David Hingtgen

Air superiority is everything. No superiority, then every A-xx, B-xx, EA-xx, C-xx, KC-xx, and H-xx is going to get shot down before it gets its job done. F-xx's exist to clear the air for the bombers/attackers/recon/tankers.

If anyone's still looking for Air Superiority Blue, Humbrol #47 is close IMHO. Cut it with white or light grey if it looks too "intense". Saw it used on a Ukranian Flanker model and it looked great. Find pics of OLD F-15's, they're painted in 100% Air Superiority Blue--they are what it was created for. Testor's Flanker colors are known to be off. Basically-they look great in the bottle, but dry to a totally different color. Better than totally guessing though. Best opinion I found was the 2 lighter are "ok", with the darkest being too dark. Avoid Xtracolor Flanker colors. "Niche" Flanker paint is supposed to be right on, but impossible to find. Also, the very famous and oft-modeled Ukranian Flankers have non-standard colors. One of them is Air Superiority blue, but the other two are not your standard Flanker colors. There's a dozen companies a year that say they'll make Flanker colors, but none ever show up. Or they're ultra-hard to get. Finally: The most often quoted FS numbers for Flankers: FS35550 FS35450 FS35526 However, 35450, Air Sup Blue, is much too bright for real Flankers IMHO. I've seen 35420 listed, that may be better. (I like Ukranian Flankers, as does everyone else, and they're the most photographed--which messes up what every thinks of as "normal" Flanker paint)

F-18F is so high-alpha "tweaked" it'd beat most anything at this point in that category. And all Hornets can out-roll the Cobra. However, the YF-17 has sheer smallness on its side, and that would help its turn radius/rate. (sustained) YF-17 far and away has better power/speed. Sleek enough to supercruise on less power than the F-18A had. (It has J101's, which are prototype F404's)

The grey/red tail is exactly how their final F-14 CAG was painted. The Shornet just adds the knight. I think the grey looks lighter than VF-103's grey---I'm betting 36118 instead of 36081. Shin--actually, the Super Hornet incorporates several YF-17 features, most notably the shape of the LEX's. Basically, MDC finally "fixed" what they changed when making the F-18A from the YF-17. The Super Hornet looks (from above) like a large YF-17. I think it shows how "right" the YF-17 was originally...

Just a quick note: Black Knights repainted their CAG, now it's almost full color: http://www.myaviation.net/search/photo_sea...php?id=00264509 http://www.myaviation.net/search/photo_sea...php?id=00264510 Grey tail, red stripes, same knight as before.

The A-10's cannon is often described as a chainsaw (rather than a lawnmotor).

I love Ferris camo, especialy when it's not me doing the masking. All the schemes on that site are real, it's heavily referenced for modelers. (Though his F-14 low-vis is off, that's a "unique variation" not the standard that 90% of squadrons use) Anyways---what/how do you thin Gunze to spray? Nobody agrees, I always like to see what everybody does.

I loved the series, but always liked "The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe" least of all. Seen the movies, even a play. Never works as live-action IMHO. And even when I was like 10 I could see the religious overtones in it... I didn't know they now published them "in order". The Horse and His Boy was always my favorite.

You can get to the Langley BX?!?! Then you might be able to get some of the "special" DW F-15's. Not listed on the DW site, not available anywhere but USAF/USAFE BX's etc. Look here: http://www.modelhangar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=534 Note: while very nice, and they even make a Bitburg one (my fave base) they have 'feathered' nozzles. Tailfins are right, but nozzles aren't. PS---DW F-15's have *two* canopies--an open one, and a closed one, so there's no trying to get it to stay in place. Pick the one you want, like Corgi models. PPS--I have 2 DW F-16's, and both canopies stay shut quite nicely. Certainly not with a pilot, but when empty they're fine. Loose, but "flush".

35450 is d*mn close to the medium blue used on Flankers. Not many companies make Flanker colors (nobody makes true FS35450) but you can get Testors Model Master Enamel #2131, Flanker Medium Blue. If nothing else, buy it as a reference to mix your own. Also, RLM 78 Hellblau is supposed to be close to 35450. Honestly, the color is "sky blue", for "bright blue skies" camo. Name may change over the years/nations, but it's all the same color. PS--my list shows Gunze 74 as simply "Blue".

Pan Am was selling moon flight reservations decades ago... No actual tickets, but you could pay like $10 and "get in line" for when they became available. You got a letter, pamphlet, etc. Pan Am "Moon Flight" reservation certificates are quite the collectors item nowadays. At least Virgin actually waited until the technology was a bit further on.

Most interesting CFT pic I ever found was the 1FW Commander's plane with CFT's, and no less than 18 500lb bombs loaded up. CFT's also had the 1FW markings on them, not simply "generic" grey CFT's like you usually see on a C/D. Generally only E's get their CFT's painted for the squadron.

I pay no heed to size of kits. I've got TWO Academy Hornets. (Thank you, half-off sales) And I plan to get the Academy 1/32 F-16 once it comes out, as well as whichever company does an early Block 30 first... (unless it takes forever, then I'll just get the older Hase release) I don't think I've ever seen a Macross kit for sale by me, there's only 1 shop that even sells a decent selection of Hasegawa jets period. I live in the land of Monogram and Airfix...

F-15 stuff: 1. Finally found a good pic of an F-15C w/CFT's but no missiles, showing the pylons. Yes, all F-15 CFT's have pylons, not just the ones for Strike Eagles. http://www.airliners.net/open.file/730390/L 2. Dragon's latest diecast F-15C's have the tailfins and engines corrected, and are now very accurate. I plan to get the Langley one. They are numbers 50104 and 50106. The new F-15E has the same corrections as the C's, but it still has the pylon-less CFT's. http://www.flyingmule.com/Merchant2/mercha...t_Code=DM-50104 http://www.flyingmule.com/Merchant2/mercha...t_Code=DM-50106 (Dragon's own pics showed early uncorrected samples, but the actual released versions have the improvements--FlyingMule is about the ONLY store that takes their own pics)

Tomcat: 5,440,000 vs Hornet: 2,300,000

ATF updates: FB-22, stealth external carriage: http://www.afa.org/magazine/Jan2005/0105raptor.asp F/A-22 cut instead of F-35: http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/chan...ws/JSF01045.xml Yeah, never mind what the USAF asks for, cut what you feel like... YF-23 opened up undergoing restoration: http://airpower.callihan.cc/HTML/Spotlight/YF-23-2.htm

AFAIK, China still has the Su-30MKK on order. The "basic" model is the Su-30MK, with the last letter indicating the country that ordered it. It's MKK instead of MKC due to the Cyrillic spelling or whatever. MKK is quite inferior to the MKI, no vectoring, no canards. But still a two-seat long-range striker. Later variants to come are the MK2 and MK3, anti-shipping and precision bombing versions of the MKK, respectively.

F135's? Forget that. Get the F136. F120 development is pretty much dead, but the 136 derived from it is still going strong. 56,000lbs according to Rolls-Royce recently. Just google "56,000" and "F136" and you'll get quite a few hits. GE has had the more powerful engine for decades. 110 beats 100, 120 beats 119, 136 beats 135. And GE has traditionally had a much larger overspeed/heat margin allowing higher thrust increases. 56K test probably means like 50K "in service". Hmmn, 2 of those in an F/A-22.... (or just one of them in a Super Hornet...) (I'm a big GE fan, in case you hadn't noticed)

Seeing as how a heavier, bombed-up non-vectoring FB-22 would be the last thing you'd want to dogfight with, what could be done with the Sidewinder bays?

F-14D didn't enter service until July of 1992 according to Joe Baugher's pages. (Whom I trust highly). VF-31 isn't listed for Desert Shield/Storm. Plenty of pics of crashed VF-31 F-14D's though... IRST/Phoenix---probably only used to give a direction/distance number to launch the Phoenix in one of its many "seek and destroy" modes. Phoenix doesn't need a lock at all, you can just fire it off in the general direction and it'll use its own radar to look for targets. That's sort of how it's launched even when you do have a lock. Same thing if it's being jammed--it can either just keep going until it's so close to the target it can't be jammed, or it can switch to "home-on-jamming-source" like the AMRAAM can do. The Phoenix can be launched in many different modes, that's why there's 2 crew members in an F-14.

Semi-OT rant: Too many "Virginia's" lately. Let's see--nuclear powered USS Virginia, leader of the Virginia class. Soon after it's decommissioned--we get the USS Virginia, nuclear-powered leader of the Virginia class. It's REALLY stupid IMHO to name a class of ships immediately after another class of ships. Whenever anyone talks about the USS Virginia, or the Virginia class, you have to ask "which one?" because both are recent and well-known. They could have just made the new Virginia the SECOND ship of the class. (Name re-arranging happens all the time before comissioning) What's next, naming the next class of carriers the Enterprise class? (Because the Enterprise will probably be the next to be retired).

Tell us more. Much more.

We suspect a massive typo. Nobody's ever made working F-14 flaps, not even at 1/10 scale R/C planes. We think they mean swing-wings. That, or they made incredibly wrong working flaps...

We did have an FDR carrier. CV42, sistership to the Midway and Coral Sea. However, unlike those 2, it was never upgraded and thus was retired decades earlier. Heh heh--Shin posted the "Polish F-14 parts" before I could. However, there were no D's in Desert Storm. The B was brand new and uncommon then, and B's never have IRST, always TCS. TCS is standard for all B's and all late A's. Only a few squadrons in the late 80's/early 90's would have IRST. PS---Silkworm: if you recall around March ~19-22 2003, there was quite a bit of footage shown of a mall in Kuwait that had been hit. IIRC, that was a Silkworm that struck. IIRC (again) the Silkworm is more like a "cruise rocket" than cruise missile---the accuracy is measured in miles, not feet. Just lob it in the general direction you want, little better than V-1/V-2.

FOV is super-mega-over-panel-lined. That alone makes me refuse them.