JediMaster

Yes, the B-1's lines belie its size. It's much larger than the 135's that refuel it.

Well, the comment still applies. Whichever plane it is, stopping in 300 ft on a flat stationary runway isn't the same thing as doing it on a moving, possibly pitching and/or wet deck! I think a hook is just the only safe way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eduNjwNvcH4

I loved the Tab-causes-hair growth bit.

All I've seen is "the hook has been redesigned." I've not seen any before/after pics or heard any actual details on the changes.

Given that the USAF was having trouble detecting hybrid SAM systems locking onto them during Allied Force, and that Iraq lost many fighters due to not recognizing when F-15s locked and launched on them (you can see they fly straight, level, and stupid as Sparrows, the most detectable of all US missiles, home in on them) because their RWRs didn't recognize the signals, I find the idea that Spanish Phantoms detected the radar emissions of a UFO locking on to be beyond dubious. Those RWRs have to recognize the waveforms painting them via threat libraries. If it knew it was being locked up, it was a known radar system.

If it was a DL-shared threat system, in theory that would be unlimited range depending on how many you have stretched out in a line transmitting one to the next to the next. I don't doubt with the link for radar data they could place threat data there, too. An oddly specific 825 just doesn't make sense.

My daughter loves this movie.

This is the inevitable result of the post-Cold War draw down. Fewer and fewer contractors, fewer and fewer programs made bigger, to the point that no one can fail to win or they fail period. If you do win, you have certain numbers you have to hit to make it work. If LM doesn't sell at least a couple of thousand, it won't make its money back. If the F-35 program fails, LM takes a major hit--they still have the F-16 which is winding down, but they have little else. Boeing has the civilian stuff and the tankers, NG has the unmanned stuff...I think they sold their shipbuilding business, didn't they? In the "old days" you'd have thousands of planes and each type would max at 1000 or so. Now they're so expensive to develop, so expensive to produce, the only way to make it affordable is to make huge numbers of just a few designs. But that means that one contractor strikes it big and the others eat sand. Also, interesting note: there is no follow up program. Nothing is coming after the F-22 and F-35. Historically, when a new system entered service the process to design its replacement would begin because of the long lead times. F-22 program started in the mid-80s, when the F-15C was new. JSF, well JAST or whatever came before THAT name, started late 80's/early 90s when F/A-18Cs, AV-8Bs, and F-16Cs were also still new. There are literally pilots in the USAF today who were born AFTER the ATF/F-22 program started and weren't even in preschool when the YF-22 first flew! If we want a manned plane to replace the 22 and/or 35 to be in service by 2035 we're already behind to start working on it. People don't work on multiple planes during their careers now, they work on one from start to finish. Out of school, hired on for the design phase before you're married, then retire to visit the grandchildren and start collecting social security when it enters service...

Given the size and margins of landing on a moving carrier deck, I think you'll find most pilots who've done traps answer a resounding "yes!" The problem is that the F-35's main gear is farther aft than pretty much any other carrier-designed plane has been. From rear wheels to tip of the exhaust is a very short distance relatively speaking, and I guess no one realized that the gear hitting the cables and causing them to pop up off the deck is what allowed the hooks to work on nose wheel-equipped planes (as opposed to the old tail draggers) until the C kept failing to catch the wires. The design was of course largely based on the needs of the 35B (CoG and all that). The Harrier never had a hook (plus had that bicycle layout) and no other carrier jets have ever been STOVL. So you can make the convincing argument that had the design not been mandated to work for both uses the main gear would've been farther forward in the naval model and it wouldn't have occurred. A definite "joint design" fail.

The catch is it is considered insubordination to interpret regulations for a superior officer IIRC. So if an officer gives you an order, and you decide it's illegal, that's insubordination. So you're apparently correct not to follow it, but the decision to not follow it is itself insubordinate.

You need Clint Eastwoodovich to know.

I'll just throw in that his response appears slightly boilerplate to me, and I don't think we can take his statement about "future patches or expansion packs" as any admission of something coming up. I think this is the same response with variations he's given for years to people that have asked him about this.

The 820 miles claim is dubious, I've never heard that before, and it begs the question of detecting things happening over the horizon. I mean, at 36k ft the horizon is under 250 miles away. So you're detecting an OTH missile launch? Unless it means the suite can detect an OTH targeting radar, but no SAM has a range that big anyway...and launching against a stealth fighter over 100 miles away, let alone 800, is ridiculous. The rest of that is true, the seeing 360 thing with the cameras all around is a major game changer--never worry about losing sight via airframe obstruction or even look through the floor!

As long as it's possible for someone to profit, either financially or by getting more power, by stirring up fear and hate against another group, it will keep happening.

Su-25 takes a certain mood to use, and you better not be up against anything with a longer reach than a Shilka/Vulcan! It flies better than the 25T, though.

Any plane that's this early in development is naturally more promises than reality. Until we have something more concrete to go on we just don't know.

I'm sorry, but every three-letter acronym is NOT open territory for the military to use. IBS has been and always will be irritable bowel syndrome. Couldn't they have called this BSI or some other arrangement? So that I don't keep thinking, literally, of crap while reading this?

That's the B, not the C. The C's major issue was the relative placement of the hook and main wheels causing it to miss catching the cables on touchdown.

Well. That's a few changes.

As does Ubi's store. However, I don't know what the localization restrictions on it were. If this means I can go and move my whole DCS World install to Steam I might do that now. The patches come down so much faster there and there's never a "patch day slowdown" like we've become accustomed to with DCS.

I think they do chemo through ports, so as not to be continually sticking your veins. Especially when, as in his case, veins are problematic. It's really not much of a deal.

Chuck Norris only wishes he could be TWO Chuck Norrises.

*WHAM* "Ow!!"

I think this is merely a public spillover of a disagreement between one member of the team and the rest. It honestly sounds like he's upset and wants to give up while the rest of the team doesn't think that's necessary and they should be able to work it out. I don't know if this will delay the release, but I can't imagine that they won't be able to work this out somehow. This isn't like many of these other planes that had a model and little else and got dumped. They've put so much work into this already that to quit with nothing to show would be beyond ridiculous. I think part of this is ED never intended DCS World to be open to 3rd parties or they'd have designed their base differently, and the decision well after Black Shark and A-10C to go this route has been fraught with challenges that the 3rd parties are having only limited success so far getting over. I'd honestly thought we'd have more almost 2 years later than just 2 helos from one developer, neither finished, but it is what it is. Screaming about it won't help a thing. As for closing that forum, I think that's ED's standard practice when a big problem like this appears. I'm sure they'll bring it back in a little while once things have calmed down.