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In this game you fly a Supa Honet with a pregnant female sailor in the back seat while Hussein Obama talks to you on the radio and tells you to drop water on a flaming oil rig without harming any Illegales who are swimming by. Then you have to sit on a court martial for a Marine who shot at a terrorist.

Incorrect. The F-14 was a maritime air-superiority aircraft, or, as some prefer, a fleet defense fighter. It was designed from the outset to be more than just an interceptor, unlike the Phantom. Its capabilities extend from point-blank ranges out to beyond 100nm across a broad operating envelope. In fact, I can think of no source (not even unreliable ones) who has identified an arena of aerial combat in which the F-4 was superior...except of course, you. It doesn't matter where the performance comes from, only that it exists when the aircraft is analyzed in its entirety. The F-15 is clearly superior to the F-4, and no amount of fudging the numbers or facts will change that, nor will attempting to find specific data points that support your agenda in defiance of the big picture. Except, of course, that the F-14 wing is not the same as any other aircraft, owing to its computer controlled variable geometry. Welcome to reality. You can try to minimize this fact, but stubbornly it remains. Having seen the F-14A at numerous airshows, I can say from first-hand experience that you are wrong again. Also, the pilots (whom you have just called pathetic--nice) say you are wrong, which carries a lot of weight with me. Hey, remember the time you tried to tell an F-4 pilot that he was wrong about the aircraft's performance! Slow down, Hoss, let's savor this moment! Ahhh... No amount of fudging is going to make the F-4, slatted or unslatted, competitive with the F-14A in this arena.

That's the bottom line, it seems. One corollary that Adm. Gillchrist reiterates in his book...the vast majority of engagements are won by the pilot who is first to acquire his opponent visually.

Yes, the Project Sixshooter program added the M61 canon at the expense of the Genie station, and also a new clear-top canopy for better visibility. Everything I've read indicates that the F-106 was not a slouch when it came to ACM.

Yes, we know that nothing in the sky can touch your precious Phantom. Oh, and Adm. Gillchrist confirms the low wing loading of the Tomcat, pegging it at about 55 in his book which arrived a couple of days ago. All of this serves to confirm the crisp performance of the F110-engined Tomcats that has been reported by everyone who flew it. So, while the performance of the F-8 v. F-4 is debatable, any attempt to claim parity between the F-4 and F-14 is just pathetic.

Excel does a crap job with this kind of chart, so this is the best formatting I could manage. Read the T/W ratio from the left and the wing loading from the right. The best place to be on the chart is in the bottom right quadrant (low wing loading with high T/W ratio). Note that I am fairly sure my wing loadings for the Hornet and Falcon are too high. I need more info on the LEX and blended wing respectively.

Nice! I'm considering a Genesis 3.8 Track myself. Hyundai has come a long way.

Two West Memphis cops were killed this afternoon when they apparantly pulled over a pair of drug smugglers. One of the officers killed was the nephew of the Chief of Police. The suspects were later killed in a shootout with police at the West Memphis Wal-Mart. Going out wihtout your strap sounds like a bad idea. http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/may/20/west-memphis-police-officer-killed-another-injured/

The current administration is unlikely to back the South should fighting start. I also doubt that they will do anything other than give some lip service to any sort of sanctions for the sinking of the ship. North Korea is this administration's ideological comrade.

http://www.bertisevil.tv/

Tomorrow is "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day." http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/19/facebook-fracas-breaks-everybody-draw-mohammad-day/

Done!

Very interesting, DWCAce. I have not seen that info before! I updated the wing loading chart with that information. Given that the info is creditied to Grumman, it seems safe to accept it. To get the numbers to come out right, it means that a full 45% of the Tomcat's weight is being borne by the fuselage rather than the wings. That is pretty impressive.

This chart compares the aspect ratio of the various aircraft's wings. All else being equal, a wing with a higher aspect ratio will produce a lower roll rate. For variable geometry wings, the blue bar is the fully swept AR and the red bar is the full extended AR.

Updated tables with tweaked F-14 info. Added A-5A and F-14B.

I did not take that into account for the F-14, or the F-16. If we conservatively estimate that 20% of the F-14s lift comes from the fuselage (I've heard as high as 40%) then the loding becomes more comparable to the F-5.

As a companion to the above chart, here are the dry and wet thrust to weight ratios for the same aircraft (at combat weight). Note that I installed the J52-P-408 engine in the A-4E for a more interesting comparison. Now...let's see...Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey...

My mind was idle tonight, and rather than hit the whiskey I decided to calculate and compare the wing loading of several aircraft at combat weight. Wing loading is a factor in an aircraft's maneuverability and can be used as a predictor although other factors are involved. Therefore the chart below is not a direct comparison of maneuverability but in light of many discussions here about the F-8 vs. F-4, the fighter potential of the F-101 and F-105, etc., it is interesting. The numbers were calculated by dividing the combat weight of the aircraft in pounds (as best as I can determine using semi-reliable Internet sources) by the wing area in square feet. The F-14A has an * because I don't know if the wing area figure I used is for max or min sweep, or mid-sweep. I think the latter, so the wing loading would decreas a bit at full sweep. Some surprises are the F-102's extremely low wing loading and the F-106 close behind. Both of these aircraft are said to have had excellent instantaneous turn performance, though. The F-100D fared better than I expected and I was surprised to see the F-15 down in the area with the A-4 and F-8. As for the F-111B...well Adm. Connelly did say that all the thrust in Christendom would not make that aircraft a fighter. Description of wing loading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_loading Next step is to work up thrust to weight ratios dry and wet for each aircraft.

The bump-mapping is gorgeous. DanW, I beg of you, release some more shots from F-14 showing what you guys are doing in the graphics department!!!

You fail to understand the issue. The entire border region with Mexico is a de facto haven for drug cartels and other groups operating outside of any governmental jurisdiction. In other words, there is no government there whose territory we would be invading. On top of that, the Mexican government actively facilitates the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants into the US, to the extent that they actual publish official government pamphlets instructing Mexicans on how to enter the US illegally. Think of the Barbary pirate states in relation to Spain and you'll have a better idea of what is going on.

I think the fence is a poor solution for a number of reasons. If I had the power, I would do the following: 1. Require a form of national ID in order to vote in Federal elections. The primary reason that leftist politicians have ignored the issue is that they want the illegals as a voting block. The ultimate goal of the left is amnesty which they believe will secure them anywhere from 16 to 20 million new Democrat voters. The Republicans have failed to act on the matter due to their general cowardice and belief that the legal Hispanic community will turn on them if they take a strong stand on the issue (the left would play the race card of course). Taking the illegal vote off of the table would clean this part of the issue up. 2. Assign National Guard units to the border to interdict the drug trade. Declare an operational zone that extends 20 miles into Mexico and dare the Federales to oppose us. The Guard units would not be there to stop immigration, but would obviously be able to notify the border patrol of any activity they observe. 3. Expand and equip the border patrol to do their job effectively. Create clear and reasonable guidelines on when and how agents can use force to defend themselves or apprehend illegals. 4. Finally, impose strict fines and possibly prison sentences for people and companys that employ illegal immigrants. Make the cost of employing illegals so high that American labor looks like a better deal. Cut off all government services to illegals except for emergency medical treatment and food and water during their deportation--basically deincentivize them.

Yeah.

Well...just to put it in perspective...the border is so out of control that anyone who wanted to enter the country to engage in espionage or terrorism could do so pretty easily be they PLA or not. Ironically, I think it would actually be harder for them to get into Mexico in the first place than it would be to get from Mexico to the US due to Mexico's much more stringent immigration enforcement.

LOL, leave it to the lib to post the first stupid sh*t in an otherwise good discussion. So brainwashed...