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F-ZeroOne

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Everything posted by F-ZeroOne

  1. F-ZeroOne
    The forums called "Anime or Science-Fiction" and no-ones mentioned the Griffon from "Bubblegum Crisis yet?
  2. F-ZeroOne
    The thing I find funny about the whole cow thing is that this was sometimes blamed on so-called "Black Helicopters" - and it turned out during the bin Laden raid that the US military really did have Black Helicopters!
  3. F-ZeroOne
    Its worth pointing out that the term "Unidentified Flying Object" does not have to mean the same as "Flying Saucer" [1] though I accept the two are often lumped together. Every so often, a work colleague will exclaim how they've seen a really bright light in the early morning/late evening and they're wondering what it is. You can probably see where I'm going with this; it is of course Venus, one of the most easily identifiable objects in the sky, yet its pretty common for people not to know this. I'veseen what I first took as a UFO, and would probably have claimed as such if I hadn't heard the "whoosh" of a Chinese lantern igniting at the same time. Someone from further away might not have had the audio cue to tip them off. [1] Which I'm using as a generic term for "possible alien spacecraft" here.
  4. F-ZeroOne
    Music speakers that work in a vacuum?
  5. F-ZeroOne
    Have you seen the ending of "Star Trek: Beyond"? There is at least a precedent there for an invading alien force being defeated by the POWER OF MUSIC [1]... It also might be a concept that would go over better in Europe - after all, we have this thing called the Eurovision Song Contest, just hope the UN SPACY doesn't pick the British contestant as the lynchpin of their strategy... [1] Granted, the setup and circumstances are rather different, but the first thing I thought when I saw the film was "Holy Crap, did 'Star Trek' just use the Minmei Defence?!!".
  6. F-ZeroOne
    Master Chief called, he'd like the armour back thanks.
  7. F-ZeroOne
    Should have bought F-22s instea - oh, wait.
  8. F-ZeroOne
    No, not trying to buy it, just thought this thread was a good place to mention it as its a "Bubblegum Crisis" curio that might not be that widely known about.
  9. F-ZeroOne
    It may have been AnimEigos UK publishers "Anime Projects" that did that screensaver...
  10. F-ZeroOne
    Me also on the latest book in "The Expanse" series.
  11. F-ZeroOne
    Didn't AnimEigo do a Bubblegum Crisis screensaver once? I seem to recall owning it but have no idea what happened to it...
  12. F-ZeroOne
    Uh oh, Japan may have lost a F-35A: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190409/p2a/00m/0na/026000c
  13. F-ZeroOne
    It was fun seeing which famous SF authors wrote which episode.
  14. F-ZeroOne
    I'm not so sure its the US specifically, but the usual argument is dubs pull in a larger potential market share as people don't like reading (or, fairly, have trouble reading and watching at the same time). Though I've always admired "Evangelion" for the way it shook things up a bit (mecha shows were in a bit of a rut at the time, though having said that I've also never quite forgiven it for what it did to mecha pilots either), its never been a personal favourite of mine. It also seemed a bit less clever once I finally got to see some of its inspirations, like "Ideon" and "Dunbine".
  15. F-ZeroOne
    The first one will all be kinky Sith hanky-panky and they'll introduce all that boring space opera stuff later. Hey, it worked for them the first time right?
  16. F-ZeroOne
    To be fair, its not exactly a new threat, though the nature of it has changed a bit. The Luftwaffe did damage accidentally to the RAFs radar control network during the Battle of Britain that caused some real difficulties on occasion to the defenders (the Luftwaffe didn't realise the value of the network and though there were some attempts to target it directly, most of the worst damage was caused by bombs being jettisoned that then by pure chance knocked out power cables or the like).
  17. F-ZeroOne
    I think what made Stringfellow Hawke stand out from all his other contemporary super-vehicle operators is that he was that absolute scariest of all fictional tropes - the professional. If he wanted you dead, then you were dead. He did love wasting ammo by strafing the ground in front of his targets for seconds at a time, though. Regards Airwolfs "infinite ammo" - well, it did run out of ammo in the pilot, after overkilling Moffet. OTOH, among its many and varied weapons loads were Copperhead rounds - which were actually laser guided artillery shells. And yet it swings back the other way because you could argue that its deployable weapons bays aren't that far removed from how modern stealth aircraft - including the Comanche - do it...
  18. F-ZeroOne
    To be fair, that article does claim that the canopy is based on that of the Apache, though I don't really see the resemblance other than thats its angular and vaguely insectile looking. I'm not completely certain, but I think "Blue Thunder" may have made a cameo in the "Doctor Who" episode "Dalek", where its used in a very brief shot of "Bad Wolf One" landing.
  19. F-ZeroOne
    Wow, that looks like a rather "Heath Robinson" arrangement...!
  20. F-ZeroOne
    Did I see a F-14 firing unguided rockets at one point in that trailer? Did they ever do that in the "real" world?
  21. F-ZeroOne
    I think I need to go play the cello whilst weeping into the setting sun now. So long, String. Of all the 80s crusaders for justice who used super-vehicles in their fight against evil, you were by far the coolest.
  22. F-ZeroOne
    Its probably an issue for most democracies, I guess. Theres so much pressure to get "bang for the buck" that theres a tendency to stuff as much as possible into one package, because that might be all the package you're going to get. And most democracies have competing pressures for funding, Though again, I'm not sure its entirely a new issue - we developed the MK. VIII Spitfire, but the Mark IX got built in bigger numbers - because it was much more suited to the immediate requirements at the time.
  23. F-ZeroOne
    Was there a time when aircraft were "designed, manufactured, and sent into action within the span of a year" though? World War I, maybe, but if you look at some of the aircraft from World War II - usually the period held up as the era when aircraft design was "right", compared to the current age with its doohickeys and cost overruns - I'm not entirely certain that applies in many cases. The Supermarine Spitfire prototype first flew in 1936. It didn't go into combat until three years later, and production was only just bought up to speed in time (in fact, one could almost argue that at the time it was seen as the F-35 programme of its day, a near endless procession of production bottlenecks), The Hawker Hurricane, the "simpler" of the two, first flew in 1935, entered squadron service 2 years later and 2 years after that was already being regarded as just barely capable against its main opponent and increasingly obsolescent after that. The P-51 prototype may have been rolled out just over a hundred days after an order had been placed, but they didn't enter RAF squadron service until 1942 and the "war-winning" models with Merlin engines not until late 1943/early 1944. North American also had the benefit of being able to obtain combat data that was unavailable to R. J. Mitchell or Sydney Camm and their teams. All these aircraft - especially the Spitfire and Mustang - were on the cutting edge of their day but they were also more basic than later jet aircraft, I'm not going to disagree that defence procurement isn't borked - I'm British! - but I'm just not sure things were as simple "back in the day" as is sometimes made out.
  24. F-ZeroOne
    You... have some serious trouble with sheep rustlers in the US, don't you?
  25. F-ZeroOne
    On the note of F-16 variants, Japan lost another F-2 today, though thankfully both pilots are safe: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190220/p2g/00m/0na/053000c
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