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F-ZeroOne

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  1. F-ZeroOne
    Yes, first time I saw "Tora! Tora! Tora!" I thought that they were the real thing, only found out later about the replicas.
  2. F-ZeroOne
    ...I should have added "before you've researched anything more potent than motion scanners"...
  3. F-ZeroOne
    Clearly never done a Terror Mission at night with Chryssalids...
  4. F-ZeroOne
    I don't recall that, but I remember seeing the poster which featured one of those bombers and thinking "Hmm, something about that plane doesn't look right." Later found out that was because it was a disguised different aircraft, authentic Japanese torpedo bombers from that era being just a touch difficult to find...
  5. F-ZeroOne
    The MiG-31 had a six-barrel 23mm gatling, which did have a very high rate of fire (up to 10,000 rounds a minute!) They also tried the Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-6-30 on the MiG-27, which had a reputation for shaking the aircraft to bits from the recoil force!
  6. F-ZeroOne
    I don't know what they were like on the Yamato, but theres at least one report from a Royal Navy experimental fit of other large naval guns that rivets would shear off from the force of the recoil. Incidentally, the Japanese designed an anti-aircraft round to fire from those things!
  7. F-ZeroOne
    Thanks! "Top Gun", from memory is a bit odd - IIRC, the same footage is used for the guns firing of both the MiG-28s and the F-14s, and neither has the gun in the right place - however, I don't have the movie to hand to check that. I recall its depicted as a gatling gun in both cases, and although the Russians did have gatling guns on some aircraft, its more likely it would have been using the twin-barrel 23mmm or single barrel 30mm... Another thing about the F-35; when its depicted, its also almost always the "B" variant - which seems to be a trend in US productions in general actually; when military stuff is going down ("military" in this context being Alien Invasion/Giant Robots Attack/GODZILLA!), the Marines always seem to be the only branch of the US armed forces in existence... One film that did get gun locations right was "Independence Day", with its heavy featuring of the F-18; but thats strange in its own right as the F-18s gun location is a bit weird (centre-mounted on the nose) so you would think if they were going to get anything wrong...
  8. F-ZeroOne
    I'd forgotten the "Iron Eagle" sequels... Speaking of Messerschmitts, some episodes of "Mazinger" feature the Me262 as a Japanese Air Self Defence Force plane! (they did actually build a similar type inspired by the German design during the war but "Mazinger" is set in Future Year 197X...!). There was also a sci-fi space combat board game whose name has slipped from my memory which tried to pass off the He162 "Volksjager" as a hyper-advanced space fighter once...
  9. F-ZeroOne
    I could write a book. However, its forgivable, at least at the time. The only real MiGs in the country at the time "Top Gun" was made were flying in a top secret U.S. adversary programme. In these days of CGI, perhaps a little less so, though you can still only CGI so much. Notable offenders over the years have included: "Airwolf", where it seemed every aircraft described as a "MiG" never, ever was. "Iron Eagle" is actually interesting - although the "MiGs" were of course Israeli Kfirs, Israel did sell Neshers, an earlier type, to Argentina, so from a British tabloid news point of view that sort of counts as a "bad guy" plane. "War Games" - "Scramble the F-16s!". Cut to footage of F-15s. Most war movies made up to the time of CGI; "The Battle of Britain" features many, many late-model Spitfires that weren't in service in 1940 (the Me109s and He111s with Merlin engines are a bit more forgivable). Pretty much any movie that features a "heads-up display"; even with plenty of real footage to play with these are almost always "sexed-up". "Pearl Harbour", not so much for typical vintage warbird problems but for the tactics - pilots that tried climbing directly in front of a Zero early in the real war would very much regret it; the correct tactic (assuming that you had the altitude) was the exact opposite - to go into a dive. Any movies that feature either a F-22 or a F-35 firing its guns (or, more correctly, gun) - the most recent offender being "Avengers: Assemble!" - they never get the location or number of fitted guns right. I've even seen a documentary where the narration describes Hurricanes in action whilst showing footage of Spitfires - the poor old Hurri never gets any credit, even seventy years later!
  10. F-ZeroOne
    Real Ospreys don't look like Ospreys on film, so they use a Tiger Moth with "USMC" painted on the side instead (which would not actually be the most blatant movie example of the "But thats not a - !" in films... ).
  11. F-ZeroOne
    I hadn't realised that many Ospreys had been made total, let alone that much just for the Marine Corps! Lend a small navy a bit down on its budget a few? We need something to hang a radar on... Wait... "Moonlight" squadron? Are they for Love and Justice?!
  12. F-ZeroOne
    Babylon 5 takes a while to get going, and when its bad its really bad, but when its good - which is quite a lot, actually - its really, really good (its also occasionally a little hamstrung by the era in which it was made; if HBO made it today T.V. critics would be falling over themselves to claim why it can't possibly be science-fiction because they like it so much, just as "Game of Thrones" can't possibly be fantasy because otherwise they wouldn't enjoy it... ). Stick with it into Season 2, you'll thank us in the end...
  13. F-ZeroOne
    I seem to recall that it was a limited time thing, and I read that a while ago, so I would not be surprised to find that its closed by now but I don't know for definite.
  14. F-ZeroOne
    There is actually a property that would cover similar ground but without the rights issues (as far as I know) - Terry Pratchetts "Only You Can Save Mankind".
  15. F-ZeroOne
    Can't believe we got this far without someone saying...
  16. F-ZeroOne
    The Battle of the Atlantic. Even Churchill stated it was the only part of the war that really worried him. Also, the naval clashes between the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine during the Norway campaign, which effectively ended any hope the Germans had of carrying out Operation: Sealion (the later planned invasion of the U.K; it was always going to be a dodgy proposition in ideal circumstances, but losing many of the required escort vessels didn't help much). Not sure it counts as a "battle" as such, but the D-Day landings. Oh, and the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean - Taranto was a bit of a pointer for the Japanese when they were planning a certain something thats also being discussed here...
  17. F-ZeroOne
    My guess is ol' Tomino himself.
  18. F-ZeroOne
    Its perhaps worth pointing out that what makes it onto screen is not necessarily what was originally written - compare "The Star Wars" with "Star Wars: Episode IV", for example...
  19. F-ZeroOne
    An A400M has crashed in Spain; four people on-board have died, at least two seriously injured. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32673713
  20. F-ZeroOne
    Slightly curious thing to notice, but in that shot of the TIE fighter strafing the hangar (er, assuming its not just a really incompetent pilot or something), the design of the steps to the left - very defined edges, almost like the smooth surfaces of angled Lego bricks,,,
  21. F-ZeroOne
    Quote is in the Wikipedia article on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2 "All modern aircraft have four dimensions: span, length, height and politics. TSR-2 simply got the first three right."
  22. F-ZeroOne
    Thanks for the pictures, though I think one of those planes is slightly older than the 80s...
  23. F-ZeroOne
    It was always an interesting design to me that disappeared almost as soon as it was revealed. Oddly enough, the same book that reminded me of it has a concept drawing for the Affordable Lightweight Fighter - the programme that eventually resulted in the F-35. The pictures shows a small canard delta with rounded edges and a flat engine nozzle, sort of like a stealthy Gripen, Whats interesting to me is that in the background, one of them is shown approaching, with wheels down, what appears to be a helicopter carrier, with choppers on board. There is no room on the deck for a conventional landing; its quite possible that the artist used a stock photo of the carrier (the fighter concepts are drawings but the carrier is either a photo of a real one or a a photo of a model), but it suggests to me that for all the griping about how the "B" ruined all the other variants, should have been developed separately, should have been nuked from orbit etc that S/VTOL was being considered at a very early stage, possibly instead of other variants (in other words, it could be argued that the "A" and "C" ruined the "B"! ). Edit: correction to the development programme name.
  24. F-ZeroOne
    (At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, but was inspired a bit after looking through an old military aircraft book today. A news story from parallel universe 199X... ) "The Russian Navy said today that it still plans to introduce a controversial jump-jet that can take off and land like a helicopter in two years time, despite claims from critics that it is too slow, doesn't carry enough missiles, and has already suffered a major crash in testing. The Yak-141 is a supersonic jet fighter with a vertical take off and landing capability. Production has already started, with nearly a hundred airframes undergoing testing presently. The aircraft is to be a major component of the Russians fleets on-going moderisation efforts and is intended to ensure air dominance over its opponents for the next twenty years. However, the programme has attracted strong criticism. The Russian military had trouble funding the development of the aircraft, which was only completed after an injection of cash was provided by another, foreign company. At least one prototype was destroyed in a serious landing accident on a navy vessel, an ominous development for a type intended to operate at sea for the majority of its service life. It has also attracted major criticism from military commentators as being more expensive than alternatives like the rival Su-27, only able to carry four air-to-air missiles, and for being too slow - the Yak-141 has a reported top speed of Mach 1.4, whereas Americas F/A-18 can do Mach 1.7, a significant difference. Other critics have additionally pointed out it is more complicated than the aircraft it is replacing, using a sophisticated combination of lift engines and a remarkable "lobster-back" swivelling nozzle to enable vertical capability. Some experts suggest that this is an overly complex arrangement that will increase the likelihood of mechanical failure... " (stats from Wikipedia - the true figures are probably never going to be known; my original source lists Mach 1.8, which may well have been optimistic... ).
  25. F-ZeroOne
    But... removing the excess armour and equipment is what they did with the Zero [1] and look how that eventually turned out... I think we're just going to have to accept that the whole Buffalo in Finnish service thing is just one of those oddities that crops up from time to time in war... [1] Well... I say, "remove", what I really mean is that it wasn't there in the first place...
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