Skull Leader

I stand corrected... either way, it's still useless as it stands right now . I'm only so-so on the non-VTOL versions, and the VTOL variant FAILS.

It's entirely possible...after all, look at the nature of the show. You either really liked it or you thought it was stupid, not too many people riding the fence on it.

No problem. As I said, there STILL is one squadron left (VF-31 "Tomcatters". The VF-213 "Black Lions" have already stood down and have begun their training on Super Hornets). They have a stateside "readiness" deployment this summer (probably out at El-Centro in the desert). I'll be at NAS Oceana in september photographing the last of the tomcats during the Tomcat Sunset ceremony. Just to comment on your flanker info (you may or may not know, hence my reason for stating), the Su-37 and 47 are no more. The only Su-37 prototype was reverted to Su-35 standards and later crashed. The Su-47 Berkut was simply a proof of concept/technology demonstrator, Sukhoi had no intentions of mass producing it. Finally, the only Su-35s still in existence are all going to the "Russian Knights" (Russia's Flanker flight demonstration team). No Su-35,37, or 47 is fielded operationally and so far as I know, only the Su-35 *might* at some point in the distant future. The most advanced flankers in field service are probably the Russian's Su-33s (used to be Su-27K) naval flankers and India's Su-30MkIs.

(time for a little armchair fighter comment or two) A Flanker (pretty much any variant) in the right hands is very much an aircraft to be feared. US aircraft may have a slight edge up on radar technology, but unless I'm mistaken, one or two RU missiles outrange our own. Take into account really souped-up flankers like the Indian Su-30MkI, and you REALLY would have to be on top of your game to come out on top. It's not to say that we couldn't engage flankers and win, but that in many cases, they're very much our equal. Switching channels to the V/STOL conversation... David, wasn't it discovered that the VTOL version of the F-35 couldn't even take off? I'm not aware that there is currently a functioning prototype of the VTOL version.

Unless something unforseen happens, the Last Tomcat squadron (12 planes total) will never go on a cruise again. The last squadron will hit the boat this summer for carrier qualifications "just in case", but unless something major happens, I don't forsee much else. The F/A-18F was the Tomcat's replacement, not the JSF. The F-15E mudhens will be around for a while yet. The Raptor, as it is, cannot carry anywhere near the bombload that the Strike Eagle can. The Strike Eagle is simply too good at what it does (and with new production airframes rolling off the lines for foreign countries now, a steady supply of spare parts is guaranteed for several more years). An FB-23 would be interesting to see and would be a worthy successor to the F-15E Strike Eagle, but it's hard to say for certain what's happening with that. Dave's comment about the prototype being seen with it's wings off means they ARE doing something, but what that "something" is no one can verify just yet.

LOL, you're giving me *WAY* too much credit. I'm a graduate student working on a music performance degree. I volunteer with a crew helping to restore an old bomber, and about as close as I'm going to get to become a fighter pilot is being plane captain for the F-14 I take care of in Tulsa. That said, there have been plenty of rumors about the YF-23 being pulled out of storage and re-evaluated, no idea how far they'll take it though. Just about everyone agrees that the YF-23 outperformed the 22, so I imagine the holdup is money.

I've been around since the alt.fan.macross days... I was pretty much around to witness the birth of Macross World. I can remember when the entire MW forum was just one page where you had to manually enter your name for every post and people were going nuts looking for Joons 1/55 knockoff valkyries.

What did I mess up? The 2S is the Valkyrie II (I was having a "palladium moment" when I typed out "space valkyrie") and the 2J is the Icarus.... There is a difference between the 2S and the 2SS in that the VF-2S is just the standard valkyrie with no FAST packs. the VF-2SS is the "packed up" version

I do remember the episode where he had to give birth. I seem to recall him having a conversation with Al early on where he's eating Jello and onions and can't understand why he has the urge to eat it. He appeared to be in a very immense amount of pain at the end of the episode when the birth finally happens. Whether or not that pain is, in fact, physical (as such as events like only childbirth or getting a watermelon shoved up your ass can bring), or entirely mental (he sees one thing and feels another) is really difficult to say. For obvious reasons I'm sure the writers never even thought that someone would question it like this (but then, they dont' know our moderator, now do they?)... hence such things will go forever unknown. I don't remember which episode, but he did at some point swap places with Al (I seem to recall Al was playing a war-hero that had just returned from WWII in Europe). Don't remember how long that lasted for or how close to the end of the series that was, just that it was one of the last times Sam Beckett got to see his wife.

The hangar we use out at Boeing to restore the B-29 I'm working on is attached to the hangar where they bring the Airforce one jets (there are more than one of them) to work on. I've seen one here one time, but they tend to bring them in and fly them out late at night for obvious reasons. A group of us tried to walk over and get a look at the plane, but the security guys (brought over from the McConnell AFB side of the runway, packing serious heat too) met us about halfway and more or less told us that if we value our lives, we'd do an "about-face" and walk the other direction. *sigh* they're the same way about the laser test 747s they house here at Boeing. I've got a pic or two, but nothing worth writing home about.

Well, when one takes into consideration the noise a Super Hornet USUALLY makes, the Whisper Passâ„¢ can't get much quieter! Far more impressive is the near-supersonic pass that you feel about two heartbeats before you actually hear it, when it goes from really quiet to all hell breaking loose. At the Ft. Smith airshow last week, I was dead-convinced that the Super Hornet demo team and the Strike Eagle demo team were out to one-up each other in this respect! Made for an impressive show though.

David, I have seen a B-2 fly and they're right, it's VERY quiet. I have no doubt it could make some noise if it had to, but when it did the flyby at Oceana last september, it was definately running silent.

Make no mistake... the plot of M2 was one of the biggest bottles of weak-sauce ever to hit the anime market, but the designs and music in some cases are worth beholding. The VF-2S(S) Space Valkyrie and the VF-2J Icarus are excellent designs. Original? Hardly. Inspired? Definately. True life physics aside, they're really eye-catching. Now the Metal Siren and the VF-XX Zentran Valkyrie FAIL at Macross. Period.

I didn't mind "clash" so much, I was fortunate enough to find a copy that had all of the scenes that were edited out of most releases. I still much prefer the japanese-language version, but I'll put it in if I don't feel like reading subtitles (like I need subtitles to know what's going on in something macross-related after all these years of watching it... I, like most diehard DYRL fans, have pretty much the entire script memorized) I remember when the rumors were first hitting the fan a while back that Harmony Gold might obtain the rights to DYRL and market a version of their own... I have never seen so many people rush to defend Clash of the Bionoids as the "official" dub before, lol...

Voted Hikaru. They're all great, but the red piping on the VF-1S Strike Valkyrie is what did it. Some of the best animation of the VF-1 to date. I know financially it was not possible, but if the TV series had received the attention to detail that the movie got (not that the TV series wasn't revolutionary in it's own way), I'd love the TV series so much more.

Actually, Blaine Parker had dual service. The USMC wasn't his only duty. I'm fairly certain he did a stint in the Army Airborne during Vietnam before his corps days. I always wanted to see his story with Zarana fleshed out some more (I just thought for sure she'd eventually defect to the good side, but so much for that!) -Jeremy Resident "Mainframe" fan (I still have the figure!)

gotta see... gotta see... gotta see....

Gonna come up for the one in Bloomington, IL, Dave? I'll be there camera in-hand!

You know, the epitome of F-14 for me has always been two squadrons, the Jolly Rogers and the Black Aces. I just wish those were the last two retired squadrons... 385446[/snapback] I didn't care so much about VF-41 personally, but I would've loved it if VF-103 was the final Tomcat squadron. Still, I guess it's fitting that the VF-31 "Tomcatters" be the final group. I hope there's more than one or two of them there when I go to the sunset ceremony in september!

VFA-11 has swapped airwings with VFA-103 officially now. This has actually been in the works since right before VF-11 traded in their last tomcat (their retro-bird had the "AA" tailcode on it), it was quite a large mess. Evidently there are still a couple of VFA-103 line birds still floating around with the AA tailcode too, but this is supposed to be straightened out by the time the squadrons go on cruise. so.. VFA-11= Carrier Air Wing 17 ("AA" tailcode) VFA-103= Carrier Air Wing 7 ("AG" tailcode)

Actual service airframes of the navy did not have a stick in the backseat. Airforce aircraft (so far as I know) had controls in the back seat through most variants. I know some F/A-18D Hornets have sticks in the backseat, but I don't know if the Marines use these in a combat role or if they're for training only (Super Hornets *can* be configured with a stick in the back, but it's only done for training)

The RIO has nothing to do with the flight capabilities of the tomcat, so sure he could. The only thing the RIO works with are the weapons systems and radar.

oh, it happened. The entire Tomcat community still discusses it to this day.

the soundtracks for AC4 and 5 sold out almost overnight on their initial runs, so I'm sure the AC0 soundtrack will too.

I seriously doubt Namco would all of a sudden decide to port AC0 to Xbox (especially with a little more Xbox support dying every day in favor of the 360...)