JediMaster

The MiG-21 is one of the most widely produced and used light fighters of all time. Some variants got heavy during the end of the run, but lots of them are still in service despite being almost 2 decades older than the F-16.

That program is still underway. It will be quite awhile before they're all converted.

I tried the early stuff but the acting was too poor for me to bear it. I see the SFX are indeed quite good now, but I like good actors.

No...internet... Sorry, I see the words there, but they don't seem to form an idea that makes any sense. There WAS internet...it existed, I recall using it...your facts are uncoordinated...error...error...analyze...error...

The global meltdown can be directly traced to the dot com-meltdown at the end of the last century, but I'm not sure what that one can be pinned on. When the dot com bubble burst, with worthless yet overpriced stocks suddenly seen as truly worthless, things went into free fall that led to the 2001 recession. That began on 3/2001, BTW, well before 9/11. In fact, I believe economists see 11/2001 as the end of the recession itself, although the next couple of years recovery was slow. That's when the real estate bubble started, around 2003, when the Fed lowered interest rates so much that the only investment that was worthwhile was land. So everyone started buying it and then selling it again real fast to make money, and next thing you know MY house tripled in value in just 3 years! Of course that couldn't last, especially with banks making bad loans then selling them off so as to not have to be responsible for them, and that led to what has happened in the last couple of years. So, what caused the dot com bubble? Why was so much money invested into companies that offered nothing but ideas with no practical way of making money off them? Why was there so much money that people were trying to invest in anyone with a website, a catchy name, and a neat theory? I think the only things that successfully emerged from that time is ebay, PayPal, and Amazon. Everything else came later or is based on established companies that merely took their business online as well.

Well, we did so well with the War on Drugs, what were you expecting from this one? The difference is this time we've got a lot more people and money invested, and lost.

BTW, to return to the original start of the thread, the shot down Japanese pilot was played by a Korean actor, as often happens in Hollywood. Soon Tek Oh has also been in many other things over the years, including playing an alien on Babylon 5 (the Mutai!), a Mongolian in Stargate SG-1, a Chinese cop in Man with the Golden Gun, and a North Vietnamese general in a few episodes of Magnum P.I.

I'm looking askance at both of you right now... How could you conceivably be gone that long?? I'm now looking even MORE askance...

There's an old movie called The Starfighters which consists of 50% lame acting and 50% F-104s flying in formation and mid-air refueling to horrid music. It was done on MST3K 15 years ago or so which is the only way to watch it.

Were you out looking for Whiskey?

Ah yes, ST:TOS "City on the Edge of Forever." McCoy prevents a woman from dying, her peace movement delays US entry into WWII, which rages on for over 2 decades, eventually changing the future enough that the Federation isn't formed. Kirk and Spock go back to get McCoy and make sure the woman dies...even though Kirk falls in love her.

Yeah, a lot of the so-called "leaders" here in fact do think like that exactly. Which side of the aisle they sit on merely serves to alter WHAT the other countries are to be grateful for and what tack to take if they're not. That EP-3 didn't overfly Hainan, BTW, because it doesn't have to. It can fly well offshore and still monitor things, so they sent up fighters to try and get it to fly farther away with disastrous results.

Time travel paradoxes are one reason why some scientists think time travel (backwards, that is) is impossible. A separate school says paradoxes themselves are impossible because you will somehow always be prevented from changing things. The remake of the Time Machine, where he builds it to prevent his fiance's murder but instead witnesses her dying 100 different ways, is an example of this...since her death was the impetus for him to build the time machine, if she doesn't die he never devotes the time to create it, hence he can't go back and save her. So try to kill your own grandfather and you would be unable to, maybe you can't find him, maybe you get killed yourself, whatever.

I haven't played it in years, not sure if I still have the CD even!

If you hadn't heard, they took Il-2, revamped the graphics and simplified things for the console and called it Birds of Prey. Then all those changes were back-ported to the PC and they called it Wings of Prey. I can't say anything else about it as I've not tried the PC version, although I played the BoP demo on my 360 where I found the gamepad just doesn't work right for flying in "sim" mode, it's not a stick! The arcade mode flies fine, though.

In other words, you can move your head more and quicker without it losing tracking over the 4. That said, I've had a 4 almost since its release and I've never had an issue with the refresh rate. On occasion I've moved my head out of the tracking area, but it's brief and easily correctable. I think the only reason to get the 5 over the 4 is if A) money isn't a concern and B) you're the type that wants the best there is. While the TIR3 really wasn't as good as the 4, I think the 4 fits in the "good enough" category.

I guess they're going to stick with the A model. I've heard rumbling about an updated C-17B with extra gear bogies in the center and enhanced short/rough field performance, along with the obligatory avionics/cockpit updates. An order for 10 planes would theoretically be enough to start such a program, but this doesn't mention it.

Just remember this...the P-3 has shot down more fighters in the last decade than most nations' entire air forces.

RSR was a fun read, however it isn't "filmable." Any screenplay would require massive work, such that it would say "based on the novel" as opposed to "adapted from" because there is NO way to adapt it. There's no lead character for one! The USAF guy on Iceland is the closest they get, but even that is stretching it. It's more an interwoven series of vignettes covering this war from various spots. Most of the characters never even meet!

I always pick the plane first before I choose the rest. I also have no qualms about flying for another country, as long as it's accurate that is. I don't want to fly a USN Su-33, for example, or a Soviet Harrier. I know some people have a strong nat'l bias when it comes to flight sims that I can't wrap my head around, but that's the way they are.

I think we've had a lot of interest disappear along with splintering and patch-fixing malaise. When FE2 comes out I foresee a LOT of angst over getting FE mods ported. There's no doubt the "golden age" of a few years ago when we were getting new planes all the time is over, unfortunately. While I have a ton of mods for my SF2 installs, they're a pale shadow compared to how many SF1-era mods I had. That said, I think I spend more time with the stock planes than the modded ones by and large since we've got quite a few planes in the stable now. I'm eager to see what comes next, certainly.

That reminds me of a missed opportunity for Mace Windu's dialogue in the SW prequels. "I am sick and tired of these MF'ing Sith!" Sum of All Fears was a great Cold War book, but the film was updated away from that, unfortunately. I still maintain Cardinal of the Kremlin was the best Cold War film that was never made.

Considering how impossible it is to make out the ground targets from altitude in the game, I've got no problem with ground target labels. The graphics just aren't good enough to allow for anything "real" there. In air-air missions, your radar and AWACS and wingmen should allow you to leave them off. In Il-2, for example, I find the labels less necessary because the graphics allow visual detection at a useful range!

I have a separate SF2E-only install at June 09 patch levels for NF4+. I probably should've done that for SF2V and the A&G Expansion for it, but too late now! We got used to the nice 2 year gap between the summer 06 and late 08 patches for SF1x series games, but TK is back to more regular updates and that always leads to mod issues with updates/releases. Separate installs is the best way for mods!

Small/disadvantaged businesses. Basically a form of contracting welfare. Big companies win contracts and then the gov't insists a certain percentage (I think in my company's case it's 15%) of the business must be subcontracted out to SDBs. Could our company do that same work quicker, for less, and with greater effect? Undoubtedly, but it's not our call. The gov't passed a law to make sure these small companies get a piece of the gov't contracting pie.