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DOD Rejects Canceling Air Force Variant Of JSF, Expert Says Been following this on F-16.net. Aparently the F-35A came very close to being canceled in favor of the F-35C. Frankly that seemed like a good idea to me, there's not much (besides G-limits and a gun) that would disqualify the F-35C from flying in the AF. WHat's more interesting to me is that the AF is cutting it's ridiculously high 1700 plane JSF order down to a more resonable 1100 planes. (Why do we need more JSFs then we have F-16s?) More importantly they're extending Raptor production out to 2010 which they explain as a hedge against JSF failure but I imagine they might be stalling till new civilian leadership comes in that might be more sympathetic to buying useful aircraft.

That looks awfully good there Wicked Ace Did you put down a flat coat over the whole Valkyrie after you applied the future and decals? and if so see my question up at the top of the thread. I've used future in the past, but I've only ever dipped parts into it (and I've also used it on my floor). Would you recommend thinning it to paint or spray it on?

I'm definitely going to be playing with mine so that is a consideration (if I wasn't I might just apply Anasazi's decals directly, put a wash on and be done with it.) I'd love to hear from some people who've clear coated theirs on what kind of durability they got (and whether they used lacquer or an acrylic).

So I just bought a brand new 1/48 Millia VF-1J, my first 1/48, and of course it rocks! But I'm thinking that since I spent this much money on it why not have it in style and put Anasazi's water-slide decals and a light wash to pick out the panel lines. Now it's been a while since I did any modeling so I thought I would get a little advice. SO a couple of questions: Normally I'd lay down a clear gloss base coat so that the decals would adhere better, but the Yamato is so flat it's almost textured, can I get away with using some setting solution and applying the decals directly to the plastic? What's a good wash? I was planning on thinning some model master black acrylic, but would that be too dark? Should I put down a clear coat to seal everything in, and if so should I partially or fully disassemble the model first? How thick should it be if I wanted a satin finish (keeping in mind the aforementioned textured finish).

I assumed the VF-1s depicted in the TV series with RMS mounts (which almost exclusively apeared in episode 27) had the six hardpoints added in a last minute attempt to boost thier payload. I doubt they were even able to rotate with the wings (which wouldn't matter since they were using them in space). Later on (perhaps after a wing strengthening program) they moved to the more versatile MER system seen on the late block Vlakyries in DYRL.

It's not so much that they were to lazy it was more that ILM (who did the first season FX for TNG) hated the Constitution model. It wasn't built by them and thus didn't have the kind of access doors and mounts they normally try to build into their models. Even the gloss on flat paint scheme reeked havok with their bluescreen compositing techniques (which is why after STII it has a more uniform matte paint).

You know since you're not painting the boosters as they apear in the TV show, why bother puting the Yelow stripes on it? Why not put the DYRL red ones on put the DYRL style pilot figure in the cockpit and say it's some post DYRL continuity launch of Hikaru's fighter? You've already got a cool alternate color scheme going why not take it all the way?

Indeed. Why does it have a TAC badge on the tail?

Depends on wether you're watching on DVD or not. DVD players have widescreen settings so that they cut out the letterboxing and display all subtitles on screen, there are some really old DVDs that don't work but for the most part you shouldn't have a problem. Watching on TV or VHS is another matter, in those cases you occasionally get some subtitle cutoff if you're watching in zoom mode (I had that problem while watching Paranoia Agent and GiTS:SAC on Adult Swim) Generally it's not that bad though and only the bottom of the subtitles gets cutoff.

Actually the Grey colors that most US fighters fly in are design to reduce thier visibility in the air not on the ground, in fact I don't know of many aircraft camoflage schemes that are designed to primarily hide the planes on the ground. Back in the day of green and brown camo schemes the theory was that if they painted a plane the same as the ground planes coming from above wouldn't be able to see them, almost every one of those schemes features a blue or light grey underside so that the aircraft would blend in with the sky when viewed from below. It has since been found that the conventional wisdom is wrong and that those types of schemes do little to make an aircraft less visable, and if anything make them easier to spot and tell which direction they're going. Grey is the second best color you can paint a plane so that it blends in well with the rest of the sky either from above or below at medium altitudes (the best color is pink pastel but for some reason macho fighter jocks don't like flying around in pink planes). As more Air Forces modernize their paint schemes they to are moving towards blue or grey paintschemes (the RAF does actually paint thier fighters pink for certain missions).

Same here. Well, spanked. No mouth washing. Of course, it doesn't work on everyone. Spanking my sister only made things worse. She just got pissed. 335849[/snapback] Like I said I don't know if spanking needs to come into the equation just good old fashioned boundary setting. If I did something wrong I got sent to my room, no TV no Video games just myself alone in my room for at least a half hour. You don't need physical repercusions to get a child to understand something's wrong. I see too many parents who just don't do anything (spankings, grounding, whatever) to punish thier kids, they just think "that's my little angel" and let it go.

Industry says plans to sue to stop Calif. video game law Predictably the ESA is already suing to throw out this law. Most likely the courts will yet again decide to uphold the constitution rather than momentary hysteria.

Indeed that's why states like Massachusetts, New York and California have the lowest rates of Divorce, domestic violence, and teen pregnancy. No "family values." Well we have the MPAA (which sets movie ratings) and there's no government sanctions against letting minors into R rated movies, and haven't been for quite some time. Society hasn't collapsed from kids buying tickets to one movie and sneaking into the latest R rated blood fest. They must be hiding under a rock cosidering all the "training killers" style press video games get. People have always found some scapegoat to blame thier crap parenting on. In the '50s and '60s it was comic books, in the '70s and '80s Heavy Metal and Rap music, now it's video games. Parents are always going to try to find something other than themselves to blame after they let little Johnny get away with one to many things, but it always comes back to them, they're the ones who set the rules they're the ones who determine what thier own kids can get away with. Frankly corporal punishment doesn't have to be a part of that, just setting boundaries (my parents never beat me they just made sure that I knew I couldn't get away with pulling any poo).

I've always prefered the TV version of the Macross to the DYRL version, and this has got to be the closest thing to a perfect TV Macross that I have ever seen. You really capture the softness and sleekness the TV version had, which is why I prefer it to the clunkier DYRL version. I'm really at a loss for words to describe how increadible that thing is. Good Job! (PS: any chance you'll attach a Deadelus and Prometheus to it even though that doesn't happen in the first episode?)

The only one that I can think of is Ramble On which isn't really about LOTR but does have a reference to it in the last verse Also my favorite song Led Zeppelin song Kashmir is I think a Dune reference (it's been a while since I listened to the song).

THANK GOD!!! I thought I was going insane because no one else noticed that those pictures looks odd. They even published them un-fixed in the latest issue of Combat Aircraft!

IIRC the F414 is actually quite a bit larger than the 404 (which is why it can't be retrofited to baby Hornets). The F135 might be able to be squeezed into the Rhino's engine bays but it is a foot or two longer than the 414 so that might not work without a fuselage plug. The Eurofighter's engine is already a few thousand pounds more powerful than the F414 and almost exactly the same size, if the Europeans can follow through on the promised improvements (even more thrust and TVC) they could turn the Super Hornet into one hell of an impressive fighter.

MYTH: Misa/Lisa was the XO of the Macross/SDF-1. FACT: Misa was only Tactical coordinator of the Macross' air group, and in fact she was outranked by Claudia at the begining of the series. Given the fact that he assumed command when Global went to Alaska with Misa it's more likely that Colonel Maistrof is the Macross' First Officer. SOURCE: Robotech would be easy to blame but it's never implied there any more than it is in the original Macross. Honestly I think it might be Star Trek's fault for giving people the impression that the XO of a ship is at the captain's side on the bridge at all times (or that all senior officers are stationed on the bridge at the same time), that and the fact that Misa got promoted to captain of the Megaroad at the end of the series.

Starship Troopers, Comando, The Punisher (the latest one), Batman and Robin, Underworld. Those are just the ones that I can think of off the otp of my head, I think getting a degree in Film has just made me apreciate bad movies that much more.

As soon as I posted that I realized that wasn't the term for it. Thanks for catching that. It is odd that given how good the stripe looks further up on the nose of a Rhino, more and more squadrons are puting it so far back. Maybe it's Boeing doing it (though you'd think they'd know too since they put a nice diagonal stripe on the nose of the Growler Hornet demo bird)

I just can not understand why squadrons keep running the vagabond stripe right behind the roundel. It just looks wrong going through the LERX, it looks wrong on the Jolly Rodgers and it looks wrong on the Pukin Dogs, the Bounty Hunters and the Diamondbacks got that, why can't they?

The mock up shown is some wierd amalgam of all JSF versions (similar to the X-35). In actuallyity all but one F-35 version will have pretty good rear visibility. Only the F-35B (the USMC/RAF version) will have it's canopy truncated to make room for a lift fan, and since it's main purpose will be CAS and not dogfighting that shouldn't be a problem.

That's a point I hadn't thought of Graham. I was thinking along the lines of the FBW software beingtweaked to smooth out some of the YF-19s more troublesome aerodynamic tendancies, but it's also possible that the software code itself might have led to more than a few acidents. This seems to be happening already with some newer FBW aircraft (on the YF-23's first flight the FBW system tried desperately to compensate for the bumps and dips the plane hit while taxing to the runway, and the second YF-22 prototype was felled by a software glitch that sent it porpoising into the ground), and I have to think the YF-19 has to have something even more complex.

I'm always anoyed by the assumption that because the prototype was hard to fly or crashed a lot that the end result will be as well. The whole point of building a prototype and testing it with experienced piolots is to find out where you can push a machine to and not get killed, the fact that some people were killed while doing it is not surprising, prototype aircraft do that sometimes. As hellohikaru pointed out it's pretty easy to program the flight controll system to keep a green pilot out of a situation that killed an experienced one. If anything the fact that the YF-21 went through the compettion without any accidents might show an overabundacne of caution on General Galaxie's part. They never tried to pushed their VF past its limits and thus never really showed its full potential. Especially when your submiting such a radical design it's a good idea to do that. Actually that's just one more parralell with the real life ATF competion: one competitor submited a pretty conventional design, (the YF-22) but tested the hell out of it, (high angle of attack maneuvering missile firing tests) while the other submited a radical new design, (the YF-23) but didn't do as much heavy testing on it.

but the Wolfpack were famous in their own right though.... Which is why I imagine that skull squadrons markings are more of a cross between VF-1's and VF-84's rather than the complete and utter anhilation of the previous squadron's tradtions like we saw in real life.