David Hingtgen

Everybody needs to read this: http://www.sci.fi/~fta/feature.htm And part 2: http://www.sci.fi/~fta/aviat-6b.htm RAAF (Australia), F-22/F-35/Eurostuff/F-111/F-18 comparisons. GOOD stuff.

Yup, military stuff is pretty much called what people call it, despite official names. F-111 wasn't officially the Aardvark until the day it retired. For all of its active life, it had no name. And then there's nicknames which are used so often they act like the "real" name. See the Fairchild Thunderbolt II. Which is much more commonly known as the A-10 Warthog. Finally--how often do you hear the term "Lancer" for a bomber? (B-1B)

Actually, he's not. His wheels are undersized for his scale, and the "real" Prime should have a 45-foot trailer. However, most all modern trailers (and toys/models thereof) are 48 or 53 footers. Combined with needing smaller wheels to match Prime, 1/32 is "undersized" but ends up looking right. My guess is Prime's 1/28.

Re: RCS. Has little relevance to size of the plane. F-18C's have a smaller RCS than F-18A's. And E's are bigger than C's, but have smaller RCS. F-16C's have a smaller RCS than F-16A's. B-1B's have a smaller RCS than any other plane except "true" stealths. A-12/SR-71 are also in that category. (Yes, the SR-71 was designed back in the late 50's to have a low RCS, and it does---just not low by modern standards---it was ahead of its time in EVERY way) And one of the stealthiest (if not THE stealthiest) planes is the very large B-2.

I'm saying they'd probably still have an RCS smaller than most fighters, but still 10 or 100 times or more their "normal" size.

F-117's have a radar RCS equal to a small ball bearing. Remember how a loose screw will just kill its stealthiness. (They did redesign the screw-heads though) F-35 or F-22 with pylons--- maybe as stealthy as a B-1B, if they're lucky. Of course, the "new" stealths are probably not as stealthy as the F-117/B-2, and have "looser" tolerances I believe. Stamen0083---yes, an F-35 w/pylons would have an RCS like an F-16. Think of it like a nice pure white tablecloth. Then you spill spaghetti sauce on it, and stain it. It's ruined. Yes, 99% of it's fine, but that one little spot just screwed everything up. Same with adding an external store to a stealth plane.

Anyone got the exact date of that article? NOW they're going to give the 9X lock-after-launch. Probably due to the USAF otherwise placing massive ASRAAM orders.

F-4 never did have enough downforce at the tail, even with the slotted stabs. Upforce up front couldn't have hurt. It never suffered in roll, using ailerons and spoilers simultaneously. However--F-4 doesn't have much thrust, drag is a very big concern with it. Adding stuff adds drag. Newer planes don't care much, they have so much thrust add-ons don't mean much. But it does with the F-4. As for the Kurnass Phantom--adding a strake isn't going to do much. More likely add in 1 degree or so of alpha before loss of control. F-4: utterly totally at the mercy of angle of attack. F-4 pilots watch that gauge more than all the others. (Ironically, also helps it with carrier landings, as its quite sensitive--get the AOA right, and you're set)

The F-4 was so much better than any other fighter, F-4C's for the USAF still had folding wings and tailhooks. Refuelling receptacle was about the only change, USAF wanted F-4's *now*. Then they realized they needed the gun, and we started making a lot of new F-4 variants. (Ever seen the Swing-wing or Super Phantom proposals? Neat.) F-35A w/gun: yes, but you've got a "gap" in your air-to-air weapons. After firing max-range AMRAAMs, you're supposed to close in to gun range? And not get toasted by Sidewinders etc while doing so? I believe the small-diameter bomb goes to the F-15E first. Basic idea is to have a "bunker buster" without the massive explosion and size. Sure, multi-thousand pound bombs can take out a concrete structure, but also the entire city block. They want the penetration, but with a very small explosive and carrying more than 2 or 4 per plane. After that, they'll go for all the internal-carriage planes.

Bay behind the cockpit--looks good! Just some "stuff" there, but not purely thrown in randomly. That area in the F-15 is actually that "Russian cockpit green/blue" color, but shiny metallic! Not quite chrome shiny, but still quite smooth, not "flakey" at all. Nobody makes that color, and I think it's purely an F-15 thing, not common to most jets. (maybe an MDC thing? Will have to check F-4/18 pics) The parts themselves are of course metallic grey/black.

Angel's Fury: the "sprayers" don't work at all. Trust me. However, I find this very easy: http://www.testors.com/catalog_item.asp?itemNbr=2207 Also available in a box with a can of propellant from Wal-Mart for $18. Not the 30-40 buck set, this is different (and simpler). Well worth trying out just to see how airbrushes work. Now, due to lack of precise controls it won't be doing free-hand feathered camo or narrow stripes, but if you simply want a nice smooth coat of paint over something, it'll certainly do that well. The main thing is, being "even more external than an external-mix" airbrush, it's super-easy to clean. Especially with acrylics. The brush itself usually gets nothing on it, it's all in the jars/caps. I use it basically like I would a good spray-can, but able to use ANY color paint.

Very useful for light-up parts. I think about half of all Tamiya clear blue sales go to us Star Trek modelers who light-up the warp nacelles and deflector dishes. And clear red for impulse engines and ramscoops.

I keep forgetting to mention this, though I thought of it the moment you mentioned it: The boxy area aft of the cockpit reminds me of the F-15 (single-seater) avionics bay. It's essentially hollow, everything's mounted on the sides of the "box". Lots of circuit breakers, wiring bundles, piping. But it looks quite orderly. Think of like an older car's engine bay. Lots of wires to the distributor etc, but nicely bundled and purposeful-looking, with hoses going here and there. Also, the canopy's main strut is mounted vertically at the aft end. I'll try to find on-line pics later.

It's often said that a key decision (especially on the part of "pilot imput) on YF-22 vs YF-23 was that stealth isn't really all that great. A lot of people did not like even a slight trade-off of agility for more stealth. They basically felt the YF-23 depended too much on stealth, despite still equalling the F-16 in agility. They wanted the F-22 because it had that extra little bit of agility. So what does that say for the F-35? Less stealthy than the -23 and the -22, *and* less agile than the 16/22/23? (F-35 is close to the 16's agility according to Lockheed, but certainly doesn't equal or surpass---otherwise they'd point out it being superior every five seconds--but it's not, so they say it's COMPARABLE) Also--stealth isn't just radar. It's IR as well. And a single big-a$$ exhaust like the 35 has can't have all that low of an IR signature, no matter how many serrated edges you put on it. If the -23 had a lower RCS, it had a LOT lower IR signature. And the -22's flattened vectoring nozzles sure look superior to the -35's. F-35's are slow as hell. Mach 1.5 max, or thereabouts. I don't think they can supercruise, need afterburner. (At least it did on the NOVA show). The original, very first 1986 concepts was for a supersonic Harrier replacement. Not a stealth, supercruising mini-F22.

While AIM-9X's SHOULD have lock-after-launch like ASRAAM's, especially for the F-35's use, they don't. Never expect "common sense and logic" to apply to the military!

This pic clearly shows how an F-22 angles out Sidewinders so their IR seekers can get a good view: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/sys...-22-000320a.jpg They can do this due to the trapeze the AIM-9's are mounted on, and presumably the YF-23 would have had something similar, having trapeze-mounted AMRAAM's. F-35's however, have no trapeze's, only rails. Couldn't mount one on the inner door, and putting a trapeze in the air-to-ground spot would certainly reduce clearance enough to preclude 2,000lb JDAM's, a key advantage the 35 has over the 22. (Since the 35 needs bulged bay doors to hold 2,000 pounders, the clearance has to be tiny)

Size isn't the problem. F-35's don't have AIM-9's (any version) because a bay-mounted one would have its seeker blocked. ASRAAM's work due to their lock-after-launch ability.

Airbrake holes--I say go for it. Though holes would fairly pointless with the VF-0's design. But as we all know, many aerodynamic features on valks are for looking cool, not being practical. Holes only show up on airbrakes, and many airbrakes have holes. (Just not airbrakes mounted behind the cockpit, like F-15/VF-0/Flanker) Flaps---no idea. Would need good drawings of the underside of the wings. I lost my scans of the VF-0 long ago. Either way, I *seriously* doubt they'd be F-14-style. F-14's are unique among all aircraft in the entire world, 1903-2004. There's split flaps, zap flaps, kruger flaps, hinged/simple flaps, fowler flaps, and F-14 Tomcat flaps. And from the pic above, they lack the eyebrow doors, a major feature of the F-14's flaps. As for being regular fowler flaps--possible, VF-0's got tiny wings, and its approach speed would be very high. But valks tend to be amazingly light for their size, reducing their stall speed. But VF-0's aren't QUITE valks, technology-wise. If someone's got a good pic of the VF-0 with its flaps down, please post!

Well, it's 25mm, so I presume the gun itself would be larger than the M61A series, thus presumably larger than the SUU-23 pod. But likely smaller than the 30mm GPU-5 (which is pretty big).

Stamen0083: based on the pics/drawings at http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0163.shtml, it looks like there's mere inches between the doors of the weapons bays. Maybe a foot. But certainly not "gunpod-wide". F-35 wasn't designed to accomodate anything there AFAIK, the original plan for a gunpod was an internal one, displacing a JDAM. Now, if they mean more like "aft of the weapons bay, with just the tip of the barrel poking between the aft ends of the doors" then that'd make sense. Could just be semantics issue of what "between" means. (I'm still amazed an F-16 can cycle its gear with a center tank attached).

Not really. YF-23 is basically superior in all aspects, whereas the YF-19/21 are 50/50, each superior in some categories, inferior in others.

http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/magazi...-apr-2004-3.jpg is classic VF-31 colors. I'd say early 90's. Sigh, I think all non-canon valks are "doomed" to only wear F-14 colors. There ARE other squadrons you know... Hmmn, first good look I've had of the SV-51's lift fans. Of course, F-35-style fans SO wouldn't work in that configuration. (Unless you've got one heck of a complicated drive-shaft, universals, and engine accessory drives--IMHO it'd be much easier and practical to just make dedicated lift-jets)

I am beyond shocked that their could be a centerline pylon on an F-35, much less BETWEEN the weapons bays. If that's the case, 10 bucks says that you can't open the weapons bays while carrying that gunpod. Which'd mean you have 0 internal payload.

F-35's don't have centerline pylons. No stealth does. Price seems to be the recurring thing here. My point is, regardless of the unit cost of the F-35 (low because there's what, 3000+ on order now?) the program cost is still high. Billions to develop, plus 40 mil per plane isn't "cheap" when you could have just NOT developed it, and use the billions of development money for LOTS of F/A-22's, and develop the FB-22 and F-22N. F-117's only cost a LITTLE more than F-35's, most sites I check give dollar amounts in the 40's of millions. And we've already developed them. "Half price" planes only count if you've already spent the money to buy them. What's cheaper? A plane you've developed, and buying 10 of them for 200 million each-----or a plane you need to develop, and spend 5 billion doing so, and then buying 10 for 100 million each? (Totally fake numbers, but it illustrates my point) It's not like we have a bunch of planes lined up at the dealership, and the F-35 is almost as good for half the price. It's the "we'll have it in a few years, but you'll have to give us a few billion to design it first" model. While the F-22 is "coming next week" and the F-117 and F-16 are "here, ready to go, quite capable, and affordably priced".

I was checking out some sites, and found that the UK plans on making 4x ASRAAM the standard load on theirs. INTERESTING. Combined with the ASRAAM's BVR potential, maybe the UK wants a mid-range fighter?