colors around. You won't see gull grey and ghost grey mixed on a plane. Despite being among the most common camo greys of all time, they just don't work together. This is along the same lines--they've got weird non-complementary shades.

I think the main issue with the camo VF-1 is the colors are just too intense/bright. Like they took the colors from the basic 16-box of Crayoloa crayons. They're almost neon compared to real camo paint. That's not Vietnam camo. That is like yellow sand, GREEN, and darker GREEN. Not dark muddy tan, jungle leaves green, and marsh green. Take each of the VF-1's camo and mix 50% with dark grey--THEN you'll have something like real camo. Frankly, it looks like a $2 toy plane at Wal-Mart with those colors. Bright, shiny, primary colors. The original low-vis was far superior simply because the colors were exactly what real ones were. But this is like a parody of a real scheme.

I'll admit I haven't seen Zero yet either. Just the first ep. (Talk about a cliff-hanger, been a few years) And due to having dialup, it'd take several more years to d/l the rest. Some day (maybe 2012) there'll be high-quality US-licensed subs, but until then---what "Region 0" release to buy has the best subs?

Air-to-Air missiles are never green (AFAIK), and that's all Valkyries ever have. I've always wondered about the green Mavericks, only jet-carried green missile AFAIK. You pretty much see grey and white Mavericks, but there's also a few green ones--what's special about them to get different paint? Unique seeker head? (There's so many for the Maverick) PS--I always liked the black-belly SEA scheme.

So that I can play Xenogears with even MORE improved textures. (Hey, I spent 90% of the first year of ownership of my PS2 replaying PSX RPG's) PS3--anyone who buys one on launch day already has dozens of good games to play on it. PS--how was the PS2 a disappointment? It's my most-played system of all-time now, surpassing even my insane number of summer SNES hours. And I have more games for it than Genesis, Xbox, and Gamecube combined. (I think I still have more PSX games than PS2 games, but a fair number of those PSX games are "late" ones which were only ever played on the PS2)

Is it yellow tape like Tamiya? HLJ sells a product like that which I bought but haven't tried yet. (Basically Tamiya tape but pre-cut into VERY thin strips)

Nvidia says they JUST finalized the design--no launch anywhere until fall at the very earliest. So we are waiting on the graphics.

Haven't heard a thing. Anyways----pictures of the Black Knight's Super Hornets are hard to find, ESPECIALLY the CAG. So here's a really nice pic that makes great wallpaper of their new CAG: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1003871/L/

One of the more recent phenomena is G-lock. There, it's not so much how MANY G's, but how RAPIDLY they BUILD. Just because a pilot can take 9G's by gradually building up to it in a turn, doesn't much indicate how well he'll take 7 or 8 put on almost instantly. The F-20 made people aware of this, as several of the prototypes crashed when it pulled 9+ G's during demos, despite having very experienced test pilots at the controls who were constantly exposed to high-G moves (10, 11, even 12). But the F-20 was so agile it didn't build up to 9G's, it pretty much was just instantly there, and the pilots blacked out.

Yes, but I've never seen that one. Usually they're desert camo with sky blue. The grey really doesn't "blend in" with the blue sky. If you ever find a photo of a desert/blue one against a blue sky, the effect is really good. Or I guess this one against a rainy, cloudy sky.

Inherent philosophy difference between the US and Russia. Russian planes allow the pilots to override any and all precautions/limits/warnings, and use thrust vectoring to get the plane to do moves it couldn't normally do. US planes have absolute limits the computer won't let the pilot go past, and will not allow thrust vectoring to "create" new moves---it is only allowed to help it do moves it already can do, faster/better. As for how useful is the Cobra--that is a hotly debated topic, but AFAIK most pilots consider it worthless. (Do it, and you've lost all your energy and are a sitting duck--you darn well better make it count and follow up with a guaranteed kill or it'll be the last move you ever do) A Super Flanker could certainly make much better use of it than the Super Hornet, as the Super Flanker has insane amounts of thrust to quickly re-accelerate. A famous Super Flanker crash actually had it HIT THE GROUND then using sheer power LIFT BACK UP VERTICALLY with the thrust vectoring and allow the pilots to eject. Super Hornets have low power, that is their achilles heel. Awesome high-alpha performance, but not the thrust to exploit it very often. Finally---the US never fully shows what it planes can do. We just learned in 2004 that the F-15 can tail-slide, some 32 years after the F-15 first flew, and everyone thought they knew just what it could do. Maybe in 2040 we'll know exactly what the F-22 can do.

I usually just leave them by the window with the sun beaming through--never went as far as the actual "sitting in a tray of hot water" bit. I think the main effect is to have it atomize better.

It's worth getting the new one for the uber-bright screen. Check out old vs new. The sheer fact that the DS lite screen easily shows up when being filmed by a TV camera says a lot.

The key thing about the Cobra is that the plane flies BACKWARDS for a short time, with NEGATIVE airspeed. Maverick simply slowed down and pitched up---a 747 can do that, just not as quickly or severely. To fly tail-first takes a very neat plane. Also a key issue is re-accelerating afterwards---effectively coming to a dead stop in mid-air is kinda pointless unless you immediately follow up with something equally impressive, as the guy who was trailing you will then be miles ahead of you and out of range VERY quickly if he's still doing Mach .9 When you come out of a Cobra you have very little airspeed and energy, and will not be able to do ANYTHING until you regain one or the other. If you ever see a Super Hornet at an airshow you'll notice it takes a 20-sec "break" after the high-alpha pass to build speed back up to start the next set of manuevers. And ironically, I don't recall seeing the speed brakes go out at any time in Top Gun...

Basically, but the scheme is nothing compared to the F-14 and F-18 schemes. Those use false edges, silhouettes painted on the wings and tail, fake details and everything to try to make it look like another plane from a distance. The Hornets have the entire back end painted sky blue because a MiG-29's rear fuselage is so much shorter. They have fake angled intakes and slots painted on for that Fulcrum look. The F-14's even have the distinctive Flanker fin leading edge antenna painted on, and use a combination of sky blue and black paint to visually re-shape the tail fins. And at any distance it really does look like a set of Flanker tail fins. Must be a Navy vs Air Force thing--the Navy does a LOT better with simulating other planes. If you've ever played Ace Combat and noticed how the F-15 schemes in the games often have "false edges" painted on the wings and stabs that really mess up the plane's outline, it's that sort of effect. Only they specifically try to get a Flanker or Fulcrum effect. (The F-4 prototype was also painted with false edges to disguise the true shape)

Our first Aggressor blue F-15 is painted, and it's a D model: http://www.f-16.net/modules/PNphpBB2/files...ueeagle_831.jpg

No one's seem the video demo of the browser? The bottom screen shows the webpage as a whole, and you use the touchscreen to move a box around that lower screen----the upper screen then shows the boxed area zoomed in. Basically, the upper screen is like a magnifying glass for the lower screen, and the stylus moves the magnifying glass around. VERY neat.