SayethWhaaaa

Yeah, there's really no surprise about this. Boeing was never going to lose this bid any more than we could see the USAF buying Chengdu J-10s at any point. In a country that essentially invented and defined the airliner, it just seemed politically untouchable to me (Too 'European' in the home of Boeing), despite winning the initial go-ahead. I dunno, that's just how it seemed to me...

Christchurch was hit by a 6.3 quake today, causing massive damage to most of the city and surrounding areas. This is the second major quake to hit NZ in 5 months. I know there are a lot of people mobilising on this side of the Tasman to fly over to anything they can to assist our Kiwi cousins. Here's hoping the death toll won't increase, unfortunately, New Zealanders are being told to expect more grim news. This is a dark day indeed and our thoughts are with you. News Link:

Yeah, there's an opinion (that quite a few people would share it seems) in Whitehall that the SDSR didn't go far enough. Personally, I think if you want to save money, killing capability isn't the answer. Defence contractors have been milking governments for too long and need to be brought in line, unfortunately governments need them more than the contractors need governments, and they know this. Plus it doesn't help that those in power don't know what they're doing when it comes to defence and (maybe) don't attack these problems as seriously (and hence, get taken for a ride)as they would economic or legal matters where the experts would be approached immediately. End of rant.

I thought it was pretty cool that a couple of colonels were ordered to take of and strafe an ammo dump (these can often be mistaken for funeral processions apparently, must be the heat) and instead, they flew their Mirage F-1s to Malta! Outstanding work guys! Suffice to say, there are many people alive tonight who wouldn't be if they simply followed their orders. I hate to think of the grief their families might now experience though...

You're not the only one!

...Ouch! Sounds like someone said he was going to call and didn't.

Loving it! Dunno why, but it keeps reminding me of the Peacemaker UCAV from the movie Deal of the Century.

lol, Maniac...

What's the story with a few of the first batch of these going to private owners in the US and abroad...?

Has anyone been watching this series?? It's a Russian docco series about the history of Soviet/Russian aviation from pre-WWI to the present. I can't turn it or the heavily accented Russian narrator and his slightly broken English! It has a lot of historical footage that you just never see in Western series such as the ones on the History or Discovery channels. Has anyone come across this series at all...?

I know there have been quite a few people looking for the Buccaneer in the past. Just a heads up, there's a Beta and skin pack available over at the A-Team's site available now. You'll still have to be a member though.

...the went ahead with this!! Instead their Mayor insists on snatching FAIL from the jaws of WIN!

Malawi proposes ban on farting in public ...sounds like a good time to invest in cork shares! Haha!

So by having flatulence, would that make me a repeat offender with a disregard for the law??

It's not shown here, I think it's the first dubbed Russian documentary I've ever seen. It was interesting how it was from the Russian perspective too. Little things like WWII being The Great Patriotic War in Russia and only being referred to as such, Viktor Belenko being portrayed in a slightly negative way, that whole episode dedicated to Ekranoplans -- I never realised the CM-1 was the size of a frigate!! From the photos I've seen, I thought looked to be about the size of a large plane like a C-5 Galaxy or An-124 Ruslan. I've never seen that amount of detail or footage on them before. It was fantastic!

So unfortunately Queenslanders are about to have Cyclone Yasi jump on them with both feet in roughly an hour and a half, only a couple of weeks after the largest and most comprehensive floods in their history. Although preparing for a while now, in the last 24 hours it was upgraded to a Category 5 Cyclone with winds expected to exceed Katrina's 280kph (175mph). This will be the one of the largest cyclones in Australia's history. I have some friends who've evacuated South from Townsville to Proserpine and it looks as though they'll still take a beating from Yasi there, over 260kms (164 miles) away! Just to get an idea of how immense this event is, some images have been released showing how it compares if it landed various continents: CONUS: Europe: Asia: Some scary stuff! Here's a link with further details So here's hoping those who are still in it's path are able to get out somehow and that those who got out in time will have somewhere to return to!

Quick update to this. Yasi lost a lot of power as it hit the coast, but still caused a lot of damage to thousands of homes and completely destroyed this year's banana harvest (and others). There was a potential for the body count to reach into the hundreds, but so far it's in the single digits. Seems like they were very lucky!

Yeah... AFAIK, this problem wasn't resolved with the patching. As far as I can recall, it was due to an incompatibility with DX10. The 2nd generation series was re-engineered to be compatible with Vista, Windows 7 (and potentially future OSs) specifically and these games don't suffer from this Esc crash to desktop issue. I know of some modders/Wings over players still using the first generation series with Vista or Windows 7, but they all complain of buggy elements they can't seem to resolve. Most are either changing their OSs or moving onto SF2. Sorry, I know that doesn't help you Cgold. :S

The only major issues may be with some of the earlier aircraft may not be compatible with the Oct 2K8 patch, but I think they're quite rare these days (if they stil exist in their un-updated form). If you have the space, just copy the entire SFP/WOV folder and mod the copy, HD space permitting of course. It should only be about 6-7 gig at the most. I always leave a vanilla (untouched save for patches) version on mine and create a complete copy to mod. Saves having to re-install any time I tweak something that renders it unplayable.

Personally, I would do it as a separate standalone if only to limit the damage if the installation/patching screws up somehow. It would save you having to re-install everything which can be a complete PITA!

Nope, 'fraid not FC. Steam only provides you access to downloading/redownloading of games you've bought through them already. Anything you associate with it (non Steam games), you'd have to reinstall separately and add to Steam. When I transfer all my gear to my new machine (when I get around to it), once I install Steam and log in, anything that's been registered to my account I'll have access to to reinstall again.

Good luck with it!

Yeah, should be under Options/Pilots.

By uploading to Steam, do you mean running through (or associating with) Steam? You should be able to. I was running one of the Wings Over games and Vice City through it at one point. It just needs to know the location of the .exe, from there it adds it to your Steam library. It's usually not particular about what you add, so long as the game doesn't already appear in the Library list.