JediMaster

The problem is your max speed at sea level is far less due to the thicker atmosphere, and your range drops correspondingly. Plus the SR-71 is no agile bird, so if you have to maneuver around terrain or buildings or whatever, you need a LOT of room.

My guess is the need to carry a certain payload (mix of AAMs and ASMs/bombs or long-range AAMs) internally dictated certain sized payload bays. They then specified a certain performance for speed/altitude and unrefueled range. Then you have to build a plane around that. A long-range stealthy missile/bomb carrier would quite easily be that size.

HP's site should have the beep codes/error codes for your model to tell you exactly what you're hearing. Another trick is to disconnect everything that's not needed to boot just to see what happens...ie disconnect mouse, KB, HDD, all of that, just leave mobo w/RAM and CPU, video card, and monitor. You should go from the main splash screen to a screen with an error about how it cant boot. If it doesn't do that and keeps beeping, you know the problem is either the CPU, RAM, mobo, or PSU (it could be giving out insufficient power).

Didn't TK once make a comment along the lines that the reason the A-6A was dropped from SF2:V (after being in WOV) was he felt a pure ground-attack plane (especially one with no gun) didn't "offer enough gameplay"? He seems to pick planes that are either AA only or more usually capable of being fighter-bombers. AI-only are a different issue, of course. In other words, if you offer planes that can "do it all" you don't need as many in the game for people to feel like they're getting something good ie 3 multirole planes = 3 AA-only + 3 AG-only as far as gameplay value but costs only 1/2 to make.

I'm wondering if the issue is that since TK is a one-man show, he can't stop to learn or read up on too much of anything...he has to spend all his time actually coding in order to get the releases out that fund him. He does what he knows works and just avoids what doesn't (like the trees vs low clouds thing) in the game he makes and if modders go "outside the envelope" that's not his problem.

Hard to say, as the YF-23 was only seen next to the YF-22 IIRC and that's not the same size as the F-22. Of course, a notional F-23A might have been smaller for all we know.

Don't forget, we capped the F-22 so we could concentrate on the F-35! Oh, we're going to cut back on the F-35 now too because, well, no one else is less than 20 yrs away from fielding a stealth plane right? Oh, hi T-50. Oh, hi J-20. Politicians. Too bad it's illegal to assassinate them.

After all, they didn't shoot down that old puke in his Cessna when he flew right past Bush's re-election rally here in 2004. His plane was no more than a mile from the stadium and all he got was a buzzed by F-16s popping flares. He was of course following I-95 as he flew, and shooting him down could've caused a massive wreck and who knows how many deaths on the road. If he'd turned toward the stadium, I think they would've, but his VFR "follow the I-95" behavior led to him just getting herded to Merritt Island airport and a serious chewing out by DHS, FBI, and who knows who else. The FAA might've said a couple of words, too!

Another couple of observations: One, we're getting closer to seeing someone actually build a Firefox! Two, those main gear doors are HUGE and hangs very low to the ground when open. I mean, I can see the tire itself is a large diameter, but they then have a single door covering that space instead of the more standard split to keep the size down...I think if you left the gear down you could easily have someone sit in there on either side than jump out for a parachute landing! I don't see any linkage in the way to block the door being shut while the gear is extended, like many other planes do. In fact, the surface area of those open doors appears to match or exceed the ventral fins under the booms! I'm thinking that would have to affect crosswind response, effectively having extra ventral fins just forward of the CoG... Well, word around the web is this is the J-20. That's fine. They also say NATO calls it Firefang. I am not kidding. They picked that stupid name. I mean, Firefox references aside, FireFANG??! *imagines Terry Gilliam in a red hood in the cockpit* Flight Cmdr Fang! Fire...the comfy missiles!!

No, I think they were watching his course and behavior and took a wait-and-see attitude. If he was shot down in the wrong place it could cause MORE damage than any he might have hoped to make in a kamikaze crash. Instead they watched him like a hawk and pounced after he was down.

I'll say one thing about it, it's BIG. A lot bigger than an F-22. Maybe bigger than the T-50 which is bigger by the F-22 than a noticeable amoutn. That gives me pause in how good a dogfighter it could be. It looks like it will fly fast, high, and far, though. I'd also say it was optimized for front-hemisphere stealth and rear-aspect stealth was left by the wayside.

Personally I'm torn between the 17 and 21. I think I'll say 21 though because the huge number of variants for that plane can then all be based on the stock one and the 17 only had a handful of variants. I also would love a Flogger, but I can keep enjoying the mods for now!

Mostly all caps is a headache to read! It's better to use all lower-case and just skip the capitals altogether than to use all caps.

Remember this is a graphically-updated Il-2-engined game. It uses the same basic underlying code. I think it's agreed the FMs aren't as accurate, they're simplified for console consumption (and then it was back-ported to the PC), but the game is seen as a good time. If you like, you could say WoP is the Star Wars to Il-2's 2001. Both good in their own way, but not specifically appealing to the same audiences.

I take it you need the netbook plugged in, though, correct? On batteries it probably down clocks too much?

If you want to talk bizarre, I know a lefty who has never owned a HOTAS because he uses his left hand to fly the stick...but he uses the mouse/kb setup righty! His explanation is when he first started using computers 20 yrs ago the mouse was always on the right side and set up righty (he didn't have a PC himself, he was using the ones at school and such) and that's just how he learned. When I point out that real jets don't come "lefty" and that there are plenty of left-handed pilots he just says "I don't want to have to take the time to learn", even though from what I hear it takes most lefties at most a month to learn to fly right-handed. He's been flying PC sims for almost 20 yrs but never bothered to take a month (even when he spent several months unemployed) to learn it. Even though it would give him a far wider range of possibilities when it comes to sticks! Let's face it, using a lefty mouse and keyboard with the right hand is simple, but he went ahead and learned to do it righty. I'm right handed but I can use a mouse lefty! Not gaming, I've never done that, but I can navigated the internet and use MS Office and such just fine. His first stick was the TM FCS back when. It wasn't lefty, he just had that button half way up the stick sitting in the center of his palm and he had to pretty much take his hand off to press it. He now uses the Saitek Evo too I think.

You can just make that Scooby Doo "???" noise and be quite accurate!

I volunteer to do the skins!

I got the flu and 102.5F fever. Just what I wanted!

Maybe it's me, I just find any airliner-based military plane a total bore. It's like the plane you flew to see grandma in...with a hose hanging out the back and grey paint! Ooooh!! No wait, this one has a radar that spins!! Call me old fashioned, I just prefer my military planes to be designed as military planes, not just converted COTS designs which tend to cost just as much in the long run anyway. I still can't believe the P-7 wouldn't have been a better plane than the P-8, black boxes notwithstanding as you get whatever the current state is and the P-7 would've had older stuff because it would've been around 10 yrs ago.

Matt Wagner is still around on the lockon/DCS boards at lockon.ru.

Unrealistic =! cheating. The point is you're trading one unrealistic aspect for another, neither is "cheating". I have never done that "aerial recce" thing, but I just use the HUD box once I'm in range of the target area. So if you want to claim unrealistic method "A" is superior to unrealistic method "B" via some justification or other, fine...that doesn't mean it is though! I always found the no external views/cockpit always on/no targeting box/no padlock uber-realism zealots to be tiring because they're justifying the harder level of difficulty they play at as being more "real" while failing to acknowledge how unreal sitting in front of an LCD monitor in a stable chair in your house is in the first place. I mean, no one will claim driving on the PC is like driving a real car, all you have to do is do both once to see that. So again, do what you feel like doing because no one has any right to judge you for playing it on uber-easy or uber-hard. The only things that matter are things that can affect the way the game works ie many 3rd party planes being designed for the "normal" FM because the hard one didn't seem right or had problems or whatever. BTW...you'll notice TK didn't label any setting as "realistic", they're just "hard"...I think he's telling you right there that hard =! realistic in his games.

So it sounds like in order to play with the HUD on hard you have to rely on blatantly unrealistic methods like "Otto the autopilot" and external target-player camera views. Or you can just set it at "normal" and pretend that's your own ability to ID the target on the ground (something real pilots have done for decades without using an autopilot to steer them automatically or an impossible external view) and leave it at that! It's not like having the HUD on hard gets you anything.

Weddings cost too much, and they usually get divorced later anyway, which costs more yet again! They should be forbidden to marry on cost grounds!

I grew up watching that show! Ron Glass long before his Firefly days, and of course Abe Vigoda as Fish!