Nied

Honestly it looks great except for that forward fuselage. I think they just need to make the nose longer, if that means a big pointy uniboob in batroid mode I'm fine with that (Yamato has always been about good looking fighter modes anyway). I've also got to agree with David, all of the control surfaces need to be scaled up a little (what is it with Yamato and putting control surfaces that are too small on their M+ Valks?)

Well then you want to talk to Vinnie he's the one who's drawing the comic. But anyway I promised stories so here's one that probably wouldn't work for the comic since it requires a two seat plane. On the weekends the Navy allowed instructors to take aircraft out for short trips and such, the only requirements were that you couldn't leave the country, and you had to have the plane back by Monday. At the time he was stationed in Texas which put Las Vegas a few hours away. So he and a friend check out a T-2 Buckeye on Friday night to go to fly to Vegas. They hop in, take off and start climbing up to 40,000 ft (the Buckeye is many things but it is not fast, but up high the air is thin which means less drag). They get up to about 30,000 ft when they notice their oxygen levels seem low. It seems their crew chief didn't know that two people were taking the plane out, and being brash young naval aviators they didn't do any kind of pre-flight before leaving ("kick the tires and light the fires, brief on guard" was the saying my Dad used). Getting enough O2 would require landing, getting out of the plane, and then waiting about an hour for the aircraft to cool down so as not to start a fire, all of which would take up enough time to completely scrub their mission to Vegas. So they did what any sensible person would do: they shut off the O2. To prevent total asphyxiation they came up with a plan, one of them would breathe and fly the plane while the other got dopey in the front or back seat, every 15 minutes or so they'd switch off breathing and flying, and so on until they got to Vegas. This actually ended up working rather well, although landing was interesting (but that's another story).

I think I'll do that after I get home from work tonight. Incidentally Vinnie I've picked my Dad's brain clean enough that I might be able to answer a lot of questions for you (and any that I can't I'll pass on to my dad). ::edit:: Just to tide you guys over till then, here's a photo of one of the planes which, according to his logbook, my Dad flew personally: TAF-9J BuNo. 141121

I thought it sits so low to the ground to increase maintainability. Everything I've read said that was done so that all access panels would be at chest height.

Whoa, what did your dad do? If he was with fixed-wing fast-movers, is there any chance I could use him as a technical consultant? 412312[/snapback] Fixed wing, yes. Fast mover, well... My dad ended up as an instructor for the bulk of his career in the Navy. Back in the late '60s someone got the idea to take pilots fresh out of flight school and make them instructors, the idea being that they'd empathize with the new recruits more. My dad jumped at the chance and spent most of his naval career as an advanced flight instructor in Louisiana. Most of his carrier time was spent qualifying or getting people qualified on the USS Lexington. As for consulting I'll ask him next time I talk to him. Hell if anything some of his stories could be thrown straight into the comic (my favorite is the one about flying to Vegas without enough oxygen).

I can't help but think of what my father says about how great it was to be a Naval aviator, because in his words "The whole Navy existed so that I could have a place to land!"

Compared to some of the design flaws I listed (which literally killed pilots) this is increadibly small. Consider it a benefit of pouring all that money into the thing, all we've gotten is a design flaw that makes it tough (but not impossible) to deploy to specific locations at specific times of day (it's not 120 degrees at night).

I did mean H. stabs. That'll show me for posting on three hours of sleep.

To be fair with the exception of the Middle East most of the locations you listed don't get over 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Hell the F-22 is long ranged enough that you might even be able to fly missions to the middle east from bases cold enough to deploy from (Diego Garcia maybe). While the problems I listed left aircraft completely unusable and worthless until the problems were fixed.

I started writing a fairly ranty post, but decided to throttle back.. so I'll just ask this, just to know: how many aircraft in the last few generations suffered from similar problems? 411569[/snapback] Define similar. While there isn't much precedent for teething trouble from the computer systems of most aircraft there's plenty of examples of big problems cropping up in aircraft after they're already in production. The F-100 Super Sabre had far too small of a vertical stab installed on the first hundred or so examples. They had to halt production and redesign the whole tail after a string of accidents. The F-14 Tomcat needed to have several reinforcements installed on its back because the area around the wing hinge ended up being too weak. The F-16 originally had vertical stabs that were far too small (although this didn't require that big of a re-design). The F/A-18 had a nasty problem where the vortices off of the LERXs could conceivably rip the tail fins off during high Alpha maneuvers, that grounded the entire fleet before it was fixed. And as much as I think it's a good plane you don't want to get me started on all the problems they had with the Super Hornet. I'm sure there's more examples out there.

Fair enough. Still this doesn't seem like an insurmountable problem, I joked about COTS, but it really does seem like some of the stuff your average overclocking computer builder uses could come in handy here. Why not incorporate some peltier chips in the new COTS computer modules that are supposed to be installed in '07? ::edit:: Better yet incorporate clock cycle throttling like on new CPUs. The F-22 Raptor, now with "Cool 'n' Quietâ„¢" technology from AMD!

Bah. This one's easy. COTS, just switch to Arctic Silver 5 and it'll lower your CPU temps by at least a few degrees C. In all seriousness why not just rig up a portable AC to blow cold air on the avionics bay while the aircraft is on the ground?

Could this be the F-22 problems that Knight26 refered to a couple pages back? Raptors getting hot under the collar

Man, PopSci just loves dubbing planes "switchblade" don't they.

B-2s, Hornets (both super and baby) Strike Eagles, Vipers and carriers? (You can see all of them in that picture although one of the Vipers seems to be having trouble keeping formation.)

"Download Hi-Res" read numbers. *smack forehead*. Thanks. Always wanted to compare supercarrier sizes across the classes. But the perspective might distort the relative size. Is it a camera effect or is there another reason why the carrier on the port side of the formation has much darker decks? Under a cloud? 409790[/snapback] The one on the right is the USS Reagan, it's the newest carrier in the fleet so it's deck hasn't had time to fade in the sun like the Lincoln and the Kitty Hawk.

I don't think the belly mounts could take the weight of the bigger fuel tanks. That and I think the shockwaves coming off of them at high speeds could cause problems that close to the fuselage.

I seem to remember a similar discussion like this occurring on F-16.net. Of course there you have a guy that actually flies an F-104 so the discussion went a little differently.

I met Lou Reed while working at a RadioShack in Boston, sold him some cables he needed for his concert that night. Later on when they shifted me to a store downtown I met General Wes Clark at a book signing during the Democratic National Convention. That same week I also spotted Hilary Clinton with fellow NY Senator Chuck Schumer, and Ben Affleck. A week later I saw Steven King leaving a book signing at the same store I met Gen. Clark. Since moving to SF the only person I've met is Bill Simmons, and had him sign a copy of his new book for my fiance (she a huge Red Sox fan and reads his column on ESPN.com religiously).

No he gets micloned in the original TV series. The stuff about macronizing himself again was made up to explain why he's full sized and has DYRL style pulsing brain and tentacle mods in M7.

Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for ze future of ze human race. Incidentally I think Renato might be remembering the back story for how Exsedol started looking like his DYRL version in M7. He was apparently worried about losing his mental capacities as a miclone so he macronised himself and added pulsing brain and tentacle mods.

My theory is that when dealing with a big business (like RadioShack or my office) UPS can't afford to piss them off or they'd go out of business, whereas if your some guy who gets maybe two deliveries a year from them you can go fart yourself. FedEx with their owner operated drivers on the other hand, are eager to make sure a package is marked as delivered, which for individuals means they go the extra mile to get it to you, but for businesses (like the RadioShack I ran) it means they try and trick you into signing for something even if they didn't deliver everything. Basically if I'm running a company I'll use UPS. If I'm trying to get my Yamatos shipped back to me in one piece I'll use FedEx (I've had good luck with USPS too).

When I get personal packages shipped to me UPS is far and away one of the worst shipping companies out there. I actually once had them claim that my house didn't exist! On the other hand Fed-Ex has always delivered my stuff in top condition. But here's the weird part: back when I was managing a RadioShack they switched from using various companies for shipping merchandise to the store to using Fed-Ex exclusively. The UPS guys were courteous professional and always delivered the correct number of boxes in impeccable condition, the Fed-Ex guy on the other hand was a complete jerk who regularly delivered my stuff in crushed boxes and always tried to rush me through counting the boxes because he would regularly short me by at least one box. In my new office I have a similar experience, the Fed-Ex guy is less of a jerk but the UPS guy is generally more friendly and professional. Despite all this UPS still totally reamed me trying to get a package delivered to my apartment last month.

Arrrg! DC-9s are so confusing! At least for a fighter guy like me. Three different names for various versions of the same plane. Don't even get me started on this whole "Super 800" nonsense.

Electric Boogaloo! One of my all-time favorite sub titles for a sequel, and I never have and never plan on seeing the movie itself.