Typically there are two speeds for door open/close and launcher extend/retract. The slow mode is used during maintenance and weapons loading to prevent injuries to ground crew (gives them a chance to get their hands/arms out of the way). The fast mode is used during flight operations and shouldn’t take more than a couple seconds to open or close, extend or retract. I suspect the software being used during the video 1st flight demo was the slow mode to prevent equipment damage if the switchology was out of whack.

Makes sense. Is there any info about how fast the fast mode takes?

First Internal Weapon launch for the F15 Silent Eagle…..

My goodness, how long does it actually take for those “doors” to open, missile to pop out, launch then close the bay again? Seems forever. Doesn’t look impressive enough to me.

To answer the question though, I agree with Kobayashi being the best of the new drivers and Lotus being the best new team (although I disagree with the HRT car being ugly).

Sorry I should have explained it a little better. I mean’t as in handling wise. The Lotus looks really good through the corners especially when you see the onboard footage of the car, it just looks at home. Where as the HRT car looks so ragged & awkward, the drivers seem to be fighting with it even on the slow corners, I’ll feel sorry for the drivers when Spa is next, especially on eau rouge.

Its quite a good looking car though, the HRT. Looks quite evil & menacing. As of looks, the Lotus is my favourite looking, can’t wait until theres a model of it released.

If Kobayashi goes the way he’s going now, providing he gets the right support, management, teams etc then he’s someone to watch out for, this chap definitely has something going for him, he’s a racing driver through & through and if I owned one of the top teams, Red Bull, Ferrari, Mclaren & all, I’d be keeping an eye on him for a seat.

Ferrari need F1 not the other way around.

Well, true, but F1 need Ferrari too, not as much as Ferrari need F1 but still, they’re needed. Not so much as in a sport, but commercial.

If someone asks you; from the top of your head name five car makers without thinking about it, one of them would be without doubt, Ferrari. Theres always a new generation of car enthusiasts coming about that don’t really pay attention to any kind of motorsport, sounds odd but its true, but still, they’re Ferrari nuts at heart, they get a bit more into them, not only do they follow their progress of road cars but they start to follow their racing progress, of which F1 was probably the most popular place to start. Thats how a lot of people get into F1. You’ll probably never hear anyone say; I got into F1 because I took a keen interest in the Sauber team’.

Saying that, theres a majority of F1 fans that have no clue what got them interested in F1, I’m probably one of them.

@ Lincoln 7, very lucky for you, really, I’ve never gotten that close to an F1 race even though I was very fortunate to meet my all time F1 hero twice. I’d love to have met Nigel, dispite him being a bit of a tough guy and maybe seem a little intimidating and being nicknamed Lion heart’, I’ve heard he’s a bit of a big softy at heart, real nice bloke.

I met Martin Brundle briefly too, he’s a good bloke too, very pleasant. He was hanging about with Damon when I met him in 99

Those “canard fanboys” are claiming that F-35 will be prohibitively expensive, in the first place. That includes me, as well.
And while the news about it keep coming from all corners of the world (first Denmark, then Canada, now Israel), there are some hard-core naysayers who keep throwin that $60mil flyaway figure around and think that means problem solved 😎

If the F-35 is so expensive that it actually pays off thinking about procuring Super Hornets or Rafales at the price of rebuilding carriers, then it only shows how “cheaper than Rafale” it really is 🙂

And if the F-35 is as cheap as LM and the oh mighty lord say it is then the UK wouldn’t have dropped it. (Allegedly).

This is madness everyone knows that unless you delay CVF by a further few years until EMAL is ready then a STOVL aircraft is the only way to go. Steam cats could be fitted but it would cost so much extra in restructuring to covert from STOVL to CATOBAR that it would end up costing more than purchasing F35b in the first place. You can’t just look at the cost of the aircraft you have to look at the cost of training for CATOBAR and expensive integration of catapults into carrier that were designed for STOVL not steam catapults.

I think some people underestimate the Queen Elizabeth carriers when it comes to adding catapults etc, if you do a little research about them, they’re actually designed to outlast, if you like, aircraft that exist or are planned to fly from them, hence why they’re designed to have upgrades in the future.

I don’t know who claimed that. The Raptor uses some IR suppresion methods but they are not that radical (as RCS reduction)

Just a thought…And a fact, Dave Morgan, an RAF Harrier pilot that flew with the Royal Navy during the Falklands War, managed to lock-on to a manure heap on the ground a good few miles away with an AIM-9L from his Shar FRS1, that was in the 80’s. So if that can be done then I’m sure more modern and advance heat seaking A/A missiles can get a heat signature from an F-22.