Pyroflash

1. The AIM-120C's seeker in game is functionally the same as the R-77's. If you choose not to believe me, that is okay, but it doesn't make it any less true. 2. It has been acknowledged that the R-27ER has short legs. It has been reported as a bug, and is being looked at as we speak. Knowing this, is there anything else that you would like to add?

If your wingman drops lock before the missile goes active, there is a really good chance that it will pick up the first target within its view range. If that happens to be you, well, I hope you are good at defensive BFM :D

Wing flex would be nice, but I'd say its somewhere rather low on my priority list. Right there under vapor effects, and right above having cirrus clouds render at variable altitudes.

I would pay for some of this stuff.

Any word on an included Warthog profile being worked on?

There are possible scenarios, especially given the two engines nature of all of our current aircraft, that pilots would not eject from their aircraft. Why on earth the assumption is being thrown around that a gut reaction to being hit by any little piece of shrapnel or bullets will instantly produce an ejection is beyond me.

I think that it should be random, because the loss of a HUD doesn't necessarily mean that the FCS will be borked as well. However it could very well be that you've lost all power, or that your entire avionics package has simply gone the way of the pig. But without any real modelling of systems in FC aircraft, the solution is going to be sketchy at best, and a randomized system is really the best option, IF, and only IF the hit was serious enough to cause a HUD failure under the current conditions/system.

You still have your APU, if you are lucky, and this should be more than enough to power the systems needed to fire missiles. Provided you can get the fire out, and into a stable glide, bet your ass that that wingman will be thinking about supporting his lead. If he can't, surely he isn't going to do an uncontrolled ejection over any random plot of land. Having a wing torn off is one thing, but an engine fire, especially a minor one, can be put out, and perhaps the plane can be salvaged if landed on a road or dirt airfield somewhere. You are right in this case, if an F-16C is spinning, especially if it is low to the ground, you usually have BIG problems. As many have said though, it does depend, and you have checklists memorized. Some of those checklists have an 'EJECT' in bold near the end, some do not. And what if that missile only inflicts minor damage? If you are still able to fly your plane, you aren't simply going to hit the panic button. This is an extremely touchy subject, but basically the point of nukes is as a deterrent against other countries using nukes. They are extremely unlikely to serve as a deterrent against a conventional attack, simply because that would defeat the whole purpose of having nukes in the first place. It may sound irrational and silly, but the whole point of having nukes is to never use them. The only time I could see a country run by people who actually care about anything using nukes is when their country literally faces all out annihilation. The U.S. would literally have to be cluster bombing Russian cities with napalm before Russia would probably resort to nuclear weapons. The same goes for the U.S. Russia would have to be sending in soldiers to line up civilians in the street for execution before the button would ever be pressed. The only other time this would potentially happen is if a bunch of really unqualified, panicky people got control of the entire missile command structure from the presidency down.

I'd agree with you, but I think what Kuky was trying to say was a LOT less severe as what you perceived it as. I don't think he was supporting the man, but instead insisting that you put more faith in factual information (manuals) rather than people, who, lets face it, apart from their status as SMEs, have no more weight on their opinions of a country's superiority over another than anyone else. If they did, they probably wouldn't be saying anything. That sort of DACT information used to defeat enemy systems and tactics tends to be one of the more heavily guarded secrets in today's world. Perhaps just as heavily guarded as the systems themselves are. I'm not saying anything bad about these people though. It is true that SME's are REALLY smart people. Most of them have spent a great amount of time working in their fields, however their status as SMEs generally ends at their specific fields, and does not USUALLY extend into any grand scope. There are specific SME's whose job it is to analyze enemy equipment and capabilities, however those people's lips are completely sealed, and I doubt even a company like ED has much, if any, public access to these people.

..Or are they? :D In all seriousness though, the third parties doing this stuff probably have access to resources that 95% (yes, I did pull this out of my dirty place) of us do not even know exist, let alone have quick access to on the internet. Not saying that this is illegally obtained or used info, just info that is outside of the scope of google-fu.

All I want for christmas is a datalink for my F-15C.

Good news, now I don't have to hear all of these Flanker guys complaining about their terrible looking plane anymore :D

I have absolutely no idea why I woke up and checked my E-mail, then went on this forum today, but seeing as I'm already here, I figured I might as well wish you all a merry christmas and a happy new years eve, and day, if you aren't passed out for that one.

I never said that it wouldn't. I simply stated, that it is of my own, personal opinion that I would much rather self-regulate than let someone else do it for me. I'm not saying that this is the correct way, or even the better way, however it is the way I choose. If a government wants to take away my freedom of speech, and freedom to information on the opinion that I cannot be held responsible for my actions, fine, but don't expect me to be happy about it, or even to willingly accept it for that matter. I have lived my entire life believing that each individual should be responsible for his/her actions. This is the true determiner of a persons' character, what they choose to do, when, and where. I could care less about what they say in order to pass their agenda, because at the end of the day they are trying to sell something to me. As a citizen, it is my moral duty to protest against oppression, and fight it when necessary. I would expect nothing less than this from any of the people I choose to ally myself with, and I know they expect nothing less from me. Are there people of low moral character? Sure. Are there people of measurable stupidity who might unknowingly get themselves into trouble? Sure. But what would you rather do, police their ignorance? Or maybe assist in educating these people so that we can raise the quality of human society?

Why can't you? Isn't it up to you, who is making this argument, to convince me of its correctness? Why should I automatically believe your version of the story? You talk about lies and slander, however it is precisely this attitude of yours that gets people into thinking that it is okay to post unfounded arguments because other people are too lazy to verify if the statements are correct or not. For the most part, they are correct. I have a job, and I am not a professional journalist. I do not have the time, or the effort to spare in order to personally go and confirm each and every statement that someone issues. This is why academia makes such a big deal out of citing your sources. The burden of proving the information is on the person trying to sell it. It would be one thing if I chose not to believe your cited sources, but this is completely different. You have failed to give me any legitimate source material to work with at all.

If they are facts, then where is your numerical, unquestionable proof? Should we also degrade science to mere hypothesis because it sounds about right? No, TLAR is for flying planes, not determining policy :P In fact, I could easily make a counter argument that the number of largely popular, independent blogs allows for more, less influential people to take advantage of the system instead of going back to the days of yellow journalism where no one could confirm or deny the events without physically traveling somewhere. W.R. Hearst would turn over in his grave if he knew the state of online journalism today :D

It is up to parents to guide their children early on, it is not anyone else's responsibility, and certainly not the governments'. If family is collapsing as a unit, it is not because of the internet. It is because of the values people instill upon themselves. I certainly don't want the government forcing me to spend time with my family (I do, quite often, but I find it ridiculous to assert that someone other than me should stick their nose in my personal business). Who do you really want to blame? The internet and what people choose to expose themselves to? Or perhaps you should be attributing this extreme dislike to its source; the groups and organizations who create these lies and propaganda. Would you shoot the mailman for delivering to you a letter about the benefits of radical Islam? No, that would be insane, you would just shake your head in disgust at the group disseminating the mail. It is the same concept with any other information distribution network. Yes, but who, exactly is choosing to buy into these lies, propaganda, and money making schemes? Isn't it the user, who, by completely free choice, is choosing to partake in these activities? Yes, countries should be able to make whatever laws are required to ensure that their people are free, safe, and able to live a prosperous life if they so choose. However where my views differ from those of nations like China is that I believe freedom means that people should be free to access whatever publicly available information they desire without it being arbitrarily restricted by a third party. This is a discussion for another thread and most certainly does not belong here.

The taxes aren't because the things you mentioned are addicting (well, yes, it is part of it). The real reason is because the demand for alcohol/tobacco products is extremely inelastic. Internet is also relatively inelastic, however I do not think that levying taxes would provide such an income boost like with alcohol or tobacco because the elasticity of demand is closer to being unit elastic than other taxable material.

Awesome, good luck man.

No, you are right, your comment did not involve any intermediary third parties. However, without lying (fake ID) or using intermediary parties (this is why I brought up the homeless person), how else is the child supposed to legally (as far as the store is concerned) purchase the material in question (I'm not saying they should be able to)? Again, a minor cannot legally obtain pornographic content from commercial providers ( on the internet). Thus again, an intermediary is needed. If not the parents, then whom? an uncle? a sister? a brother? A credit card is a credit card as far as I'm concerned, and it could be Joe Schmoe's from down the street for all that it matters in this context. No, my point was made to say that it is possible, and fairly simple at that, for minors to currently purchase adult material, if not directly. I do not consider a McGuffin analogy to be inappropriate in this case. If you wish however, I will henceforth refer to the "homeless person" in this context as "intermediary x", although honestly it is pure semantics.

New video outlining events.

There is a difference indeed. First off, traffic laws are regulated because there is an apparent need to educate people on how to properly drive. This does not necessarily mean that people would be prosecuted on any of this, however simply teaching people correct and safe driving is, in many cases, sufficient for adults. The same with traffic lights, it is flow control, not hard restrictions. There is nothing physically stopping people from simply running red lights, going faster than the speed limit, or cutting people off. Because it is a government restricting individual freedom to choose what is appropriate for viewing. What if someone came in here and said that www.eagle.ru is now a blocked site because these "airplane war games" are teaching people how to kill each other? Would you support this decision? Probably not. My response was as accurate as it needed to be. I was illustrating the ability of a minor to be able to procure adult material from a convenience store. The homeless person described in my story was not actively soliciting the material, but merely acting as an intermediary. If a minor buys porn from the internet using his parents' cards, then by your logic the parents are actively purchasing the content for their children to view, even if they are not made aware of these purchases. I chose a homeless person because his lack of income is more likely to lead him into becoming an accomplice in this act. A nice middle/upper middle class adult with children of his/her own would be less likely to acquiesce the minor's request for the material in question. This however is hardly relevant in the slightest, as my analogy did not include income or home-ownership as factors in the ability for someone to act as an intermediary.

Yes, actually. That minor can simply find a homeless person on the street and pay him to go and buy the magazine for him. In the same way, most commercial internet porn sites (the ones that are legal anyhow) require a digital signature (might be something as simple as clicking a box, or agreeing to a EULA) in order to access the material. And you are also making the mistake of referring to internet pornography as overtly sexual photo/filmography. The real definition however can be expanded to include stuff like violent video games, videos of people getting seriously injured, or even harmful youtube pranks. People can utilize this material, even make their own, just fine without the internet (okay, YT wouldn't exist without the internet), and there are regulations already in place to govern this media. However when is the last time you paid attention to the ESRB or cared what a movie was rated? Because a large portion of people do not care about these things, does that mean we should make it illegal to allow children to see rated R movies, even with parental supervision? Perhaps we should ban 16 year old children from playing games their parents have purchased them? These questions might seem important, but first, we have to take a large step back and answer the far more immediate ones. Who decides what is appropriate for my child to watch or be exposed to? Is a rating system supposed to apply to age, or mental maturity? What are the effects of being exposed to this material, and is it even damaging to begin with? How free should parents be to determine what content their children are exposed to? Who determines how free parents are to influence the development of their children? If parents are responsible for the development of their children, then who is? Whose rights will we be affecting in the attempt to fix this perceived issue? Before we can begin to answer questions about what to do, shouldn't we be first asking if anything even needs to be done at all? Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes it is no. However it is important to consider that just because the answer was yes other there, that it is not necessarily yes here.

It is indeed fairly tricky to form a concrete position on this. One one hand you have legitimate censorship of harmful material like child pornography, government secrets, copyrights, etc.. However, the long standing argument has been, and will continue to be where the line is drawn in these cases. Exactly how much government intervention is necessary to ensure that our rights are protected without infringing on other rights. For that matter, what exactly is a right when it comes to internet usage? I personally feel that freedom of expression, and freedom of access to all public information is a right (given that I already pay for internet costs), however some people may not see it that way. In fact, the internet can be, at times, emotionally damaging to young/insecure people. There are also arguments in place that freedom of information extends to copyrighted material. I do not agree, of course, as I know fully well how much effort is required in order to produce such material. However this does not mean that I support the notion by some that my access to the internet should be somehow restricted in order to promote the security of this material. These are just some simple, common arguments, let alone ones that have to do with organized control over certain technical internet "backbones" that people have their opinions over. And the decisions and opinions surrounding them may not be as clear cut as some may like to think. However I do firmly believe that it is for precisely this reason that everyone needs to be involved, and not just politicians who know nothing about the day to day operations and structure of the internet.