Kira

Canopy say's it's an early E model. E-3 most likely? I don't know enough about 109s to find any other obvious indicators elsewhere from that picture. Anyone have specifics to narrow down the model?

Notice how in all the shots but one the Sidewinders are on the left wing (station 1), and what appears to be a LANTIRN pod is on station 10. No ALQ-131 or 184. Oddities. I suppose the ALQ isn't necessary on a training sortie. Makes for a slightly less expensive crash should something go wrong, but... Makes me wonder if the single shot with the missiles on station 11 might simply be a swapped negative.

You purport to own cats, yet you call yourself their owner? Sheesh. Must not have trained you well. Cats have staff!

Hula hoop + go pro camera =

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/05/08/world-war-ii-vets-gather-for-flyover-to-commemorate-victory-in-e/21181360/?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl9|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D1885997393

Nice foliage pickup at 2:15.

"the industry overshot the correction and now made it possible to keep a captain locked out temporarily" Typical of most responses to disasters of any sort. For some reason the middle ground almost always gets lost in the knee jerk reaction - aannnd there goes the pendulum, right back to the other extreme.

That's the way a lot some of us over on this side of the pond think as well. The chances of a catastrophic event are so small that to take everyone's freedom away in an attempt to mitigate and legalize the inherent danger out of life... Well, at some point it just gets supid. Yet that's exactly what's happening. On the other hand, take look at a somewhat recent crash test with regards to motor vehicle safety where they crashed a museum quality 1950's car and a late 90's early 2000s (whenever the test was done) car. A majority of the extra cost of the new design (adjusted for inflation) went into safety features, and the results were, of course, predictable. Go back and look at the records from the 1950s and you'll find that roadway vehicle crashes resulted in a much larger percentage of deaths in the 1950s than it does today. Part of that has to do with advances in medicine, but you have to have a live patient, first. As the saying goes "You are now leaving the safe skies for the danger of the roads. Drive safely." But there's a reason for that, at least here in the US, where aviation is the second most heavily regulated industry in the country after nuclear power. Why? Because flying is not natural to humans and is thus inherently dangerous. The fact that it is at all viewed as "safe" and events like this cause the concern they do is due to massive regulation on the part of governments. Translation: You are not "free" in any way, shape or form when you board an airplane. The same goes for many other aspects of life where there have been attempts to regulate the danger out of certain activities. Take a not so recent discussion on house building requirements in the EU, for example. Same as cars. Why are they so expensive? Why can't you build the house you want? Because they've regulated it to the point where you must have this and you must have that, and in the end, you get a predictable result instead of what you wanted. Take a much closer look at the realities therein, and you'll find that as governments recognize that flying is dangerous, and as a result of regulation, not just anybody gets to fly these things. Things go wrong every day with airplanes, and when something does go wrong, the ridiculously vast majority make it down either perfectly safely, or with a minimum of problems. The reason for that is that flight crews (both cockpit and cabin) are professionals who are trained to deal with just about any emergency that could possibly happen. Such crashes as this make headlines not because they happen every day (like auto crash deaths in the 1950s), but because they are so rare. Amen to that! That's the problem, right there. Reasonable citizens. What are those again? Why is it that so few of them get to be lawmakers, anyway? Oh, yeah. Could it be that either so few of them are around or that those that are are out making an honest living?

When I was looking, I found "most" of the ones I was looking at in the 5ms response time. Saw a 7ms or two, but immediately passed over them. Is 5ms "good enough", or are you looking for 3 or 2?

Looks like Europe was behind the 8 ball with regards to two people in the cockpit at all times, as the US has been doing since 2001. I wonder if, and how quickly, that'll change as a result of this. http://www.aol.com/article/2015/03/26/official-1-pilot-locked-out-of-crash-plane-cockpit/21157765/?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl1|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D633802 When is it going to be mandated by powers that have the true ability to do so that people who wish to kill themselves just kill themselves and leave everyone else out of it?

"The Germanwings A320 lost radio contact with air traffic controllers over the southern French Alps during a seemingly routine flight Tuesday from Barcelona, Spain, to Duesseldorf, Germany, before crashing, killing all 150 on board." http://www.aol.com/article/2015/03/25/american-crash-victims-include-us-government-contractor-daughte/21157506/?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl2|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D633278 More news: http://www.aol.com/article/2015/03/25/the-latest-report-says-1-pilot-locked-out-before-crash/21157659/?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl1|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D633562

Aren't newspapers written to around a 5th grade reading level...?

Who's this Kiri character, and how do you define "successful"? Apparently Kiri's aircraft didn't end up as a hole in the ground after he did a low pass attempting to find the ever elusive target (upon which he never did drop) and got shot to pieces?!

Welcome to the pound! The sheep are for eating. Really!

Scratch that, Russian. Still, a neat video.

My first experience with LCD/LED monitors, having used a CRT up until now. I went first with a 19.5" that had 1600x900, with 170 degrees viewing angle. Not liking that due to "low" resolution (and overall size), I decided that I'd go with a 1920x1080. Noting that it had a much more limited 90 degrees of viewing angle, I thought "it'll be fine, I don't move my head that much." Wellll, guess what. There's a big difference between 170 degrees and 90 degrees. With 90 degrees, I've discovered that the view is so narrow that "wash out" occurs with even the slightest head movement. If I go to get even the slightest "closer look" at a particular cockpit item, the opposite side of the screen washes out. Even looking at my desktop image, if I move to any angle, it washes out. It really looks bad. That said, it's fine for email, writing, movies et al. But that's not what I bought the monitor for. Needless to say, I'll never, ever, get another monitor with such a narrow angle of view. I'd hazard a minimally educated guess and say that 120 degrees viewing angle is the absolute minimum required for flight sims, or much else for that matter. Live and learn.

Just the sheer As Crash said, sheer number of mods. In theory, it is multiplayer capable - so long as everyone has exactly the same thing. The problem is when you get people modding stuff, making sure no one has anything anyone else doesn't have gets difficult to impossible. Essentially it's hard to trust that someone hasn't done something, though in reality, if people are disciplined, it should work just fine. That's the advantage of one big pack like this. You get it all, and everyone in a multiplayer should be on the same page.

Iran is now the sole operator of the F-14 Tomcat: http://theaviationist.com/2014/04/20/iran-stages-massive-aerial-parade-with-f-14-f-4-mig-29-and-several-other-warplanes/ Well, at least someone has the sense to keep that beauty in the air! What to do about a lack of AIM-54 Phoenixes? How about Hawks? http://forums.airforce.ru/attachments/holodnaya-voina/23324d1268311517-skyhawk.jpg/ Not so sure about the authenticity of that one! It seems that this paint scheme might have been "borrowed" from someone else: (US Navy Blue Angels demo team) Here's a three part documentary on Iranian F-14s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sya-9XDpfiM&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BJ1cdMHzKM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNmgR_zcTNI

Just ran two AI F-14s launch to recovery. Went just fine. Only complaint was a 2 wire instead of the sought after 3 wire. Meh. Hell, they even got the oversweep of the wings for storage correct! Personally, I'd like to see a D model as well. As they say, the D, with those GE110s, made the F-14 the aircraft it always should have been. Shouldn't be all that difficult to do, either, so long as you're not superstickler for exactness. (If it says "Pratt and Whitney" on the engines, it damn well better say "Martin Baker" on the seats.) I do hope they put TARPS and Bombcat capability on it, just like VF-41 had. Edit: Apparently, I'm not entirely sure of what I'm talking about with the F-14. A+ and Bs DID have the GE110s, not just the D. More research needed... D had all kinds of whiz-bang zippy gadgets. Unfortunate that we aren't getting it, but that that would mean a whole new cockpit, too. A bit like that A-10A vs A-10C.

Ahh, 1920x1080. Much better.

Ah, that's where I made my mistake. Well, I'm still within the window to return it, and baring problems will probably be doing so Sunday. I think 1920x1080 on a 20-22" was what I was thinking, but somehow missed. Probably had to do with price. I've since discovered that that extra resolution is worth the extra money. Might have to wait for a sale, though, so I'm not spending literally twice what I did for this one for that extra 2.5" and extra resolution. Okay, it's a much better monitor, but still, twice is a bit steep. Looks like 5ms refresh rate is the standard. Should I be looking for something a little quicker, like 4 or 3? ... Annnnd I'm now looking at one that was exactly what I probably should have gotten in the first place. Nothing wrong with this one, mind, just that for a bit more, ($20), I'd get the extra 2.5" and 1920x1080. Yup, methinks that is what I was after. Hummm... http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=9563164&CatId=2775

Hmmm, well, it's 1600x900 native. I'd assume the "900" to be the vertical on a widescreen such as this is. Got together with Jack and AP last night and they sorted me out as to Nvidia software per my graphics card and it worked, got the screen where I want it. I'd thought, when I bought the monitor, that it was: A. 20" and maximum resolution 1600x900 or less likely, that I'd bought the smaller one with higher resolution: B. 19.5" and maximum resolution of 1440x1024, 1440x1080, or 1600x1024. Whatever a step up from 1600x900 is. Not sure exactly what happened now as it appears I didn't save the bookmark (!). Either way, I'm convinced that, while it works fine, I didn't get what I thought I was getting. I could have sworn I went with one or the other, and instead I got a C. 19.5" with maximum resolution of 1600x900. Just measured it with my trusty tape measure, and sure enough, the diagonal viewable screen width is 19.5", just like it said on the box.

Oh, I understand, Arthur. I also now get that there are certain things that one should not buy sight unseen, as sight of exactly how they operate is critical. I'm back on my CRT now and it just feels... better. I can tell, having the higher definition and become aware of such things, that my initial thoughts of "bad color" were incorrect, yet still, there's a "smoothness" to ye old CRT image that just wasn't in that LCD image. Of course, that could entirely have to do with the sharpness of the LCD that brought the specific inconsistencies into focus. Now I'm back to debating on weather it really was all that bad. But the brightness. Just, echk. Brightness of image, that when I turned down the monitor, it just looked like a overly-dark image rather than "correct". I think I'll be returning it tomorrow anyway, and seeing if they have something similar (or better yet, the same) to see, while it's on, against others. And maybe even talk myself into getting something slightly bigger, assuming there's a sale on.

"Doesn't it have a reset to factory defaults setting/function?" Yup. But the factory settings were uber-bright. What little I know about monitors, and LCD monitors in particular, the brightness seems to be hardwired somehow. I'll keep looking though. Needless to say, methinks 250 is a bit much!