David Hingtgen

Going OT here, but better to put in this thread than start a new one: F-14D Vandy-1 will soon be put on display at Oceana. With its all-black scheme stripped off!!!! Yeesh. Wrong coast (the plane spent every day at Pt Mugu, and is said to have never made a carrier landing), and they're going to put it in low-vis. Why even bother? There's hundreds of "generic grey" old F-14's they could put at Oceana, with dozens of them already there! Why take Vandy One away from its home (and the home of Phoenix/AMRAAM testing), and strip its paint? It'd be awesome to see a pure gloss black Tomcat in a museum, but at Oceana it'll just be another one of many old grey F-14's there...

3 kids with mythical powers: http://www.tvparty.com/sat77.html Right column, 2nd one down. Young Sentinels / NBC (debut) Cartoon series about three teenagers (and their robot) who are trained on another planet to battle villains here on earth. The three take on the qualities of Hercules, Astraea and Mercury thanks to their mighty alien boss, Sentinel One. The show was retitled 'Space Sentinels' midseason.

LOL, I chose Dodo on another forum, but didn't know if it'd be well-received here. X-29 armament: FSW wings must be inherently strong and very stiff, could easily take lots of missiles. I doubt they'd be on the belly though, the F-5 family has an especially "important" belly shape, it's quite sculpted, not flat. Kinda hard to see, easier to see on the early F-5A's etc. I think it may be area-ruled, but never seen it described as such. Not quite a lifting body, but probably contributes to high-alpha ability and their very low drag. Of course, I haven't seen an X-29 up close in years, can't recall if it has an F-5 belly or not. (Something the check next time in DC--the Smithsonian has their X-29 mounted so you can practically touch it from below) I love X-29's, BTW, they'd simply rock as a production fighter. Just imagine an F-20, (which has an F-16's turning ability or even greater), but with insanely good high-alpha capabilites beyond even a Super Hornet... Just an FYI for those that might not be aware--an X-29 is little more than an F-20 with new wings. LOTS of parts (and major assemblies) can be interchanged. In fact, the first X-29 was converted from a "spare" F-5 they had.

Blatantly stolen from another forum: What will the F-35's name be? Chicken, Turkey, and other birds too fat to really fly are the most-suggested. Naval version? F-35 Penguin.

I like it better now. Like the "pincers" on the wings, but not the nose. IMHO, needs a new "nosecone". And I get a "big observation window" vibe from the front end too. Goes along with the nose. Just MHO. Like the new design a lot at the moment. I would bulk up the center-rear area though, vertically. Either overall, or just add some "pods" top and bottom. More volume.

From the first "cranked out this morning" version, I definitely got a ST shuttlecraft vibe from it. Or maybe more specifically, a Runabout.

I do like the new shape, but it reminds me of a smaller ship. "Small sleek fighter" vs "big blocky command carrier". Though, that's more like a "big sleek heavy fighter-bomber" IMHO. Could of course just be the lack of hull details in the "rough sketch". Details make things seem bigger!

As opposed to all that non-gratuitous, intellectual and meaningful T&A.

F-16XL was single-engined, and had a delta, possibly super-critical wing. F-16's also have an inherently larger fuel fraction, and the XL was also a fuselage stretch (purely for more fuel), not merely re-winged. All things pointing to better range. Also, I think it could carry a greater number of medium bombs. Sure, F-15E's can carry dozens of 500lb dumb bombs on the CFT's, but what's the point in having it carpet-bomb? Larger smart bombs are its forte, and the XL had lots of more widely-spaced hardpoints for that. F-15's aren't limited by weight of the large bombs, but their physical proximity to each other. Even the F-14 encounters that problem, since it has to use the Phoenix pallets to carry bombs. But with that big cranked-delta wing of the XL, you could hang big bombs all over. Not like, 8, but you could probably have many more large/medium bomb loadout options than the 14 or 15. When an F-15 has a really big paveway on a CFT, that's the ONLY thing it can carry on that CFT. Waste of the 5 other hardpoints. And medium-large ones are usually limited to 2 per CFT. (I can never keep paveways straight, there's SO many variations, and there's more sizes than just 500/1000/2000lbs--so I just say "small/medium/medium-large/large/huge") F-16XL was to be the E and F models, single and twin-seater. Only in the last few months has it been decided to call Block 60's E's and F's. As for the F-15E being chosen: time/cost. F-15E's are little more than a stronger F-15D with more electronics. F-16XL is practically like a Hornet going to a Super Hornet--lots of major changes, that take a lot of time and money. MDC had F-15E prototypes flying very soon after they got the contract.

Hmmn. Don't think I've ever read anything about the XL in a fighter role. I'd presume a rather large loss of power/weight ratio, for even if it had the newest F110's, it still wouldn't make up for the structural and fuel weigh increase. F-15E's heavier than the C/D, but not by much, and the latest engines more than make up for it. Only generalized comment I can make for a delta-winged F-16 is that it would probably have better high-alpha performance, but at a cost of increased energy bleed and drag. (All deltas have inherently better high-alpha performance primarily because they require higher alpha simply to fly--Concordes land VERY nose high compared to other airliners simply because they're delta-winged)

I'll be the first to admit I'm REALLY rusty on wiring LED's... Also I always design things so that either the voltage, amperage (or if I'm lucky both) are correct for what the powersupply can put out, to simplify things. Taking an already wired-up system with a lot of unknown specs is a lot harder to figure out what to do! I really should go get my Ent-B diagram/specs... (I tested that thing at EVERY soldering addition, and even pre and post-decaling just to be sure--I know it's wired right) PS--I thought he was running off of 4.5volts, 3xAA. Also we need the LED specs, superbright whites, blue, and red are about as different as LED's get. Could easily fry a red trying to get a superbright white to go.

Here you go: How to hide a carrier battlegroup. (or 2) http://www.warships1.com/index_tech/tech-031.htm

Smallest adapter voltage I can find in my list is 5 volts, sizes from 300 to 1500 milliamps. 5 is 1.11111 times that of 4.5, which is a little high, but not bad. Most stuff has a 10% tolerance or so. Of course, then there's the issue of having the adapter plug into the stand. It's REAL fun trying to figure out whether you have a 2.0mm or 2.1mm plug...

Basically: Voltage must match, Amperage merely needs to be "enough". Quick example: 2.6volt, 20milliamp LED. Give it 5 volts, it'll fry itself real fast. 1 volt, it won't light. Give it 2.6volts, with a small +/- margin. However, it'll only draw as much power as it needs from an adapter. I mean look at the AA batteries the kit already supplies--probably several thousand milliamps together. But the LED's will never draw more than they need. Resistors are for lowering voltage, not amperage. I managed to get my Ent-B down to just one resistor (though pretty significant wattage, had to order from Digikey)) inside the saucer.

Most people who go with LED's do get adapters. You can get SO many different adapters, you usually just wire up the system how you want, figure out what kind of power it requires, then buy whatever adapter you need. My Ent-B runs off a 9V 800mA one. Could just as easily used a 9-volt battery, but it'd be drained pretty quick. And since a starship needs a stand, might as well have the stand supply power from an adapter. Batteries are useful in that you can pretty much create whatever voltage you want---NiMH are usually 1.2V, Alkaline are 1.5V.

When I lit up my Ent-B, I learned quite a bit from this: http://members.misty.com/don/ledx.html I suggest "LED's 101" and "LED FAQ" for starters. Seriously, just google "LED wiring" and you'll find lots of articles from people lighting up various Trek ships. Only thing to be concerned about is wiring in parallel vs serial. Rules are different. I'll go and see if I can find my wiring diagrams for my ship, I sure hope I didn't toss them, as I'll never be able to replicate from memory. (I copped out and used bulbs instead of LED's at the end, but it's all the same concepts, mini-bulbs just draw a lot more amperage)

I need to hurry up and just spend the $$ and buy the rest of the series on DVD. At the Sci-Fi channel's current rate (and their fondness of repeating 3 eps in a row 2 weeks after they just showed those 3) there's no way I'll be caught up with the rest of season 3 and 4 in time for Peacekeeper Wars.

Transformers. LEGO's good, but so expensive/overpriced. Seriously---"small plastic cubes that cost .03 cents to make--$50" I always wondered if all the money goes to R&D for the instructions...

One simple reason: CAG Hornets tend to have truly awesome paint schemes. As good if not better than many Tomcat CAG schemes. I don't build them because of any love for the Hornet, but because some of my fave schemes just happened to have been painted on the Hornet. Also, the Academy 1/32 kit is the only way to get twin-AMRAAM launchers without investing a lot of money and effort into resin conversions. Not to mention there's still no "wonderful" F-14 kit, especially for B/D's. Hase may be detailed, but it sure isn't an easy build and their B/D's leave stuff to be desired. The Academy Hornet is supposed to be up there with the Tamiya Missouri for "near perfect fit".

http://www.armorama.com/modules.php?op=mod...wcontent&id=503 Man, I haven't even started my 1/32 Hornets... Thankfully the Flankers are cheaper. Now to just wait for Ukranian airshow demo decals...

And now we have all those people complaining about the A-10's uranium shells, and left-over bomblets from clusterbombs... Yeesh, the BLU-108 (main clusterbomb munition) is one of the few weapons that falls into the "brilliant" (smarter than smart-bombs) category IMHO (it changes its attack based on what it senses, and automatically self-destructs under various conditions to avoid civillians and friendlies) and that's STILL not good enough for them. Apparently we need to add a full DNA-scanner to the thing...

Mainly because it's usually inferior in most aspects to the planes it replaces. That usually stems from: 1. Its insanely high drag. No plane can out-decelerate the Hornet! (except Harriers) 2. The high drag causes high fuel burn, combined with its low fuel load, means it can't fly very far, nor carry very much. And the big fuel tanks cause so much drag, they practically cancel out the fuel gain. (There are situations where its actually better to carry LESS fuel in drop tanks, due to the drag saved by not carrying them). 3. Jack of all trades, not all that great at any. The F-15 is NOT a multi-role plane, and that's why the C is a great fighter, and the E is a great bomber--they don't make the same plane do both, they have one variant do one thing, and another variant do another. Specialization is a GOOD thing for planes. F-18's are forced to do every role with the exact same airframe. Even F-16's are optimized for a particular rle, though its not as well known. (Block 30's are fighters, 40's are bombers, 50's are SEAD with a secondary fighting ability) 4. The YF-17 was a neat little plane, often described as a hot-rod. Until MDC thwacked it with the ugly-stick until they had beaten it into its present drag-whore shape of today, the F/A-18. (Ironically, many of the "improvements" done to the Super Hornet were merely making it look more like the original YF-17 and F-18L, what the plane was originally intended to be)

And if you ever wanted to know exactly where the center of pressure is when an F-14's wings are swept, the atmosphere has clearly marked it for you:

F-14's do it better too:

F-4's do it better. And this is the original Vandy-1 no less.