JediMaster

You tend to have higher attrition, possibly higher loss of pilots, and at a minimum more wear and tear on your airframes. Imagine how many F-15s might have been lost by now if they'd been flown like that?? That reminds me, any word on what the IDF/AF might have found with their fleet of F-15s as far as cracks or mis-manufactured longerons? The USAF isn't the only one with F-15s built in those years! Saudis and Japanese have them, too, although I think Japan built most of theirs...not sure how much of the work was done there of course. Might have used McD-supplied parts for some areas like that.

It's by whoever does the accounting and for whatever agenda they're pushing! Usually the unit cost is called "flyaway" costs and is nothing beyond parts and labor to make one plane. I believe I saw the F-22A's "flyaway" cost was $141 million last year when LockMart signed a contract with the USAF for a single extra F-22 for some reason or other. Of course, usually there's a discount when you buy more than a few, but as multi year, multi unit contracts are already in place, adding just one plane isn't going to affect things much. In this case, I have no idea how they arrive at that number. At a minimum it's for the cost of the planes. Is upgrading/refurb included? I'd guess. Parts and spares? Maybe. Armament to go with them? Possibly. Training, simulators? Who knows? Lifecycle costs for the amount of time they're expected to stay in service? Another possibility. That's why I've always laughed at quoted numbers for planes like the B-2 and F-22. When you have a small number of planes and you decide to put not only the cost of procurement but all those other things I mentioned PLUS EMD testing PLUS the original R&D and then divide by the number of planes bought, of course the B-2 shows up as billions per plane! In reality, I think to build one from scratch costs about as much as 2 1/2 large airplanes like C-17s, which really isn't that bad a deal.

When they start to fly under the ship is when we should worry.

My wife's b-day is the week before Xmas, so after our like 3rd year together she stopped caring about a separate gift and instead it's just cards and usually dinner. This year we're going out Sunday night, though, because the Melting Pot, where we wanted to go, changed their menu on V-day so instead of it being $70 a couple it was $105!! For a smaller fixed menu! No thanks...

You'll never get me on a transatlantic flight, let alone transpacific! Now if it's a suborbital shot that does it in an hour, fine, otherwise...

They probably would be better off with F-16s, but my guess is the Kfirs are cheaper so they can buy more.

Yes, but there aren't a lot of pics of it! The volcanic landscape is what makes it unique. I had some pics of some Tornados there, but they were pretty blurry and crappy. I just hope I don't have to go there! One of the techs I work with took this pic because he volunteered to go there for 3 weeks while the other came out for vacation. I NEVER want to go. A 12 hr flight with another 3 hr leg? Ugh. I can barely stand to fly to Vegas from Atlanta, and that's less than 4 on a MUCH nicer plane. Stupid DC-8s.

I think that's why the F-16 and Hornet are so popular with sims...they do it all, plus are single seaters (or at least aren't only dual seaters). You make one plane and a minimum of fuss.

Yeah, from the voting it seems 3 out of 4 want MP of some type. I do think the differentiation between basic and advanced is confusing, though. I didn't consider the TW sims now as "basic" because the way it was worded I thought of Jane's F-15. "Advanced" as worded, to me, was the way TW sims are now. However, if the intention is that TW's are basic and sims like LOMAC are "advanced" with F4 and Il-2 being pretty much in the "ultimate" category, then I think some people might revise their vote.

I'd like a good Viggen or Draken as well, but realistically I don't think it would generate enough sales. As one plane out of many in a survey sim, yes, but not as THE focus. Ditto the CF-105. I mean, a LOT of sales in Canada is still relative...they only have 10% of the US' population, so a LOT there is still 10% of a LOT here. Selling 100k games there is like selling a million here.

Anything less than 1 GB of RAM on WinXP will slow you down. 1.5GB is the "sweet spot" as few things need more than that. However, if you use something that does often, going to 2GB will be beneficial. When I first went to 2GB, I rarely broke 1.5GB used. Nowadays, though, I not only use 2GB I've on occasion used MORE than that on games like Company of Heroes if I have the detail turned up high. I've since decided to lower that terrain detail to use less RAM and not hit the swapfile. The difference in the image is really minimal but the performance change is staggering.

I'd just like to know what countries gov'ts are UNAWARE of those details by this point. While tactics to counter them being classified makes sense, I think it would be pretty stupid of any country still using SA-2s to think that Western nations don't know everything about them at this point! Kind of like parts of the F-16s flight modeling being classified when Venezuela has them. Who exactly doesn't have that info now? Only the people. It's one of these "we know, and they know we know, and we know they know we know, but we're going to act like we don't and they're going to act like they don't know we know."

If the J-10 is better than the F-16, Mirages, and MiGs it should be proud, since no previous Chinese fighter was even close. To say it's better than other planes that have also just entered service by companies with far more experience is silly.

I wonder if this will be the true successor finally to Desert Combat. I played a ton of DC. I played the BF2 demo for about an hour and never played it again.

Wow. I guess PC games are a far bigger business there than console games! If you can find the original KOTOR, it's a great game. So was JK: Jedi Outcast, although it doesn't have the ability to use dual sabers or a dual-bladed one like Jedi Academy added. The only one I have installed on my PC right now is Empire at War and the Forces of Corruption add on. A fun game, although it has its issues.

Interesting to note how much has been fixed and remains to be fixed in Vista, but the XP list is short! Not a lot fixed, but not a lot of problems either.

Hmmm. It's possible there's something else going on, but I'm not sure what. It sounds like a definite texture issue. Since you have AGP, I don't know how much video RAM your card has, but you might try going into the BIOS and changing AGP aperture size. Just make sure it's never more than 1/2 the RAM on your card. For instance, if your card has 256MB RAM, you can try setting the aperture at either 64MB or 128MB, but don't go above that. Don't set it below 64 either, that would be too low. BTW, it may go without saying, but have you updated your DirectX lately? I noticed you said "long break" so I wasn't sure if you've been using your PC for other 3d stuff in the interim. Getting the latest 9.0c install from MS' website can't hurt.

Eh, it's Colombia. They're keen to let Chavez know he's not going to go building up his forces and have free rein...publicity is key.

Yeah, and that's his point. That the US should fly like the French. Something tells me there are some COs that disagree.

Fortunately, a lot of that doesn't apply to my wife and me. She makes quite a lot more than I do, for one.

I've noticed as time has passed my wife has enjoyed her birthdays less and less. I wonder why?

Those would be ridiculously old instead of merely seriously.

I think picking a plane that is single-role is a path to failure unless you make multiple planes (like the LOMAC/SFP route) because some people just want to shoot down planes and some just want to move mud. Multinationally used planes are another plus, but not strictly necessary. Going by that, and the 1980 max time limit (I've seen some planes listed here that were not only not yet in service but in some cases didn't even have full prototypes flying by then), here's my list. F-4x (maybe multiple variants?) Tornado (ADV and IDS would cover the duality needed) F/A-18A (in service before 1980! )

Just to clarify, am I to understand that some of the details of a 40 yr old Russian SAM system are classified??

I wasn't referring to the "attack" 111s with missiles or tanks, only the Raven, but I thought I recalled that the external tanks had to go on the outer pylons which didn't have rotation capability? That meant they would have to leave the wings full forward to have the tanks which limited speed. I'm a bit fuzzy on it, it's been years since I read about the Spark Vark and its brethren.