RaceFuel85

I know. Hence why I said "when you can't see the intakes" meaning certain angles where the fuselage is obscured somehow.

Much like in driving and coming up to a 4 way stop..at sea the right of way goes to the right, depending on the situation. If it's determined that it was a crossing situation, IE one ship crossing the path of another, then the Fitzgerald was at fault for the accident. If it was an overtaking situation with courses that would eventually intersect, then the cargo ship was at fault. Without exact, high detail radar tracks of what happened, we won't know for certain. Those likely won't be released until after the mutual boards of inquiry reach a ruling.

Yep. Accidents made news when they literally couldn't not talk about it (IE an aircraft goes down near a neighborhood or something). Every combat aircraft fielded has problems at first. The F-14 had engine problems that plagued it until the B's came online around 1988 (and the A's never fully escaped). The AWG9 radar was touchy and could be difficult to maintain. The F-15 also had problems with it's engines as well as avionics issues. The F-16 gained the nickname "lawn dart" because it's fly-by-wire system was unreliable at first as well as, like the other two "teens"..engine problems. The F-111 had avionics issues as well as wing-box problems that it also never fully escaped. Hell things were so bad with the F-15 early on that nearly half the USAF's fleet of Eagles was sitting with bare firewalls..that's how severe the engine problems were, at the height of the cold war.

It is, and it's going to end a few careers. No Captain of a ship retires for the evening without leaving standing orders for the watch officer (usually a JO) to alert them should any number of events happen..(IE a surface contact within X distance or a submerged contact of ANY kind) and get them to the bridge. The same thing should have happened aboard the merchant ship. If the Fitz's captain did not leave standing orders for the watch officer..then it'll be the neck of both the captain and the watch officers in the proverbial ringer. If the captain left those standing orders and either through negligence or incompetence the watch officer failed to obey them..then their ass is done, but the Captain will still likely bear some fallout of some kind.

They also shot at each other with pistols in A2A combat during WW1... Things changed dramatically just in the 20 years between the wars..to say nothing about now.

I don't believe the official report has been released.. Just Tom Cooper doing Tom Cooper stuff.

FYI the easiest and quickest way to tell it's a Super Hornet when you can't see the intakes and pylons is if it has the "pizza box" IFF antenna on the nose.

The Shrike and the HARM served side by side for a while..about 7 years or so. It was kept around for lower threat targets that required less range and speed than the HARM was capable of and because it was pretty darn cheap. F-4G's shot a bunch of them (pretty much the majority of the remaining stockpile) in Desert Storm. They were ultimately retired in 92. So..it's not unrealistic if the Hornet is getting the Walleye modeled that it would have the Shrike also.

Yep... Between 0:04 and 0:09 it's been accelerated. You can tell because if the aircraft was moving as fast as it's trying to show..the clouds movement and camera shake would be constant. As it is the footage suddenly speeds up, as does the background movement and camera shake for those 5 seconds.

That too.

Whenever an aircraft is shot down by another aircraft or anti-air system, it's a "kill". I once saw a statement by an F-15C pilot who summed it up in his view that once the aircraft is destroyed, his task is complete. It's not necessary for the opposing pilot to be dead, which is why you wouldn't gun the pilot in their chute.

You're cool Cobra..just keep on trucking and know that we're all very happy with what you're bringing to DCS.

Well the Eagle has a little bit of a head start... Like..22 years head start.

So beyond arguing semantics in a chicken and the egg scenario of who was developed first and what caused what...what did I say that was incorrect?

I'm in favor of whatever helps this module be as successful as it can be in the most countries, and sell like hotcakes.. If that means giving people the option of an unconfirmed, unrealistic loadout on some MP severs..that's fair.

They haven't hinted at a throttle quadrant for the Hornet. They very clearly said "add on stick" to the Warthog, which is what was shown.

There's a difference between "proposed" and "developed". The idea for an improved F/A-18 was first floated in 1984, but the Navy rejected it. In 1989 then SecDef Cheney, justifying it as "60's era technology" and that the F-14 was little more than a jobs program, drastically cut the F-14D purchase (and thereby eliminating the all F-14D fleet the Navy had initially wanted) and killed the F-14 program entirely in 1990 before F-14D production even fully began. Two days after the F-14 program was terminated the Navy announced the Super Hornet program, which is when the F/A-18E/F was *developed* in earnest, IE taking concept and actually drawing up designs. Four years later the first Super Hornet prototype flew. In terms of maneuverability of the Tomcat..it's entirely dependent on which motors it had. The F-14A was hampered by the TF-30's, which meant the pilots had to spend more time carefully flying the motors vs actually flying the aircraft (air frame) to its' maximum potential. The same was true of the early F-15A, given the F100 engine also had issues with aggressive throttle movement in some realms of the envelope and flight conditions.

That would be Panther of the Virtual Thunderbirds, and she's a she.

Thanks Wags!

They specifically said it would be an add on stick, not a whole new HOTAS system. The A-10/Hornet/Eagle HOTAS are close enough that close enough is close enough.

Am I the only one who finds it odd they're letting people demo it but there still isn't a press release on it yet? Normally companies have one ready to go and they publish it the moment people are able to go hands on with the thing.

Much like the actual Hornet stick as less buttons vs the A-10C stick.. funny how that works.

That article is a bit...cheerleader intense. The Tomcat was retired because it was a 1960's design that was designed to be serviced by 60's level staffing. Even the Strike Tomcat 21 or whatever they were going to call it was hampered by Grumman's refusal to fundamentally modernize the Tomcat's bones to make it less of a MMH hog. Keep in mind the Tomcat was never intended to survive as long as it did. It was supposed to be replaced, much like the F-15, by the NATF in the mid 90's. However, like the F-15, delays (and in the Tomcats case, cancellation) of it's replacement meant it was going to have to soldier on much longer. It was expected and required of the Tomcat to only be "superior" for roughly 15 years (or if we round up the Tomcats in-service date of 1974..1990) before being replaced. In an ideal world the Tomcat would have been replaced and phased out by 1995 by the NATF, the A-6 by the A-12 and the Hornet would have continued supplanting and replacing the A-7. However that didn't happen, so the Super Hornet was developed and the Tomcat had to hold out for another 26 years. Such is life.

I know..but not every museum jet suffered the same fate! There's at least one where the only thing missing is some of her avionics and radar black boxes. Otherwise she's intact, uncut wing spars, complete lower hour TF-30's..everything.

I do kind of understand why the D at Evergreen is outside..She's stripped internally and is basically just a shell. The A at Tillamook is still mostly intact..I think the only thing they did to de-mill her was take her electronics and cut her wing spars..otherwise she's complete as she was at her last flight.