Bullethead

Well, it's either that or turn out the lights, everywhere. Oil, coal, and natural gas are finite and becoming prohibitively expensive, besides whatever pollution issues they have. Biodiesel, ethanol, and the like are in the same boat, PLUS are WAY less efficient than what we've been using. That's why we've been drinking ethanol and fueling our cars with gasoline all these years--that's what those products do best. Solar, wind, whatever, will always be merely feel-good things which are actually net losses economically and cannot be made to ever produce more than an insignificant amount of the world's energy needs. I rather enjoy having electricity, primarily because I'd sure miss conversing with everybody here if I didn't have it. Otherwise, I can do without it. After all, I'm a modernday caveman in my spare time. But I'm also an engineer and an realist. So nuke power is the only way to go for the foreseeable future, if you want to maintain your current standard of living. The media coverage of this event is like a civil law suit in the US that hinges on some technical issue. You have "expert witnesses" on both sides, all of whom have seemingly unimpeachable credentials, such as multiple college degrees in arcane fields most people haven't even heard of, much less have any understanding of. Yet the experts on each side always come to diametrically opposed conclusions based on the exact same data. Why? Because all true technical experts are whores. They've devoted their lives to specializing in some obscure field only to discover that they can only barely pay the rent on their salaries, and their salaries are much in doubt because they depend on government largess, tenture, and all that. So they start by selling out to the powers that have control over their paychecks. That establishes them well and truly in whoredom. Then there are a few of them who have friends who are lawyers. Those technical experts soon learn they can make WAY more money being an "expert witness" for their friend, construing any given data set to bolster his side of the case. Professional ethical standards go out the window (after all, if you're a lawyer or have one as a friend, you by definition have no ethics), peer review doesn't apply, so the sky's the limit. Nobody on the jury, and certainly neither the non-technical judge nor opposing lawyer, know what they're talking about at all. NOTE: The above was said by a currently licensed (but non-practicing) attorney of the State of Texas, who also has a degree in engineering and has several friends who are practicing lawyers. I've also been an "expert witness" a couple times. IOW, I have zero ethics, so never trust what I say. I'm only marginally less loathsome than a politician. But it takes a thief to catch a thief. All that said, however, I'm not involved in the current case so have no financial reason to lie. Hmm.... If you rule out businessmen, then you rule out the private sector. If you rule out policians (always a good idea), you rule out the public sector. So who's left to run the show? I disagree. Sure, plutonium itself is quite nasty. It's highly toxic just sitting there and you can make city-killing bombs out of it. But the odds of any of that getting loose from a sanely contained reactor are quite remote. After all, the reactors were designed to contain total meltdowns. Yes, they'll have to vent some irradiated steam, but that's nowhere near the same thing as spewing plutonium. OTOH, how many people die each year as a direct result of gasoline? This includes not only those killed in pipeline explosions in Nigeria, but also all the highway deaths (about 30-40K per year in the US alone), plus stupid kids huffing it, refinery workers getting cancer, you name it.

I have a facebook account solely to see things various friends and acquaintances post there and want me to see. I do not put anything there myself, especialy about me, because Facebook has a horrible security record when it comes to protecting user data. I do my "social networking" via forums, email, the telephone, and the almost-forgotten face-to-face to face method, usually over a few beers. The thing is, Facebook isn't a privat conversaton. If I want to address a large audience, I give a lecture in an auditorum. Facebook reminds me of the mid-90s fad of having a personal web site. I found that extremely pathetic. It was like all these people with low self-esteem were just trying to get some attention, or at least write "prison graffiti" on the walls of their mental cells. Facebook is exactly the same, but with the added wretchedness of allowing these inmates to pretend to take interest in each other.

This is all true. HOWEVER, you CAN handle this stuff safely and that seems to be what's happening in Japan. As I understand the situation, the Japanese reactors are built with multiple layers of very, very solid steel and concrete around the core, as they are in other sane countries. It's not like Chernoble, where this was most definitely not the case. The sane type of containment works. 3 Mile Island totally melted down in a worst-case scenario, but the fuel and its poisons were contained within the containment vessel. All that got out was a little bit of slightly radioactive steam, about the same as spending several more days in the sunshine than you normally would. And that seems to be what's happening in Japan. So I think it's pretty much impossible for the Japanese plants to become massive radioactive volcanos like Chernoble did. 3 Mile Island was essentially a non-event in terms of radiation release. Yet it was blown all out of proportion to the point that the US quit building nuclear power plants for 30 years, to our current disadvantage. I'm afraid the same will happen with the Japanese plants, which is a real shame because nuclear energy really is the greenest thing we've got.

When you create a skin, put it in the \campaign\Campaign Data\skins folder. At least I think that's the path (I don't have OFF o this computer so can't check it). Anyway, it's the campaign tree and the ultimate folder is \skins. Once you have the skin in that folder, you can select it in QC and the campaign. NOTE: When selecting skins, they're listed alphabetically. Thus, it helps to give your skins names that will put them at the top of the list, and also be recognizable from the stock skins. I name mine all "BH_(airplane type)_(skin description)".

You mean a pic like this? You have to select the flare from your "2ndary armaments". I forget the default key for that because I've changed mine keys, but you have to cycle between bombs, rockets, and flares.

...quam minime credula postero. Mors venit velociter quæ neminem veretur Omnia mors perimit et nulli miseretur I hate to say it, but I'll bet a case of beer that within a year, Al Gore will be saying that this was somehow the result of human impact on the planet..... Seriously, that guy totally underestimates the extent of Mother Earth's mood swings.

I've been piddling around with the MS AI's motor for a while now, while I've been stuck on other things. Like right now, I'm stuck on the cockpit decking, so I got a fair amount done on the motor instead. It's not finished (still all separate objects) it's far enough along now to show off. As a real confidence boost, I checked it out on the airplane and guess what? It fit perfectly. The jugs even lined up with the slots in the bottom of the cowling. That made me feel a lot better about how I'm coming along here. <BR><BR>Special thanks to Shredward for the engine drawings! <IMG class=bbc_emoticon alt= src="http://forum.combatace.com/public/style_emoticons/default/drinks.gif">

I have a beehive over at a place where it can pollinate a huge vegitable garden. The guy who lives there has a great dane, which IMHO is the stupidest animal alive. Every time I go over to check the hive, this dog has to stick his nose up in the doorway and sniff around, obviously forgetting what happened the last time. He snorts up some bees which sting him inside the nostrils and goes howling off about 10 yards. There, he lies down and rubs his nose furiously while whimpering miserably. Problem is, he always stops directly in line with the hive opening, which is right under the main flightpath, and he's now exuding mad bee pheromone with each breath. This attracts more bees which sting him all over and soon send him yelping all the way back to the guy's house where he dives under the porch. And the next week when I go there again, the same thing happens.

Looks like a typical day in Lousy Anna's armpit. After seeing them in action countless times, I'm totally convinced that bloodhounds are far more intelligent than deputies

It's good to see some modelers are still using gas-burners instead of electirc. I think the vapor trail of castor oil behind the planes is particularly appropriate for models of rotary kites :).

:clapping: Bravo!

With all due respect, this doesn't change the utterly unrealistic nature of the mission. And 2nd, scrambles only have a fair chance of a happy ending if you happen to be flying a rotary scout (other than a DH2 or DH5). That means the Sopwiths, the Nupes, and the Dr.I and E.V. In these, you have a good chance of avoiding the initial swoop, after which the enemy will usually blow his E advantage and it becomes a fair fight or better. In anything else, you're almost certain to die horribly, especially if you're in an inline bird and being swooped by rotaries.

57 Squadron and 1 or 2 others had the RE8 during Bloody April. I've done a couple of careers as an RE8 gunner in 57 during Bloody April, and I learned some interesting things. In these careers, I'd take off myself and jump in the back once over the threshold trees, where I'd remain until it was time to land. Then I'd jump in the front on final approach. Anyway, I learned some interesting stuff about AI vs. 2-seaters doing this. For the most part, AI interceptors only make 1 attack when they 1st meet you, after which they follow along harmlessly behind you just out of gun range. If they come at you from behind to start with, they often won't attack at all. But either way, if you survive the 1st rush, you're safe because no other Jastas will bother you at all as long as you've already got a Jasta tagging along behind you. Other Huns will pass by within spitting distance without shooting and you might get lucky and nail one. Problem is, most Jastas have a limited attention span, which means that at some variable time they'll get bored and leave you. When that happens, the next Jasta you meet will swoop you. Therefore, the best-case scenario for a 2-seater is to get hooked up with a Jasta just your side of the lines, so if you get forced down on the 1st rush you can maybe land safely. Then they stay with you untl you get back about 1/2way to your base, when you're safe from meeting another Jasta. If you survive the initial rush (if it happens), then then you're perfectly safe except for bad luck with Archie. OTOH, the worst-case scenario is meeting a bunch of Jastas in series, all with ADD, so you suffer repeated initial attacks. This is almost always fatal on the 2nd or 3rd swoop because by then your formation has been thinned out severely and most of them are aiming at your bus. Almost as bad is getting a Jasta with the patience of an ox, following you all the way home. This is because you're only safe form a tag-along Jasta as long as your flight remains in formation and flies along as if the Huns weren't there. Thus when your flight breaks up for landing approach, you get massacred.

Actually, if you kill your assigned target balloon, you'll get a message saying that ground troops on your side saw it happen so you can get the claim form even if your wingmen all buy it, and such thing have a pretty high chance of being confirmed and that quickly (haven't had one denied yet). However, you're right about other balloons--no credit or even a claim form unless it's your target.

I love the expression of the brass hat sitting on this "helicopter". He's scratching his chin as if wondering "WTF was the government thinking spending money to finance this crackpot idea?!?!?!??!"

Here is something no doubt inspired by over-consumption of absinthe (and probably LSD as well). I've never seen anything more deserving of inclusion in the MDI. I'll let the article speak for itself. This again is from French Aircraft of the First World War, by Davilla and Soltan. BTW, I highly recommend this book to anybody with an interest in WW1 aviation.

I drink to his shade!

Note unless you look very closely in external view. For TAC and targeting purposes, balloons are classified as some sort of ground object and show up on the same TAC layer as guns. Thus, when balloons are on the active TAC layer, they're swamped by all the dozens of guns around them and any other enemy installations in the neighborhood. The only way to assign the actual balloon as a target to your wingmen is to pause the game, go into target-player view, and flip through all the possible targets out there until you find the balloon. What makes this even more time-consuming is that the camera doesn't snap to the balloon itself up in the air, but to its anchor on the ground. This anchor is pretty nondescript most of the time--you might mistake it for a pillbox or something--except that it always has a thin black cable running up off the top of your screen. So look for the cable and you'll know where the balloon is and can send your wingmen after it. Also note that if you're relatively high up and not far distant horizontally, often the camera will show nothing of the ground at all as you cycle through the targets. You'll just get a view of the sky with your plane as a distant dot. In this case, you won't see any guns or the actual balloon anchor, but you will USUALLY see the cable running up through the middle of the screen. However, because some guns are very close to the anchor, you might see the cable when your current target is a gun. Thus, it's best to zoom in and out and try to make sure the cable is really part of your current target and not coincidentally along the LOS back to your plane. Because of all this, it's usually best just to go for the balloon yourself and have your wingmen follow and protect you. The best tactic I've found is to NOT fly directly towards the balloon but to pass it off the side, then turn in some miles behind it so it's between me and my route home. Then I dive steeply down in the balloon's direction but aiming to be well short of it. On the way down, I'm looking up and ahead. When I see the balloon (usually when it pops above the horizon), I level off and come screaming in at it. Just 1 pass and straight on home, climbing as I go, whether I get it or not. And if during my dive I get down to 2000-3000 feet and still haven't seen the balloon, I abort the attack and pull up then, turning away from the balloon's defenses. The whole secret of successful balloon attacks is achieving surprise. If you have surprise, the balloon will be up high and out of reach of the deadly AAMGs, and even the heavy flak won't shoot at you until you're very close. If you don't have surprise, the balloon will be low and the defenses fully alerted. And if you make a vertical attack on a low balloon with angry defenders, the defenders will often shoot the balloon down while aiming at you, so you don't get any credit for it.

I'm not trolling at all. Looking around the world, it's painfully obvious that socialism is a complete failure everywhere it's been tried. Now granted, it might have accomplished its targetted short-term goals, but the long-term, systemic effects have been universally baneful and have created a worse mess than socialism set out to correct originally. And this is coming from somebody who's devoted his life to helping the lumpenproletariat in various capacities.

That was in 1916 and IIRC he lived a bit longer than that . But the Troubles after the war, that's another story. I dunno. By the middle of the war, almost all officers below colonel (and by then, some few of colonels and above, too) were pre-war civilians who'd picked up a bit of education before joining the colors. And of course all were rather young. Socialism is the timeless delusion of educated youth so I imagine there were quite a few kindred spirits in the mess.

Look, Mama, the Bleriot is flying bass-ackwards Kinda makes you wonder about the strength of the wing-fuselage joints if they had to put an interplane strut flush up against the fuselage side......

Looking further along the French aisle of the MDI's exhibits, you'll come across the De Monge 1918 Experimental. Note the date of 1918, by which time the basic parameters of sound aircraft design had been inscribed on the tombstones of countless previous failures, so that a man just coming into the trade could have avoided the obvious mistakes. But this didn't stop De Monge from reinventing disaster. De Monge's job was designing props for other people's airplanes (mostly SPADs), but he just KNEW he could design a plane of his own, if somebody with more money than sense gave him the chance. He had, after all, built a parasol monoplane in early 1914 for Concours Securite', where a prize went to the safest design. De Monge had focused on eliminating the effects of gusts as much as possible, so built his plane with a "wobbly wing". IOW, the wing was loosely attached to the fuselage with springs and bungee cords so that gusts rocked it back and forth without disturbing the fuselage. At least in theory. Needless to say, De Monge didn't win the contest, Finally, in 1918, De Monge convinced a certain Buscaylet to finance a new project, shown below. This machine's wings were only fastened on at the front spar, allowing the trailing edges to blow as the wind decreed, except for a variable incidence control on the upper wing. This, however, wasn't the plane's worst feature. The prop was amidships, requiring a bulky rear undercarriage to hold the rear fuselage and tail onto the plane. Also note the long boom extending forward from the upper wing carrying a canard elevator, which in use no doubt flexed the wobbly wing alarmingly, and the fully moving, center-pivot vertical tailplanes. I have no idea what the strange cowling on the nose was for. Unsurprisingly, the French air force wasn't interested.

DAMN good find, sir!

Eek, ack, ugh!

Oops. Forgot to mention that the above pics of Bleriots and their captions came from French Aircraft of the First World War, by Davilla and Soltan.