emg

USMC Hornet squadrons routinely deploy on carriers. F-16 is a no-go. Anyway USMC aircraft procurement and pilot training is (or at least used to be) handled by the USN, who also control the budget.

Guys, read the interview thread. Their next aircraft "was actually not flown by the USMC. It is an aircraft you'd expect to have been; but wasn't." This disqualifies both planes in the poll.

Don't be so hard on the designers of the Apache. ;) After all it was made for killing tanks at the Fulda Gap, not expeditionary warfare like the Cobra. Sorry, my misunderstanding. As someone else said, I guess people are just getting ready for Black Shark by posting some cool attack helo pics. :)

Fact is that military hardware contracts come with lots of offsets and investments and other concerns. For instance, Turkey wants to join the EU so at least one of their upcoming hardware contracts will be European (probably Typhoon.) I'm not trying to "sell" the Rooivalk, (I'm not South African if that's what you think) but when a small country manages to produce top notch military hardware then it deserves recognition.

Selling it? Read my post again, I said it's not a very attractive thing to buy. You think buying weapons systems is all about looking for capability? There're lots of reasons why I wouldn't buy the Rooivalk but none of them have to do with the capability of the chopper.

The Rooivalk will have a hard time getting sales because you need geopolitical weight to sell hardware these days. It's nice kit. First grade manufacturing process, this is no chopper you can afford if you don't have the money for the high-profile choppers out there. Long range. Agile despite being such a big beast. Made for war in the bush, maintainability, hot & high performance. Upgrades with a MMW-radar and complementary versions of the Mokopa are available from Denel, South Africa couldn't afford it but a customer could get it. Did well in the UK trials but the Hellfire was unavailable (old weapon embargo against South Africa still in place even 12-13 years after the fall of apartheid) so it was a no-go. The Mokopa has good performance but the UK needs weapons commonality with allied forces.

AFAIK, Visa Electron doesn't work with online purchases. This is by design and is one of the reasons why it can be issued to people who are as young as 13 years old. You should be able to upgrade to a regular Visa for no (or very little) charge if you contact your bank.

At first it might seem daunting to map all those functions, but take it in small steps - map the basic, most used functions when flying the A-10 and spend a little time to get used to them (luckily there's an excellent A-10 tutorial out there, see below.) Then you'll be able to move on to map (mentally as well as on your stick and keyboard) the more advanced radar functions of the fighters more easily. Taking it all in at once could put you off the game. 1. First, make sure your basic functions are set right (axis 0 and 1 are already set but on the cyborg evo you need to set "axis 2" to Thrust and "rotator 2" to Rudder. By default you'll also have Fire (for all weapons on Russian planes, but only guns on the US planes) on the index trigger and Release weapon (for everything else on US planes) on button 2, and views on the numpad keys and hat. For now this will be enough. 2. If you have 1.12a, Get http://flankertraining.com/ironhand/Downloads/Getting_Started_Part_2--The_Flight.exe Which comes with a video, an A-10 training mission and a small key command list for the A-10 functions used in that mission. Watch the vid, run the mission, and map the keys you need the most. You'll most likely end up mapping at least Lock target/Ground stabilize, (default: Tab) Change pylons, (def. D) chaff and flares to your joystick buttons. If you don't have 1.12a you'll have to make the mission yourself, just download the Part 1 video from http://flankertraining.com/ironhand/flightbasics.htm which will take you through the steps. Oh and power up right/left engines are mapped differently in 1.0/1.02 so you'll have to find that entry in the "flight" part of the input options. (BTW When you're done mapping you should also check out the rest of the content on that site. If you don't mind spending an hour being guided through the interface you also should watch Part 1 whether you have 1.12a or not.) 3. Run the training tracks for the plane you want to fly first, take notes of which keys you'll use the most and map them as you wish. If you do step 2 you have already mapped the basic keys, but with the fighters you also have some radar functions you might want to remap. (BTW slewing the target box and locking an air target with your radar-equipped fighters uses the same buttons as slewing the Maverick's seeker and ground stabilizing it.) 4. Run some quick canned missions for the plane(s) you want to fly to "iron" your profile out. Good luck!