BAM'n'IVM

OK, so watching the new TV ad for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, I've noticed that the Fantasticar is apparently...a Dodge. No kidding. It has a Dodge grille on the front, and the Ram emblem in the middle and "D-O-D-G-E" embossed on the frame. I've seen clever product placement before, and this ain't it. It's pretty stupid. Why would Reed Richards build a vehicle with a Dodge radiator grille on it? Does it transform into a new Charger or something?

I like what the 3D animation has done for the vehicles and space battle scenes, but I really wish they'd stuck to the "Samurai Jack" animation style.

I'm pretty certain the Intruder and Prowler have a lot of common parts - since the Prowler is a development of the Intruder airframe, with the addition of a fuselage plug, the big bulge at the top of the tail, and various other lumps and bumps...but not the Tomcat.

It seems unlikely that the Tomcat would have many common parts with the Intruder/Prowler family. Ejection seats and maybe some avionics...and maybe the same landing gear tires - but even that's not a given.

That recent? Wow - I'd never have thought Love Field had an airshow that recently.

Do you remember what year that was, Chris?

I've never even heard of Love Field doing an airshow - must have been back in the '50s or '60s - maybe the '70s. I can't really see it happening these days with the neighborhoods and businesses so densely packed in all around the airport. Maybe whoever you heard that from meant "Alliance" instead of "Love"?

Nana Trigger was a hell of a woman.

I just realized that May came and went and I didn't notice anything about an air show at Carswell. Did the end of VFA-201 herald the end of "Thunder Over Texas"? Anyone know for sure? Some websites are claiming that October's Ft Worth Alliance Airport Airshow is moving to Carswell. Kinda wondering if the two shows got combined or something...

More info in the Javelin here: http://www.avtechgroup.com/ Pretty cool little hot rod.

It's in the featured story panel on the front page, it's #3 out of their three featured stories in the big square frame. Here's the URL: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/07...ifesaving2.html but I don't think there's a bigger version. It's a USCG photo, so it may be searchable on the Coast Guard website.

Nice composition, and just a striking photo all around...

The RWR issue could be fixed by enlarging the shark's mouth and moving it back further on the fuselage - maybe where the buzz number is now. I don't know how strict the Navy is about where those numbers appear, though.

Crap.

Have you checked the reference photo section on www.starshipmodeler.com? They've got some good shots of the actual prop from several different angles, including the bottom.

G4 is apparently doing some kind of Star Wars special tonight.

Not for all aircraft - that would be a bit silly. Even the Marines don't task every single combat aircraft with CAS as its primary mission. Maybe I should have said it should "at least" be the secondary mission, if not the primary.

F-14's and F-15's have given close air support recently, as have B-1's, B-2's and B-52's. I still think it shouldn't be discounted - you never know when someone's going to be pinned down, and the only available aircraft will be an F-22. The pilots should be proficient at CAS for just such an occasion.

I'm concerned that he doesn't see value in F-22's being able to carry out CAS missions - that should (in my opinion) be a secondary mission for every USAF combat aircraft.

According to The P-38 Association's webpage on her, Glacier Girl is mostly original P-38 parts, even if a lot of the parts aren't original to that particular airframe: "Parts were much cheaper to acquire than creating molds to fabricate new ones. Finding them proved to be another adventure in itself..."

Think we might wind up with QF-15's or QT-38's as well?

In one of those "right place, right time" situations, I drove my boys by the Addison Airport on our way home from dropping my wife off after lunch. There on the taxiway was the Cavanaugh Musuem's TBM Avenger on the taxiway. So, I parked the car, got the kids out of their carseats, and we watched the Avenger take off with a small group of people who had gathered. As they took off (there was at least one passenger in the Avenger), the pilot waggled the wings and then flew off to the east. Then we drove around the airport and saw the Museum's FM-2 Wildcat sitting over where they park the plan

That P-38 didn't have its wing spars cut. Most jet fighters you see on display and in museums have been butchered - wing spars cut so they would fold up if it tried to fly, other major structural members cut, electrical systems stripped...It's really pretty sad.

Yeah, the QF-4s are USAF-operated. "Q" is a drone designation. Eventually, the pretty QF-4's you see are going to be flown out unmanned and blown out of the sky. The Collings Foundation has an F-4 that they fly in Vietnam-era camo and markings for the 555th TFS, and it's the only F-4 in private hands in the US, maybe in the world.

There are notable exceptions. I know that the Spitfire owned by the Cavanaugh Flight Museum was built from three different airframes to avoid just such a situation, and that a majority of its parts are from a BoB veteran airframe. They haven't flown it in a while, but it's maintained in flyable condition. Their B-25 is noted as the "most complete" B-25 flying, using more original B-25 components than any other existing airframe. And yeah, I don't care for "Thunder Mustangs".