Nied

Whatever, transplant. I'm not going to get worked up over someone who hasn't been living in my city to know any better. For someone who's living in my city THE LAST 3 YEARS, you sure don't know jack squat. Peace out bean town dude. Try reading SFGATE.com more and stay current.

Concession acepted.

Google it RED SOX fan. Go SAN FRANCISCO Giants.

Nice red herring.

You made the claim I'm not gonna do your research for you. I'll be perfectly willing to accept your concession if you can't back up your claims.

*LOL*

What's this "we" stuff? You weren't even here in the 80s when the Missouri was docking in my city and don't think for a minute I believe SF doesn't have the facility to support a ship *lol*. SF used to be a major naval shipyard way past WW2.

Yeah and those shipyards were torn down, and rebulding them costs what? Oh yeah money, money the city doesn't have right now being in debt and all.

Mayor "prettyboy" Newsom is trying to clean up the image of SF as a anti-military city, but that's not going to fly. Too many so called liberals, outcasts, transplants, and aging hippies here. This is the same retard city that prevented the USS Missouri from finding a permanent home there. That would have been sweet having a BB to visit once in a while and the revenue to the city ?!

We didn't have the facilities to properly support a BB floating meuseum in the city, nor the spare money to build them. That more than anything else is what determined it.

San Francisco the past year:

Whined about the Blue Angels

No loser Supervisor Chris Daly whined about the Blue Angels after accusing Gavin Newsom of being a cocaine addict did nothing for Daly's mayoral campaign. Of course his whining was about as effective since his bill to ban the Blue Angels was shot down by the board of supervisors (SF's name for city council) twice by overwhelming margins.

Tried to ban high school kids attempting to join ROTC (which apparently isn't going to work)

No tried to remove JROTC as an official school program to protest the fact that DoD policy discriminates against a non-insignifcant portion of our popluation.

Constant whining about the war in Iraq/Afghanistan/Immigration on a daily basis

Again see my comments about mistaking foreign policy disagreements for being anti-military. Supporting the troops does not equal supporting the war in Iraq.

Bay Area whining about flags being put up in honor of dead soldiers next to a freeway

This is the first I heard of it. Do you have a news story?

and .....oh yeah, a bunch of U.S. Marines couldn't even walk around Oakland Airport a month ago. As a soldier, I've utilized that airport a lot and we were never stopped even with weapons in our hands. Why the special treatment to my MARINES BROTHERS/SISTERS? Retarded Bay Area.

Again have a news story to back this up?

Anyone see the inside shots of the A380 and SIA's beyond first class cabins?

Those looked pretty incredible, but holy smoke, at $10K (or something like that... inaugural pricing I think) a seat for a trip like Sydney to Singapore, that's expensive. And the CEO says that he would not prefer to see anything racy happening in the double bed cabin...

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/15/business/airbus.php

I guess this would make mile high club a bit easier, but I wonder if it also means that these little cabins are sound proof.

If you don't want nookie on your airplane why are you showing it off with champaigne strawberries, and frigging rose petals! I'm sorry but that combo of items is not desinged to put you to sleep (although I suppose in a round about way you will get tired )

It only started at "9/11," even as early as Afghanistan / OEF. That's when it started happening again.

I don't want to veer too much into politics so I'll keep it brief. People on both sides of the political divide should be careful not to mistake disagreements over foreign policy with being anti-military.

Bah, in SF, if you bash the military, that's usually a good thing. I was a little disappointed at the fleet week parade of ships though. What happened to the aircraft carrier that typically comes along? Are they stretched that thinly?

Well again that's the story you see pushed a lot in certain circles but having lived here for over three years now I haven't seen it. Defencetech seemed to think the lack of a carrier was an FU because the navy thinks SF is anti military (of course their own inaccurate reporting on the subject wouldn't have anything to do with it), but I'm inclined to believe it had more to do with being stretched to thinly right now.

That was awesome! Wonder if that's on Youtube yet?

It was even more awesome in person. Especially when the second solo comes in right over your head at about the same speed/altitude (god I'm so happy I showed up early and got a good spot right at show center).

Blue Angel low level flight in San Francisco Bay!

Naturally, my former hometown of San Francisco being San Francisco, there are a few offended people of seeing military flights in the US

A very few. The bill trying to ban the Blue Angels from Fleet Week was shot down twice by a 2-1 margin. Of course while places like Defensetech love to bring up the fact that one grandstanding board supervisor trying desperately to get attention for his hopeless mayoral run brought up an anti Blue Angles bill, but they stay silent when it fails miserably. It doesn't fit with their ZOMG! TEH LIBRULS HATE TEH MILATARY!!!!!11!one preconception.

Those were just names I had on top of my head... I understand that Boeing is far better off than those two entities. But still the public relations could use a little work, accordingly, Qantas was told about a month ago that everything was still on schedule. Not exactly the best sign.... I wonder if Boeing was trying to swing the BA 787 decision.

I think Boeing's problem is that their marketing department gets ahead of the rest of the company. Remember the Sonic Cruiser? It was going to cruise at Mach .98 but still have better fuel economy than older airliners, have lower operating costs, meet stringent new European noise regulations, have supersonic dash capability, and be a delicous desert topping.

The MCAS Miramar air show is this weekend. I plan on going tomorrow, if it isnt raining. lots of pics to take.

That should be a good show which IIRC will feature a Raptor. Let us know how it was.

every company on the outside can look great, but on the inside could be an utter disaster, and every now and then, the stuff going on inside comes out.... and then we have a mess.

i.e. Enron, Worldcom

there is no doubt that Boeing marketing and sales are fantastic, but their leadership is highly questionable, McNerdy ruined 3M culture before Boeing, and I'm guessing he'll probably help torch Boeing too at this rate.

I think Boeing should've owned up a little earlier to the delays... at least I hope they did it privately to their lead customers. If not, they could be in real trouble.

I didn't mean to imply that Boeing is as bad as Enron or Worldcom. I'd put thier problems closer to Airbus' (maybe a hair short of where Airbus is). I'm still estimating that they won't make be able to make the first 787 delivery until sometime in 2008.

And so it begins....

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/boei...1A9405123DC0%7D

Let the penalty round commence.... any bets on whether there is an additional delay?

This will kill ANA's idea of using the planes for the Olympics...

I wonder how many people at Airbus are laughing their asses off right now.

And it keeps going. They've admited the systems integration thing now too, though once again they are downplaying it. If this keeps dribbling out I can actually tell you guys how I know this stuff. I can say that Boeing has put thier engineers into "Death March" mode to get things finished anywhere near in time. Fun thing about the fastners: If you look at some of the close ups of the 787 roll out there are more than a few missing.

Ah ha! I knew it came from Egan so I looked up his old posts and found this:

It is not a mistake, but it was a half-successful attempt to correct a mistake. The original script called for missile salvos (not just from Max's Valkyrie) to destroy the Bug-Eye in episode 10. The key animator instead drew Max's Valkyrie alone destroying the Bug-Eye with one beam. There was no time to reanimate the scene with missiles from all the Valkyries, so Ichiroh Itano was forced to "correct" the scene by replacing the beam and having Max fire all the missiles himself.

That is why Max's Valkyrie didn't have those missiles at all earlier in the episode, only to have them magically appear in that scene. It's also why those missiles are not in the official specs.

I've just read through the liner notes for Episode 10 and there is nothing mentioned. I read the note for the episode before and after, but nothing is mentioned either. I suppose I could go through all the liner notes, but I'll leave that for another day

Nuts, having gone through my notes I can't find anything either. I do remember it coming from Egan Loo though. I'll have to do some more digging.

Let's just be thankful that line art doesn't exist for the VF-1A with the ridiculously stupid two dozen missiles mounted on the vertical stabilizers (curses upon AnimeFriend)

*ponders creating custom line art for an AnimeFriend "variant" just to piss everyone off*

just kidding

Actually IIRC the liner notes for that episode in the Anemeigo DVD set say that variant was hastily desinged by Ichiro Itano. It was realized they had Max destroying a Quel-Qualie with a regular VF-1 while a few episodes earlier Hikaru was barely able to scratch one with a full barrage from his GBP armor. The scene was hastily re-animated by Studio Nue at the last minute which is why it looks kinda like an animefreind mistake. Windjammer/Nanashi/Nanshino had some lineart up of the design at one point but it disapeared after one of his many revisions of macrossmecha.org.

Oh... wonder if it's sticking around for fleet week. I don't want to drive up from the south bay to see the A380... but who knows... when does it leave?

I honestly didn't know it was coming until I was standing in front of Ghiradelli square watching the show and a woman asked me when the new Airbus was supposed to fly. From what I can tell on the Fencecheck forums it was only slated to appear yesterday and today. Although I'd still recommend driving up. Having watched three Fleet Week airshows now IMHO it is absolutely the best way to watch the Blue Angels. Just make sure you bring a good sweater and hat, the wind coming off the water has been really cold lately.

How about this as a compromise - both planes will kick a certain amount of ass, exactly how much to be determined the first time someone is dumb enough to line up for kicking of said ass...?

To use teh internet lingo:

The Tiffy is made of win.

However the Raptor is made of awesome plus win.

By the way, anyone go out to see the A380 in SFO?

And here I was just logging on to brag about it!

First impression: it's big! Living in San Francisco I see 747s in the air fairly regularly, and even the occasional C-5 out of Travis AFB but the A380 definitely was one of the most impressive things I've seen in a long time (I think partially because it was a lot lower than the other aircraft I mentioned). I could tell that it handled like a pig though, it took them forever between passes to set up for a new one. Also it was interesting that it had a photo chase plane in tow at all times (to get those great publicity photos over the Golden Gate bridge).

I would have some photos for you guys but unfortunately my camera is kaput. I'm trying to convince my wife that we need to buy a Nikon D40 by telling her that we can take great pictures when we have kids (and a 300mm telephoto lens so that um... we can get great pictures of them when they're really far away).

The only advantage the Raptor has over the Typhoon is stealth.

And of course, you can buy far more Typhoons for your buck than Raptors.

Graham

The Raptor is also faster in supercruise (Mach 1.7-8 vs Mach 1.2-3 for the Typhoon) and has a far more advanced radar. An AESA radar like the APG-77 is going to have longer range, the ability to track more targets and do it all while being much harder to detect than old fashioned pulse doppler radars like the ECR-90. That's not to say the ECR-90 isn't a good radar, it's probably the most advanced pulse dopler radar ever to be mounted on a fighter, but the Typhoon is at a decided disadvantage compared to the F-22 until AMSAR/CEASAR is installed (it's rumoured it will be installed in Tranche 3 if it gets built).

There's a neat article over at DefenseTech about the possibilities for a two seat Raptor variant going into service. Sounds like a good idea to me. A dual seat Raptor with the FB-22's bulged weapons bay doors and the F-35's EOTS system in the nose would make for one hell of a strike plane. Add in the FB-22's proposed stealthy weapons pods and it could even escort itself with a full air to air load in addition to a decent strike load.

On a different note I just have to say how much I love living in San Francisco sometimes. Today is the start of Fleetweek here, and I spent this afternoon sitting at an outdoor cafe near my apartment munching on a pastrami sandwich while watching the Blue Angels practice their routine for this weekend. If I had a better camera I'd have some great pictures already (the weather is perfect for an airshow this time of year: chrystal clear but with just enough moisture in the air to make for some awesome vapor trails)

Yeah? Well, the Typhoon will have one thing the F-22 won't!

RAF Roundels!

Er...

And a helmet-mounted sight.

Eventually...

And an IRST, and Meteor missiles. While the Typhoon may not be quite as awesome as the F-22, it's still all kinds of incredible. Especially once they get the CEASAR radar up and running (maybe in Tranche 3) it should own just about anything out there short of the F-22.

Hey look, it's the first KC-30. Personally, I would have waited until the USAF chooses between the 767 and A330 before starting to build them. Also, it doesn't look like I expect the KC-30 would---even ignoring the total lack of refuelling equipment (guess it's not a demonstrator), it doesn't have the revised nose gear/nose area the cargo-based A330's are supposed to get.

Is it supposed to be the first actual KC-30 or the first A330 based tanker? Remember Australia, the UK and a few others are going for A330 tankers roughly similar to the KC-30 (Australia will even get the flying boom).

As for the flight, I would say it was pretty smooth for the most part. There was a few spots I could feel the plane take a little dip and my stomach wasn't liking that. But again, I thought it went quite well for my first time. Since that was my first time up in an airplane period, it would be hard for me to compare it to anything else.

The dips are the best part! I'll echo David in saying the most fun I've had in a jetliner was in a 757 that hit a Thunderstorm over Philadelphia.

I just posted 60 pictures of my little journey yesterday on my facebook account. Here's the public link to the photo gallery:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=8215...mp;id=582816193

Awesome pictures! Looks like teh EAF did an amazing job with that plane, inside and out. Wondering how smooth the ride was? The Trimotor fits right in the gap wieght wise of what I've ridden in (lots of lightweight singles and twins then a big gap to the smallest airliner I've been in which was a 717). From the looks of your pictures there should have been a fair amount of chop, I wonder how a plane of the Ford's size would deal with it.

Let's see, I saw Space Shuttle Atlantis just a little over two months ago, I have seen multiple SR-71's (including when they were still in service) and the AFM's YF-12 and the A-12 that was in Minneapolis (while in was in Minneapolis and then when it was shipped here to Nebraska), and Bock's Car. But if I could someday get to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, I would.

I see no constitution.

At this point I'm impressed with how much travelling you've been able to do without ever boarding an airplane.

I really wonder about that plane. TF30+J85---yet it still has the auxilliary intakes? You couldn't change a thing about the J85 and maintain those inlets as functional--they're positioned right at the first stage fan. Plus it makes little sense---turbojet vs turbofan, and an order of magnitude difference in size/power. Maybe they can use some technique they learned from the TF30 to design some new J85 stage, but there's no way to combine the two in any form. Not while still fitting in a plane that size.

It looks like the exhaust pipes are a little longer so there's definitely something going on there (and would explain how the aux intakes still line up) but yeah my assumption was that they somehow incorporated a miniaturized version of the TF-30 core into the J85. Honestly I'm surprised that they kept trying to use the J85, as long as they are making radical changes to the aft fuselage they might as well put a J79 (which the Iranians have also claimed to have reversed engineered) or the RD-33 (easily obtainable from Russia and maintains commonality with their Mig-29s) either one would help make a better F-20 analogue.

Also--adding a second tail is a lot of weight for a plane that small. Especially when it's twin-engined already (which is inherently heavier than a single, larger engine)

Tom Cooper is adamant that Iran has a well developed composite industry, it's possible the extra weight of the twin tails is offset by the use of composites (it's tough to tell from the published pictures but the wing is supposed to be new as well).