Nied

Just to help everyone visualize this I did some quickie color schemes in photoshop of the schemes I was talking about earlier. Personally I'm starting to lean towards the first TPS scheme but that Hill scheme looks pretty good too.

Replace those skulls on the fins with a playboy bunny and you've got one hell of a Vandy-1 Valk!

The original Low viz had a paint job that was based heavily on the USAF Compas Ghost or Mod Eagle schemes that you see F-15s in (the F-22 has a similar scheme that uses slightly different colors, this has also been applied to select F-117s). I would love to see the new version in the Hill or the more complex Egypt One scheme worn by F-16s The other way to go is the classic Tactical paint scheme worn up until very recently by US Navy Tomcats (and everything else in the USN too): ANd just for variation's sake I've always had a soft spot for the Harrier version of the TPS scheme: You can go here for more schemes.

No. 13 looks to be an SR-71 engine on the left, an Aerospike engine in the center, I'm not sure what's on the right X-33 wing component maybe? Actually what's been giving me the hardest time is the fuselage in the background, at first I thought it was a SUD Caravelle because of the windows (which would be kind of odd to see at edwards) but the tail is all wrong.

"Rifle" actually reafers to the fireing of an AGM like a maverick. "Magnum" is the call for fireing a HARM missile ("shotgun" is used for all other Anti-Radiation missiles) OPERATIONAL BREVITY WORDS AND TERMINOLOGY

Awesome! That's almost exactly how I imagined a Sundowners VF-1 would look (in both fighter and Batroid mode). Nice job on the weathering too.

I didn't know the SDB had a seeker head on it. I always thought it was a tiny JDAM with wings. What kind of seeker does it have? Laser, IIR, millimeter wave radar, or "If I told you I'd have to kill you."

So I've been reading through the new F-22 book I got for Christmas (titled simply "Lockheed Martin F/A-22 Raptor" by Jay Miller), and it's gotten me thinking about the possibilities for the F-22 beyond being an uber air dominance fighter. For instance the Small Diameter Bomb: current plans call for it to carry 8 in the belly bays, but looking at the pictures of them loaded in it looks like it could carry at least another two in each bay and maybe even another pallet of four, that makes it 16 SDBs (but only Sidewinders for self defense). But wait there's more: most of the plans for the FB-22 that I've seen call for it to carry two or three SDBs in the sidewinder bays, those same plans currently call for the FB-22 to use the same fuselage as the vanilla F-22, I can't imagine a reason why that same modification couldn't be rolled back in to the legacy aircraft. All of the sudden the F-22 makes a pretty good CAS platform, with 14-22 SDBs it could dump bombs out of its bays B-52 style only, only since it's carrying them internally it's completely stealthy so it can be doing this on the first day of war, and it's can get to a trouble spot at twice the speed of sound. If air threats have been cleaned up and stealth isn't a necessity any more you could hang another 16 SDBs under the wings as well. And as long as we're talking about FB-22 mods being rolled back into the F-22, does anyone know what could keep Lockheed from putting the FB-22's bulged weapons bay doors on the F-22? A lot of hay has been made about how it would give the FB-22 the ability to carry 2,000 lb bombs in the bay, but it hasn't been mentioned that the JSOW glide bomb has almost identical dimensions. A pair of those would make the DEAD mission I described above even more effective, the F-22s could release their weapons much further away and would probably need to jam the radars for a second or two to keep the S-300 from getting a lock on the JSOW (although they are stealthy as well so that might not even be necessary).

Newer Super Hornets have an AESA radar (the APG-79) that's a lower powered derivative of the APG-77 in the Raptor, so it should have similar capabilities (this is also why it should make an excellent jamming platform). AFAIK the Mirage 2000 (the latest mirage variant) has an old fashioned mechanically steered radar and thus wouldn't be able to do this. In fact, other than the F-22, the F/A-18E/F, and a handful of F-15Cs, I don't think that there are any other operational AESA radars in service (and all of those are from the US).

I'd imagine a Raptor or JSF would have to get pretty close to actually do damage to another radar (earlier reports said only the Raptor would be able to do this, and only after being upgraded with extra "Cheek" antenna). I do think that AESA radars can be very effective jammers in many circumstances, especially when mounted on a stealth platform. In fact I think the combo of stealth speed and the APG-77 radar will make the F-22 one of the most deadly SEAD/DEAD platforms on the face of the planet. Imagine if you will: A pair of F-22As move in to the FEBA (Forward Edge of Battle Area) at mach 1.5 with four SDBs and four AMRAAMs in their bellies (plus two AIM-9X Super Sidewinders in their side bays). Their radars are in passive mode, acting as some of the most sensitive RWRs to be mounted on a fighter plane, with it they can pick up the radar of an S-300 SAM system, its enormous range held in check by a pair of F/A-18G growlers orbiting several hundred Kilometers away. The Raptors fly gentle S curves so that they can triangulate the range of the massive BILL BOARD tracking radar for the S-300, combined with the ESM sensors on board the data linked Growlers the F-22s begin to build a picture of the exact location of the radar. At this point the lead raptor sets its radar into transmit mode, going into LPI ground mode it fixes the exact position of the radar, while it's wingman remains in passive mode keeping an eye on the pair of J-10s flying CAP 300 km inside the enemy border, the two update each other using their datalinks so that both have the exact same information. The Raptors then move in for the kill, the two aircraft split up and move in from two different directions, the lead ship focuses it's radar into a tight beam completely blinding the S-300, while the second Raptor, still in passive mode goes to full afterburner. It accelerates to Mach 1.8, drops two SDBs and turns toward the now alerted J-10s. The lead ship drops two SDBs of its own and then throttles back so that it can continue jamming the S-300 so that it is unable to target shoot down the four SDBs speeding toward it at well past the speed of sound (it does have that capability). At the last minute it turns and breaks away, the S-300 can see everything now the four glide bombs and even a weak return from the lead Raptor, but its too late, the bombs are only a second away. The first two SDBs land within meters of the tracking radar assembly spraying the antenna and command station with shrapnel, instantly disabling it. One of the second pair of bombs scores a direct hit vaporising the high powered radar antenna. The lead ship then turns to join it's wingman firing off a pair of AMRAAMs at the two pursuing J-10s before speeding off behind the curtain of jamming.

Because the F136 is one of two engines being developed for the JSF, the other being the more mature (but less advanced) F135 from P&W.

Well it looks like my comment on the last page about the F120 living on as the F136 may have been premature. The DoD is trying to axe the F136 program to save costs (this despite the fact that the F136 might just become the greatest fighter engine ever). This could be another blow to the JSF program. With Rolls Royce's 40% work share in the F136 this is a real blow to the UK's involvement, and an even bigger symbolic blow considering the problems the Brits have had with technology transfer issues. This comes on top of the news that Australia is also getting cold feet on the JSF over the same technology transfer issues. They're the two biggest partners in the JSF program and they're backing away, that's very bad news indeed. In other news it looks like the Air Force is pretty desperate to get a decent number of F-22s. They're talking about axing a number of programs to pay for the full 277 fighter that they wanted. They want to get rid of the F-117 (good idea, the F-22 carries a similar bomb load but is stealthier faster and can carry A-A missiles for self defense), half the fleet of B-52s (neutral, modern PGMs and ALCMs have been force multipliers for the B-52 fleet, but it never hurts to have more), and kill the U-2 (bad idea, the Global Hawk really isn't ready to take over for the Dragon Lady, and wont be for several years, and even then I don't think it will be a proper replacement).

Well I gues driving a robot with a mouth on it's chest is slightly better... Several years ago I made a VF-1A in euro-1 camo with flying tigers markings. On that one I painted the shark mouth on the head in batroid mode. I always thought that would work well.

I thought you might like that. I actually have a whole history of the Sundowners in UN Spacy service mapped out in my head, from the VF-1 to the VF-22. If I ever get around to doing a VF-1, I thought I'd put a shark mouth on it with a note that it was removed fairly early on because to quote one pilot "no one wants to drive a robot with a mouth on it's crotch."

I had heard speculation that the RAF may pull the radars out of retiring Shars and plug them into the nose of the GR.9, turning it into something very similar to the AV-8B+ (only with a more powerful Blue Vixen Radar instead of the APG-65).

Naval ATF anyone? 358240[/snapback] Too expensive, especially when you consider that the Super Hornet is being purchased for the role originally envisioned for the NATF. Besides which the F-22 would be too expensive. If the F-35 is canceled, the only option I could think of would be to up the number of Super Hornets purchased, and rush development of Naval UCAVs. That might work out in the end but I don't like putting that much trust in unmanned aircraft this early in the game.

Well the French already have the Super Etendard as their current strike plane. I think the plan may be to replace them with strike optimised Rafale Ns, with the single seat Rafale Ms as the air superiority component. I suppose the Brits could do the same thing with Sea Typhoons (or some kind of combo of Sea Typhoons and Rafales).

And now the two blanks I promised almost three years ago (hellohikaru will be happy about this). I had to put them in a .zip file because they were too big to post otherwise. All are free to use them I just ask that you give me credit for the original blank. Here they are, the VF-11B and C with FAST packs: VF_11FP.zip

Agreed.

I've been thinking more and more that if the F-35 survives they should just kill the A and B models and give all three US services the C model (with a few modifications like higher G loadings and maybe an internal gun). This keeps well with the whole "super-SLUF" theory of the JSF. Honestly the JSF looks like it might just go down in flames at this point. Which will be good for the F-22 but bad for just about everyone else (I guess the Marines could purchase Super Hornets, but I don't know what the heck the Navy is going to do).

Well I think that's just the point, you wouldn't see any of those modern fighters or a Valkyrie painted up like Japanese Zeros, USAAF P-51 mustangs, or RAF Spitfires either, but he has Valkyries painted up like every one of those on that site. I don't think that he's intending to portray "real" in service Valkyries with the UN Spacy (note that most of those schemes feature the original national insignia from those WWII fighters not the UN Spacy "fighting kite"), just a fun "this is what a Valkyrie looks like painted like a Messerschmitt" (or Zero, or Mustang, or Spitfire) sort of thing.

Beat me to it. God damn now I really need to upgrade my system, first Lost Coast and now the prospect of MSFS with high resolution textures and HDR lighting? My wallet's about to get pretty thin.

Trust me I am quite familiar with German Expressionist film (you left out Nosferatu BTW), and Noir. Indeed that's why I'm agnostic about Decker's narration, instead of angry at it's inclusion, It fits with the whole detective film Noir theme the movie has going, it's just Harrison Ford does such a bad job that it takes away almost as much as it adds. My problem with Blade Runner isn't that it's dark, or it's characters it's that (in the director's cut at least) it's pacing is plodding at best. A better editing job would have done that movie wonders. As for the ending I definitely prefer the directors cut version in that regard, it fits better with the Philip K Dick tradition of ambiguous endings better (and would work even better without the Unicorn sequence). Honestly there's only one movie based on his works that really got that ambiguity right and that was Total Recall (and it over did it a bit by hitting you over the head with Arnold's "what if I'm still dreaming?" line).

That was the idea: The story I heard is that during the production of Psycho Hitchcock bragged that he was such a good director he could make anything scary, to which someone replied to by pointing at a nearby sparrow and saying "Oh yeah Al then make a scary bird movie," and the rest is history. I don't know if that's apocryphal or not but it's a pretty funny story.

What about Vertigo?