SkippyBing

Seriously all you people who remember to drink water with/after alcohol aren't doing the drinking alcohol part properly

In the UK we have question of the day every morning at shareholders* for the baby aircrew. Obviously all the neophyte fliers are terrified they won't remember the number of gyros in the aircraft or whatever. Eventually the tyro aviators realise that the duty instructor asking the question is equally scared he'll have to demonstrate his lack of knowledge when they get it wrong so a compromise is reached where the DI tells them what he's going to ask, they find out the answers and the squadron wheels** forget they were ever in that position and no one is writing reminders on their knee boards. *Morning brief, called shareholders in the RN for reasons that revolve around the high death rate in WW1/2 and a black sense of humour. **The big wheels, e.g. CO, Senior Pilot, Senior Observer, etc.

The Doc on one of my aviation medicine refreshers said any isotonic sports drink like Lucazade or Gatorade are the only things that'll really help, rather than just having a placebo affect. Personally I find keeping a steady background level of alcohol in the system avoids the problem completely...

True, although in Gulf War 1 the UK's Type 42 Destroyers were happily tracking F-117s with their 1022 radars (late 60s design) mainly I think because the wavelength was generating harmonics in the wing spar. Anyway one of them data linked it to a closer Type 22 Frigate which pointed it's fire control radar in the general direction and then used the optical tracker to get a lock on, at which point they could have taken a shot without actually illuminating it with the radar. I think shortly after that they were asked to stop pushing them out as link tracks...

Not totally sure what the routines are like in the USN vs the RN, but as a small ship aviator you go away for six months on a small ship with about 200 other people and every few weeks go on a run ashore with them in some corner of the world you wouldn't otherwise have seen. Plus we aren't stuck on the ship so we can go and get McDonalds and some of the other trappings of 'civilisation' to show the rest of the Ship's Company... Oh yeah and never trust anyone in the recruiting office, if they need to make up the numbers in the stoker's branch they'll lie stretch the truth through their teeth to get you to sign up to it!

Craig, for some reason we seem to be more pragmatic about medical standards, I know a couple of pilots who had joined the RAF, one as a fighter controller and one I think as an RAF Police type who then got better offers from the RN because we didn't require them to meet such stringent medical standards. I can only guess the Crabs have more applicants than they need for aircrew and use it as a filter. Mind you it's amazing the number of people who suddenly need class once they've started flying training...

Are they actually used for SEAD? I thought the upgrade was done as a UOR and isn't supported anymore, although you'd think they'd have a few spare lying around now to form a dedicated SEAD squadron.

Sounds like Lossie may have had problems with its runway, certainly the one here is nothing special and the Shars never did any damage to it despite putting down wherever they wanted. There was also the time in the early '80s a Sea Harrier put down and took off from the car park of the BBC Birmingham studio. I'm not saying you can't do damage with a Harrier, more it's the exception rather than the rule, I mean the flight deck of Invincible etc. appear to be made of tin foil and the only damage to that is from the undercarriage impacting on it.

The Editor, That's the one! I somehow got the whole thing on DVD which made entertaining viewing on my last ship, along with a 20 minute documentary called The Buccaneers which must have been filmed on Eagle about the same time as it uses S.1s, but is in colour. After watching it everyone wanted to join that navy, not the one we ended up in!

Hinch, If there isn't one available for the TW series by the time it's finished then it'll probably happen! By the way, have you ever seen the documentary Warship Eagle, filmed on-board whilst crossing the Indian Ocean to Singapore in I think '66?

True although I worry I know more about it than the aircraft I actually fly!

Hinch, Just been looking at a picture of the Eagle in '56 (a real picture stuck on someone's wall, yes they still exist) and as far as I can tell the angled deck basically consists of someone painting a couple of lines on the deck a bit skewed! Is that the only difference, or did they actually do some metal bashing too?

Ahh, an S.2B before they modded it back to the S.1 wingtip to reduce fatigue, sometime in the mid 80's I think. Having just started a project to model both versions for FSX I now know far too much about Buccaneers! As an aside about the TSR.2 I remember reading somewhere, possibly Pprune, that when the program was cancelled there was no way it'd make it's operating range as you couldn't get enough fuel on the aircraft to keep the engines running that long. It was however the only aircraft to go supersonic with the airbrakes open, in fact they never got them to close properly I think the airflow reduced the pressure in that area and sucked them open!

Not wishing to be a smart-arse, but all of them! Certainly Yeovilton didn't have anything special when the Sea Harriers were based here, and they used to operate them out of fields in Germany, it's just like a normal jet you just don't need as much tarmac. On the flip side I'm guessing to reduce wear and tear it'd be easier operating it with conventional take-offs and landings. They're basically shaking themselves to bits in the hover, which is why the airframe life for Harriers is shorter than an equivalent conventional jet. Out of interest do the USMC do much in the way of Harrier displays around the USA?

File Name: 893NAS F-35A Skin File Submitter: SkippyBing File Submitted: 11 Oct 2008 File Category: SF/WO*/FE Aircraft Skins Click here to download this file

I'm not, but I'm sure someone else was.

So you're not completely beyond help then!

Did you add the milk before or after dumping the tea in the harbour? P.S. at some point in the 18th century we started a war over someone called Jenkins Ear because we can be quite petty. Also the RN hold the record for winning the shortest war in history (36 minutes) we asked the home team to contribute to the ammo costs.

Woah Woah, there's a tea cozy at stake, you do realise we've started wars over less!

Many thanks, really enjoyed taking part. Uploading the file as we speak, if I get any spare time this weekend I'll see if I can knock another one up using decals for the registrations etc. so you don't have a whole squadron with the same aircraft!

For the textures double check they in the right format, probably easiest comparing them to another aircraft's.

Hinch, Which year are you modelling the Eagle for?

To be honest that probably comes under the heading of Government Furnished Equipment, i.e. stuff that's added to the aircraft on receipt from the manufacturer, often due to it's security rating etc. Fitting a laser designator in the chin pod shouldn't be a problem for any of the top tier partners.