The gang in the studio have pointed out to me that the inclusion of the Camel means that these ten aircraft cannot, in fact, fly in formation, since the F-100's stall speed is faster than the Camel can go.

I was going to give Max and Miria matching Hellcats, but at the last moment I decided to go for the "Max is such a genius, he has the airplane from World War I" gag instead.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Yes, you're probably right.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Offsides

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>

It may be possible for short periods, assuming that they form up while diving and break before hitting the ground. That crowd just might be able to pull it off, and it's the sort of stunt they'd try just to prove that the impossible can be done.

1) Only ten slots.
2) Tempest.
3) Come on, people, you're focusing on the garnish instead of the entree again. I demand love for Chad's 'shop skills.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Love given, then. I thought it was a complete CGI rendering until I read the photo credits and looked closer. It looks as good as any professional job that I've ever seen. Chad's kung-fu is good.

-D-

Chad's Kung Fu is so good you dont even realise it was Photoshoped at all!

I'll bet that the sharkteeth detail on Valiant is, in addition to its other associations, a nod to the paint job on Gryphon's Eight-Ball One.

-Joe-

Thanks! The original photo is here, for comparison. I could've done a little more perspective work on the fuselage markings, and there really *ought* to be an '001' on the foreground wingtop, but it was getting late and I didn't want to overtinker the whole thing. I am, however, monumentally proud of the WDF roundel on the background wing. Guess those Photoshop classes I took paid off some. :)

And, yeah, it wouldn't be a proper warbird wihtout the pilot name in cursive under the canopy.

>I'll bet that the sharkteeth detail on Valiant is, in addition
>to its other associations, a nod to the paint job on Gryphon's
>Eight-Ball One.

Heh, well, they all more or less go back to the P-40. I doubt his VF-1S has one, but to not have one on a Warhawk is, in fact, a crime in ZC space, so. ;)

	Chad Collier Smirking Kilrathi The Captain of the Gravy Train

>Heh, well, they all more or less go back to the P-40. I doubt his
>VF-1S has one, but to not have one on a Warhawk is, in fact, a crime
>in ZC space, so. ;)

Chad, your Kung Fu is best. PS - I like the whole idea of a WDF version of the "Heritage Flight"

"A good plan executed now is better than a perfect plan next week" - Gen George S. Patton, Jr.

But it's the Brit in me that was wondering where those planes had gone. ;) And I should have noticed the Tempest before, it's true.
____________________

"It's difficult keeping up with the cross-continuity, but I think Cosmouse just gave The Saturnian Scraphunter his Ultimate Pacifier to use against Galactapuss..."

_____________________________________________
A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. THERE IS ONLY WAR.
-kinda makes sense if you think about it.

>F/A-18

*cough*

I'm sorry, you were saying?

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Lets have some new planes, Navy.

-D-

Ha ha haaaaa, you think this is some bad juju now, wait'll the F-35 is online*.

But that's well outside the scope of this document.

--G.
* if it ever is
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/03/14/212602/picture-lockheed-martins-f-35-joint-strike-fighter-soars-on-first-afterburner.html

The bad news: You can't VIFF. :(

http://thedewline.typepad.com/stephen_trimble/2007/03/sweetman_no_vif.html

The question isn't whether it's going to be built. The question is whether it's going to suck.

--G.
SIGNS POINT TO YES
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Nah, it's gonna defy all known laws of physics. It's gonna suck and blow at the same time.

I still maintain the Navy got brought in on the Joint Strike Fighter program under threat of loss of funding. That's the only way they'd have agreed to scrap decades of naval aviation design to agree to what is essentially an Air Force fighter.

--------------------------
CdrMike, Overwatch Reject

Something like that, from what I've heard. There's going to be three versions of that thrice-accursed F-35: a standard, a carrier, and a VTOL version (where the carrier version has re-enforced airframe bits to support the tailhook, and the VTOL one has the usual accoutrements for that sort of thing).

The plane's trying to be everything for everybody--and as a result (in my admittedly not-entirely-informed opinion) it'll fail for everybody in various and sundry ways.

I'm rather distressed that they stole the P-38's name for it, though--that was a lovely aircraft, and I'm sad to see its namesake being such a piece of...well, garbage, really.

(And the folks who designed it obviously have never been in a machine shop in their lives, too. I can't exactly *say* anything, but whoever designed one particular part was a bloody idiot who got too happy with 'nifty keen complex curvature thingy' when "simple curve plus bolted on piece" would have more than sufficed.)

It's actually pretty good. Jack of all trades, making it perfect for any sort of "light" carrier (be it traditional sea-going or a space-going carrier). In a sense it is much like some of the classic planes of World War II, including the F4U Corsair and the F6F - or the F-4 Phantom for that matter. It is, for all intents and purposes, a fighter-bomber that does both tasks very well, particularly in it's E/F variants.

Hehe. Seen the EA-18G "Growler" variant yet? That's going to hit the street quickly here...it will be nice, (personally) we shouldn't have been so quick to unload the Spark Vark (EF-111)

The F-111 is one of my favorites. It does one thing VERY well (I wonder if in UF, they have some of them rigged for use on carriers), but it had its problems. They tried to make it do a number of contradictory missions, when in reality, it was best suited to deliver a lot of ordnance on target. It did that very well (I sometimes imagine what a F-111 carrying 36 500-pound JDAMs - enough to ruin a villain's evening, don't ya think). Trying to make it a fighter was a mistake.

The reason they tried to make it a fighter was because of that bane of the 1960's military's existence: Robert McNamara. Originally the Air Force and the Navy had two totally different design programs going, with the Air Force needing a bomb truck and the Navy needed a missile-packing carrier-based fighter. McNamara, in all his infinite "wisdom," decided "Well, perhaps they can combine the two and come up with a common platform." When neither service was willing to agree on the characteristics they both needed, he again overrode them and set up his own list and requested proposals. Then, to ensure he'd thoroughly screwed the pooch for years to come, even after Boeing's design had won over both the USAF and USN, he instead declare General Dynamics the winner with Grumman as subcontractor.

The only good thing to come out of the whole debacle is, when the Navy's variant of the Aardvark (F-111B) proved to be too heavy, they got Grumman to build them a brand new design based upon what they were looking for in a fighter. The result was the greatest fighter in modern aviation, the F-14 Tomcat.

--------------------------
CdrMike, Overwatch Reject

You could probably get half way to ten greats before you even get out of WWI, (Camel, SE5A, Fokker DR.1, Albatros D III just off the top of my head, and there are no French birds there).

Dude, it's a warbird in a heritage flight. Those markings are intended to mirror the original Golden Age Eight-Ball One.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/