Diamondback Six

Serve 'em right if after all the crap the Maple Leaf's dumped on it Boeing said "No Toys For You," and then after seeing the nuisance of dealing with Ottawa Saab did the same thing, leaving only the choice of "F-35 or Off The Team Like Turkey." Trudeau crapped his bed, now he can sleep in it...

Don't you mean "a helluva sting"? :p

Frankly, re F-15 if it was me I'd just take 'em all apart and swap Mudhen longerons into the whole fleet--the E and derivatives have to absorb much more stress anyway, so using overstrength parts for the C's mission set would allow a better safety-margin for pushing the envelope in combat, especially with the addition of -229 or -232 engines to offset the slight added weight--if a clean E with 229s can move, a lighter and cleaner C with 3K# thrust MORE per engine should be even better.

Did you guys hear we're not gonna have the Hot Dog Vendor "SME" to kick around much longer? Seems Gawker, FA/Jalopnik's parent company, got hit with bankrupting punitives on the Hulk Hogan lawsuit. On the one hand, liquidation may teach them a thing or two... on the other hand I'm having nightmares about the Hulkster trying to take over FA and talk mil/tech toys without seeming even more of an idiot. Oh BTW, on design flaws, how bout the known under-strength (I mean, corner-cut and not even made to contracted design spec) F-15 longerons that McDickless Douchebags was paid megabucks to fix ba

Perhaps an easier approach would be to post the sprue-maps of the existing kit, and see if we can leave any sprues un-changed.

I know Wings of War gamers who would kill to go up against that beast... Thorsten and I have exchanged correspondence about converting his P into a Q. Beautiful model! Trivial note: the Q gains a full gas-cell (10m) just ahead of the tail-taper, and a 5m half-cell somewhere in the front, relative to the P. Before the Airship Modeler site died, Zeppelin expert Andreas Horn and I exchanged a few notes and he sent me some of his notes from his own research in the Zeppelin archives.

I'm gonna ditto almost everything the guys above have said, since my personal wish (Tomcat 21 concept) is Snowball in Hell.

Stupid question--been away a while and not sure if this is the best place to stick it, so apologies if I've goofed and I'd appreciate a redirect. :) Two questions... 1. Anything new in F-15 conversion parts, like for the SA or SG with those trapezoid sensor housings next to the rear cockpit? 2. Anyone have any data about those 1/9 and 2 Main/8 Main dual-rails that SA is carrying? My gut would say to just use the off-the-shelf rig used on Hornets if it works, but this being Defense Procurement we know how they love to reinvent the wheel for that extra bit of profit.

Have I not said before, speaking from professsional experience *as* a Recovering Journo, that "Journalistic Ethics" is an oxymoron, and anyone who still believes the charade of them is half of one?

That old farce, AGAIN?! :P

Is that like that sniper meme about "Smile... Wait For Flash"? :) lol

DC, both civil and military, is like a toilet bowl: the biggest and fattiest turds float to the top, and it's overdue for a flush.

ROFLMAO! Especially with how LEGO Fanboiz can rival the most rabid Hornet Mafia Cultists in the Bitchy Little Girl department... seriously, apparently there's an unposted First Commandment on some sites about "Thou Shalt Never Criticize the Holy LEGO in Even The Slightest Most Trivial Way."

Even LEGO's hopping onto the F-35 bandwagon... Though it's been modified into a two-seater, and the colors are a near-ripoff of 1984 Transformers Thundercracker... LOL

Not a 5G guru, but I'd venture that existing AWACS/JSTARS will still have a niche... the F-35s can't be everywhere and bird-dog everything for everybody even when deployed in quantity, so the big old buses will still have a place feeding data to the older fighters until they're fully replaced. Think "Local" vs. "Regional" coverage--and I'd also expect the older birds to pick up a new role as relays and data-processors to help assemble and distribute the Big Picture. Just an Armchair Analyst's two cents though--I would say Guarded Optimism is the order of the day. Also, Cuda and other next

Oh, here, just for laughs the latest from the Corporate Welfare Queen: I'm of half a mind to use their link and tell my Congressvermin "WHY? Stupor Hornet is the past and just so much Corporate Welfare--F-35 is the future, and the sooner we get it stood up the less it will cost long-haul." And THAT's why McDickless Dumb@ss is getting their arse kicked in all sectors, overreliance on iteration rather than innovation and only having retreads of the same old offerings to push rather than anything new and next-generation. It's gonna be real interesting once Mitsubishi establishes themselves wit

I'm sorry, to me Political Correctness is an insult, "we don't think these people are good enough to make it on their own so we have to help them." Condescending and patronizing. Where's my Affirmative Action program for an autistic fighter pilot? *snort* :P I've yet to see a plane that cared if the hands on its controls wore nail polish or not, or the eyes on its instruments had mascara around them... only that the person in the seat had sufficient size and strength to reach the controls and exert the leverage required to operate them, and the mental faculties to keep up with the data it pre

Mark, I grew up in a Heritage Boeing household, so I've seen the inside view of how the termites are eating away at everything--the only thing left is the name; and would seem to be a pattern. The McDouchebags first run their own company into the ground until they have to merge with Douglas (which played out same as the Boeing merger if my understanding's correct), then run the merged company into the ground--they're like a parasite that has to jump from host to host to survive, and when Boeing dies there won't be any new ground left for them to infest. I know a few Heritagers who are prayin

You mean other than Corporate Welfare for the McD***less Crime Family and a Gravy Train Retirement plan for all the Hornet Mafiosi they put on the payroll?Maybe if they'd bought a plane actually WORTH a puddle of pee in the first place...

There is a highly technical Texas term for sorts like Sprey: "More STEER MANURE than the Fort Worth Stockyards."

Least they ain't ripping off Iron Tech and infringing on THOSE patents/trademarks yet... @TT: "Short shorts: Because our grunts don't have ENOUGH things out there waiting to harm them, we need to add SUNBURN to the mix too."

And you'll note that both decal options are for test birds, not combat aircraft.

Mingwin, set in development--there's a nice little gallery of projected sheets from Draw Decals in this thread on the F-106 Forum: http://forum.f-106deltadart.com/thread/298/decals

What, you didn't know? There's a DIRECT correlation between the amount of newspapers sold and the amount of blood mixed into the ink. Trust me, I used to BE one of those people... :(