SkippyBing

Organising things, that would probably be an idea.....

Fubar, that sounds like the one, I first remember reading about it in an old Eagle annual of my Dad's.

Some details on the Wyvern ejection here I think it may actually have been Friday the 13th when it happened!

I'm fairly sure a Westland Wyvern pilot also successfully ejected underwater after the engine cut out half way down the cat. I'll see if I can dig out the details.

Although they tend to still use Gas Turbines (the UK's Type 23 Frigates use Diesel engines in a diesel electric mode with Gas Turbines for a boost) they run on Dieso which is some form of diesel. This is basically a fire prevention measure as it has a lower flash point than Avcat or Avtur as used in aircraft, which is nice if you're living on top of several hundred tons of it!! In the UK the aviation fuel onboard also has a higher flashpoint than that used ashore for the same reason, theoretically you could use the Dieso in the aircraft but it would trash the engines as they're not tuned for it.

I'm not sure how they compare directly to F-33, F-34 etc. which are the NATO fuel designators, but onboard ship we use a fuel with a higher flashpoint than the stuff used by land bases. I think it has something to do with living on top of a hundered tons of it!

Yes, they all use the same engine so a mod made for one will pretty much work in the others, occasionally with a little tweaking.

Yeah where as real pilots have their hands on the.. oh no hold on real pilots would mostly be using their left hands to move switches. Jeez and I thought you were all about the realism Stiggy!

Exactly, the main rotor RPM is a multiple of the FPS of the video recorder. I've got some footage somewhere of our Lynx and it looks like the main rotor is going backwards very slowly, it's a bit un-nerving the first time you see it played back! Ultimately it's a pain in the ass if you're trying to make a video because everyone just goes 'Oh look the rotors have stopped', retards.

Yeah, we use F-44 afloat and F-30 ashore (I think, there's a number of options!) I'd have to check the cross-reference but they probably equate to JP-5 and JP-4. We don't have any problem mixing them but again that's probably down to engine design, I think the Wasp would take just about anything that burns! Being rotary all the smoke gets dissipated by the big fan anyway!

Jedi, that makes sense to me. I'm wondering what effect the grade of fuel has on the smoke, for instance when embarked naval aircraft tend to use a higher flash point fuel (to reduce the fire risk on the ship) I don't know whether this would make this better or worse with regards to smoke. I do have some DVDs of Vixens, Scimiters and Buccaneers operating off carriers and there doesn't appear to be much smoke but that may be due to the age of the video etc.

According to my dad (who may be slightly biased) the Vixen had a pretty clean exhaust, he thinks because it was a turbojet rather than a turbofan but he's not 100% sure. I'd assume then that anything else that used an Avon would have a cleanish exhaust too. Certainly most of the photos I've seen of Vixens and Hunters didn't have much in the way of exhaust smoke.

Very nice, but where's the Hot Shots skins !!!

Having replaced one of my graphics cards with a newer shinier one I rebooted windows and right clicked the screen to bring up the display properties tab, and err nothing. Same deal through the control panel. Having googled the subject I checked the registry and there's nothing wrong there. All I really need is to be able to bring the Display Properties up once to activate the second display adaptor, after that the nVida tools handles everything else. Anyone got any ideas? This is all in XP SP2 by the by. Edited to add, I can get display properties in Safe Mode, which is great, except safe mode doesn't deal with multiple display adaptors!!!!

And to answer my own question, having hunted through the labryinth that is the Microsoft technical support files. Open up the new style control panel (Start > Run > Control.exe if you've got the old style set up) then click on one of the tasks e.g. Choose a Scrren Saver. For some reason that opened up the Display Properties panel, even when clicking the Display Icon wouldn't!?!

5000! Hell nice work. If your ship drivers are like ours I'm guessing it's a lot of work traversing all those locks (to be fair ours can run aground in the middle of the ocean so they get kind of twitchy near actual continents!). Like I said sounds like an awesome trip, hopefully I'll get over to Canda some time on one of our ships.

Being picky the Sunderland is a Flying Boat, not a Sea Plane, i.e the fueslage is the hull, rather than having floats added instead of landing gear. I don't think the Sunderland could actually take off/land on terra firma, it just had some bolt on wheels for beaching. I suppose if you didn't need to see the Sunderland landing on you could redefine it as a boat and just have it sitting there while you provide top cover?!?

Sag, that looks like a sweet deployment. Out of interest how navigable are the waterways to/from the great lakes? From the virtual tour (very cool by the way, not something we'd ever do because of OpSec (plus the route to the Gulf is fairly dull!)) it looks a bit interesting getting there but great fun once you are.

I think in some ways it's part of the 'growing old is mandatory, growing up isn't' thing. Up to a certain point there isn't a lot you're allowed to do, and after another point there's not a lot you can do. For some reason I can't remember a lot about the bit in between, but I seemed to be enjoying myself in the photos!

Eraser, the Hoons weren't playing at Red Flag, it was while they were at Nellis I think for trials work. Victory I feel your pain.

Ooo pretty!

I think they were flying them against F-15 aggressors mostly, as far as I know the F-14 has been completely retired so no play from her. Of course the story doing the rounds is that when two F-22s went up against a couple of Typhoons they got all upset and refused to play when the 'Hoons got a radar lock!

Mind you, a lot of the new Russian designations are manufacturer driven for marketing purposes rather than anything to do with an Air Force designation system. For instance if Boeing were trying to flog the Super Hornet as the next big thing they probably wouldn't want to call it the F/A-18, but as the USN were trying to get a new aircraft without anyone noticing it was handy to keep the old designation. I can't remember the exact logic behind Sukhoi numbering, but a lot of the even numbers are used for the 'mad as a box of frogs' aerobatic planes they develop. As I understand from the articles I've read about the recent Red Flag the Raptors, B-2s and F-117s were all flying on the Blue side so only the Aggressors were flying against it.

Search the iTunes store for Dos Gringos and there's two albums of stuff by the same guys.

Yeah, it's taken from an IMAX Red Flag film. My mate's dad got him a copy of the DVD last time he was Stateside. Really awesome cinematography, let down by possibly the most monotone narration by the F-15 pilot who's story they're telling. Oh and they only show about 1.5 seconds worth of Sea Harrier footage!