David Hingtgen

Love the Sundowners plane---especially like how the sun's incorporated on the shield.

Just looked in my book. It is clearly an ICBM carrier. The explanation mentions ballistic missiles, uses the term ICBM several times, and the missiles in the schematic themselves are clearly ICBM's. If there was also a cruise missile variant, it's not what I'm talking about.

Nonthing online that I know of, but it's in my best 747 book. Basically, have the entire belly aft of the wing be a series of doors, and have the missiles loaded horizontally through the nose. Open the rear-belly doors, slide the missile back, and they drop out. Then they zoom away. Being launched while climbing at 600mph and 40,000ft gives them a huge range boost. It's a lot like dropping cargo out of a C-130's rear hatch---only with ICBM's.

Was in Wal-Mart today getting winter washer fluid for my car, and saw their 360 display today (just stuck in the glass case with all the other games). Anyways, I can SWEAR I felt the heat emanating off it as I walked by. Walked by the PS2 and GC to confirm, and it did seem that was it. Also--I noticed Wal-Mart had the "sleeker" blacker powerbrick, as opposed to the local BestBuy's greyer, blockier powerbrick. (Though they're always hard to see, tucked away) I've seriously though about adding some L-brackets to the side of my dresser, and mounting my future 360's powerbrick there. It'd have like 98% of the surface area exposed, and away from everything else with plenty of airflow. Most of my cables are routed in that area anyways, just on the floor. Anyone know what the PS3 will do for power? Giant power brick, small brick, Wall-mount AC adapter, internal? Might just go ahead and make 2 bracket-shelves...

My PSX has been in its transparent purple case since it was 2 weeks old. Though it doesn't light up. (I play games in the dark a lot--I don't want anything more than small indicator lights) I almost put my Dreamcast in a clear teal case, but "everyone" said it was almost impossible to get around the modem and you'd likely crack the case, so I never got one. Much later I was bored and popped open my DC and found it wasn't hard at all to totally disassemble the case--but by then cases were gone. The modem in mine was made by Rockwell, btw. Anyone know of a current source for clear Dreamcast cases? I am sick of its pale greyness after all these years. (it's not white, it's really pale grey) I'm NEVER getting rid of my Dreamcast---Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram alone is worth keeping it. Plus Soul Calibur 1 and JSR.

buddhafabio----the MD-11 2nd prototype is my avatar on nearly every aircraft forum I visit. Best-looking airliner ever. VF-19-----Gripen details: http://www.jetfly.hu/rovatok/galeria/fotok...l/gripenmakett/ http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2000...tail_gripen.htm

Cool idea, but I just don't think it'll work. (And latest reports are that it doesn't). They're trying to build a weapon 1 step away from a phaser----and I think there's got to be a lot more interim weapons before they get to that level. It'd be like designing the F-24 as a space-capable anti-matter-cannon-equipped super-plane. It's a bunch of new technologies at once, and they want them all to be beyond state of the art, immediately. Try getting basic laser weapons first, THEN try to mount them on a plane, THEN try to give them insane accuracy against a moving target for prolonged periods of time. (I think maintaining the beam on the target is the biggest problem--doesn't it need like 5 to 10 seconds of continuous contact?) Nobody on this forum likes airliners more than me, but this is the most "out there" of all 747 proposals. (I've always been fond of the ICBM-launching one) I would be stunned if they get it to work. And then I'll want miniature versions mounted on F-22's as soon as possible. Phasers vs Flankers.

Darn, I was hoping the F-35A would be killed too. That and the ABL-1 (747 laser).

As am I!!!!!!!!!!!

Twoducks---good enough that there's many books devoted entirely to reading the series as an adult, adult interpretation of the plot, etc. Though I'll reiterate, read it in the "old" order, not the new one. IMHO. 1. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (now called book 2) 2. Prince Caspian (now book 4) 3. Voyage of the Dawn Treader (now book 5) 4. The Silver Chair (now book 6) 5. A Horse and His Boy (now book 3) 6. The Magician's Nephew (now book 1) 7. The Last battle (now book 7) Reading it in the new order is exactly like watching Star Wars in "order" from Ep 1 to Ep 6. I think about 99% of people would say watch Ep 4-6, then 1-3. Same here--going in pure chronological order spoils massive amounts of plot points and makes many "mysteries" no longer mysteries, since you learn about them long before you were originally supposed to.

Lots 'o 360 news: 1. 40,000 sold on Ebay so far. That's 10% of the entire US launch supply. That is in fact, equal to Best Buy's entire launch supply. I'll bet they continue to show up on Ebay faster than at Best Buy. Thus: MS should eliminate the middle man and sell directly on Ebay. Hey, they'd make more profit that way. Opening bid at MSRP... 2. It draws 160 watts of power! No wonder the power supply is like it is. 3. Scratching discs seems to be topping overheating as #1 problem. I did notice right away the pics of the damaged discs look identical to how some of my XBox discs look---I have yet to have a game actually "damaged" by my Xbox (they all play fine) but some have acquired distinctive "rings" in them. (I hate tray loading---it ALWAYS scratches even if it's only ever so barely--it adds up----but my Dreamcast discs look brand-new, as does any PS2 game only ever played in my top-loading slim one) I wonder how the PS3's slot-loading one will do. I treat my systems and games amazingly well, but tray-loading anything always gives fine scratches over time. Mostly taken from http://www.xbox-scene.com/

It's the unofficial HD cables that don't work. I only ever buy first party accessories. (Except my transparent PSX case) I think this is it: http://www.gameenhancer.net/psxcase.html (Though I paid a lot less than that, and they're not as "intense" as they look there---they're all a bit more pale/transparent than that)

Best Buy gets more 360's in Dec 16, also a BUNCH of PSP's just before that. Premium 360's no longer include DVD remote (apparently it really was "limited") http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/arekthorn/bounce.gif

The "real" purpose between these exercises is to make current USAF fighters look bad---thus, we get more F-22 funding. I'm all for it. Still, from what I know the F-15 exercise was with Elmendorf's planes---and those are the TOP F-15's we have. The newest version of the radar, JHMCS, and AIM-9X's. They are even better than Langley's planes. PS--I really didn't like AC5's default F-14D scheme. I do NOT like that scheme on the Tomcat.

Best list I've found is here: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/usaf/docs/mcm3-1-a1.htm Also, just listen closely on any military documentary. Notable is "Rifle" to identify an AGM-65 launch.

Pilot's names have been stenciled on since the beginning, but callsigns tended to fade away in the jet era--however, many say Top Gun made them popular again, and it is obvious that they did start becoming much more common around that time. Every pilot has an "assigned" plane with his name on it, but he will fly every plane in the squadron equally. For important things (first mission of a war, last flight coming home from deployment, etc) the crew chiefs will try to make it so that as many pilots as possible get to fly "their" plane, but usually it's random chance.

There are a few private F-5's out there for hire for movies, ads, etc. Need a figher jet in a scene? They're available. USAF F-16's outperformed by Russian aircraft By Khalid Hasan WASHINGTON: Pakistan may like to think twice about acquiring F-16s following reports that in the recently concluded joint US-Indian air force exercises, the much-vaunted aircraft did not come out the winner in its “encounters” with Indian Sukhoi-30 MKIs. The exercises had mixed teams of Indian and American pilots on both sides, according to a report on Monday in the Christian Science Monitor, and observers say that in a surprising number of encounters - particularly between the American F-16s and the Indian Sukhoi-30 MKIs - the Indian pilots came out the winners. “Since the cold war, there has been the general assumption that India is a third-world country with Soviet technology, and wherever the Soviet-supported equipment went, it didn’t perform well,” says Jasjit Singh, director of the Centre for Air Power Studies in New Delhi. “That myth has been blown out by the results” of these air exercises. The Monitor report filed from New Delhi says, “But there are some signs that America’s premier fighter jet, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, is losing ground to the growing sophistication of Russian-made fighter planes, and that the US should be more wary about presuming global air superiority - the linchpin of its military might. ‘The Sukhoi is a ... better plane than the F-16,’ says Vinod Patney, a retired Indian Air Force marshal, and former vice chief of air staff. ‘But we’re not talking about a single aircraft. We’re talking about the overall infrastructure, the command and control systems, the radar on the ground and in the air, the technical crew on the ground, and how do you maximise that infrastructure. This is where the learning curve takes place.’” While Indian bloggers are generally ecstatic about the performance of the Indian pilots against the American aircraft, an American pilot who participated in the exercise expressed disgust over triumphant Indian comments, pointing out that the point of the exercise was to learn and “for two weeks of training, both sides got more out of their training than they probably would in two months”. The Monitor report quotes military experts who say that the joint exercises occurred at a time when America’s fighter jet prowess is slipping. Since the US victories in the first Gulf War, a war dependent largely on air power, the Russians and French have improved the aviation electronics or avionics and weapons capabilities of their Sukhoi and Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft. These improvements have given countries like India, which use the Sukhois and Mirages, a rough parity with US fighter planes like the F-16 and F-15C. China, too, now has 400 late-model Sukhois. The report notes that “while the Indian Air Force designed the exercises to India’s advantage - forcing pilots to fight ‘within visual range’ rather than using America’s highly advanced ‘beyond visual range’ sensing equipment - both observers and participants admit that Indian aircraft and personnel performed much better than expected”. The Su-30 MKI “is an amazing jet that has a lot of manoeuvrability,” Capt Martin Mentch told an Air Force publication, AFPN. Manoeuvrability is key for missions of visual air combat. If it turns out the US Air Force did, in fact, “get their clocks cleaned,” it will have been the second time. In Cope India 2004, an air combat exercise that took place near the Indian city of Gwalior, US F-15s were eliminated in multiple exercises against Indian late-model MiG-21 Fishbeds as fighter escorts and MiG-27 Floggers. In the 2005 exercises in Kalaikundi air base near Calcutta, Americans were “most impressed” by the MiG-21 Bisons and the Su-30 MKIs. Maj Mark A. Snowden, the 3rd Wing’s chief of air-to-air tactics and a participant in Cope India 2004, admitted that the US Air Force underestimated the Indians. “The outcome of the (2004) exercise boils down to (the fact that) they ran tactics that were more advanced than we expected,” he told Aviation Week last year. “They had done some training with the French that we knew about, but we did not expect them to be a very well-trained air force. That was silly.” One USAF controller working aboard an AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) plane told reporters at Kalaikundi Air Base that he was impressed by the speed in which Indian pilots responded to target assignments given to them by AWACS. The AWACS, while operated by Americans, was acting as a neutral party, feeding target assignments to both Indian and American pilots during the exercise. In most cases, the Indians responded to target assignments faster than the American pilots did – “a surprising fact, given that this was the first time Indian pilots had used the American AWACS capability”.

The light/dark ghost grey totally messed me up---since that is in itself the most common scheme of all----I never even noticed the pattern was like 60's/70's USN. (Though the leading edges of the wings also messed me up---those were never white, only trailing control surfaces were white) I recognized Euro 1 of course, and I knew the second was an F-5 but not exactly which (there's SO many that are SO similar). PS---the Sundowners are my fave squadron of all. PPS---that's the only YF-21 sideview I have--it's from MW, about 4 boards ago.

I've seen basically the opposite---that the 360 doesn't like being shared via power strips etc, and prefers the actual direct wall outlet all to itself, basically. Weird. I'll second the whole "if it makes it 24 hours, it'll be fine" notion. Just about every electronic thing I've ever had die, died with only a few hours on it. If you haven't seen problems now, you probably never will. As for video cables etc: http://www.gamespot.com/features/6139690/index.html S-Video seems to offer very very little over Composite, IMHO. Get an HDTV or it's simply not worth having a next-gen system. 720p is a zillion times better than even 480p. I recently considered getting a cheap 20-24in w/component to have an "interim" upgrade until I splurge for a 16:9 HD LCD in a year or two---but it really doesn't seem like it'd make much difference--I'll just save that money and put it towards an LCD. Longer you wait=faster the refresh rate (which seems to be the #1 gaming issue for LCD screens) Every 3 months seems to bring better screens. I'd love a CRT HDTV, but they are non-existent in the smaller sizes, and development is basically frozen. PS--Apollo Leader--my launch day PS2 worked fine for years and years too. And I even played DVD's on it all the time (often said to be a PS2-killing action) But my Slim PS2 died with about 12 hours on it...

Thus the irony.

Draken retirement: http://www.shotbyme.at/byedraken.html Apparently the Viggen retirement was on the same day! (no pics yet, but incredibly ironic) Note the insignia on the Draken---Austria's is quite similar to the UN Spacy's.

Trigger--what's the bottom scheme based on? I clearly recognize F-15 Mod Eagle and F-16 two-tone, but I like the bottom the best and can't identify if it's based on anything. PS---YF-21 side view:

BestBuy, X360 launch: Maybe 100 people. Same BestBuy, a few days later, Black Friday: 1500. (According to the news crew there)

Just post more pics of your avatar.

It's amazing how often I give tech support for stuff I don't own...