Geez, you guys keep pointing out how much it looks like a “757 on ‘roids” or a “767 warmed over”. What do you think [u]ALL[/u] these new planes coming out look like? Have you seen a new medium to long range wide (even some narrow) body NOT use the dual podded under wing layout? Besides the A’s 340, 380 & B747. And what about like, EVERY SINGLE regional jet? Why do they ALL look like the original DC-9 (in varying degrees)? I mean, thinking on it – commercial aircraft design seems pretty boring of late.

And didn’t NASA finally just retire the NKC-135 like a couple of months ago or something? About time. Not that it wasn’t useful, but now that the AL-1A is about to come up a bird like that as old as it is seems to have outlived its’ usefulness.

You know, it’s hard to confront this ‘best/worst scene’ vote without mentioning the REAL reason they suck, the editors. Why the hell can’t these guys get it right?

You want a shopping list of stuff i find annoying?
Firstest & mostest – when are they EVER going to get rank insignia right? They hire liasons all the time; how can they screw it up?
2) Iron Eagle – See; the amazing F-16 that can fire invisible missiles! On most climbing/dogfighting shots, the F-16s are stores-free. But when they need to shoot, they sure as hell have them there!
3) Top Gun – MiG-28s? Of course no one’s been that close before, Goose. They DON’T EXIST (at least like that). And why do MiG-28s resemble T-38s anyway?
4) WarGames – General Beringer scrambles the best looking F-16s to ever leave Galena. Of course, they’re F-15s….
5) Top Gun makes it’s second appearance – How many AIM-9s can that one pylon carry, anyway? All of ’em?
6) It’s also hard to remember all the times i’ve seen USN codes on aircraft the USN doesn’t code in that way, or ditto the USAF aircraft that get USN/USMC codes.
7) Rambo: FirstBlood 2 – i know an Mi-24 is intimidating, but how many rockets can an empty launcher fire? Apparently plenty enough to threaten a Huey…
8) It’s also hard to remember all the times you can spot the inevitable “but that plane was never in that AF/Navy!”
9) Top Gun can actually make up at least a third of anybody’s list. It still is pretty good from a modern aircraft standpoint simply because up until then, how many times had we seen something like that in film? Sad that we had to stoop so low…
10) Blue Thunder – no, i DON’T believe a helicopter THAT ungainly could be one of the only copters in the world able to do a full 360 loop. (Maybe Airwolf…but even they could only do the ‘hammerhead stall’)
Geez, i’ve really only just begun…

My fave would have to be most of the flying sequences from The Final Countdown. They really did a pretty good job in that movie. Probably becuase they limited the dogfighting down to nothing, really. Can you really consider a throwdown between two Tomcats and two Zeroes a dogfight?

therefore lets not bring old skeletons out.

This is rich. Why not? I mean, how many “new” skeletons can there be to thrash around. It’s not like we all had a forum to turn this around in back then so why not do it now?

Anyway, that being said.. I like the way everyone is so ready to say that the F-22 is the better deal when they talk commonality and what it can do. Would you people please note that this is after its’ development? Where do you think the F-23 could be if we got a chance to see it develop? Don’t answer my rhetoric there, i don’t want to hear what you pessimists would say about it. Fact is, there’s no way to tell. But at the time of the tests a lot of the factors swayed the F-23s’ way. It did come down to the F-22 being more ‘simple’ and in a way ‘common’, but no one should hold that against the F-23. ESPECIALLY if they find new designs appealing. If America’s test program was more like it was in the 50s, chances are greater we would definitely be seeing skies filled with -23s right about now. (Who am i kidding, if it was like it was in the 50s, we’d see both of ’em flying)

Well the presidential chopper is going to be a Euro-build, so those floodgates just opened. But the main trouble here is what it has always been for the USAF – why they didn’t lock down the K-767 leases – they want a four engine aircraft to do the tanking. And as we all know, four engines just aren’t popular anymore nor are they needed so nobody makes them. At least, not on a ‘small’ scale such as the 707. Where the USAF concerns lie is in how no matter the engine power, a duel-engined tanker facing a single engine loss during flight with a full bladder is a primary safety concern.

It’s going to have to be a new plane, bottom line. Unless they can ever be convinced or the study can find that duel engines will be adequate enough for the role.

But again, why the JFK? She’s 7 years younger than Kitty Hawk. Plus the fact that Kitty Hawk is forward deployed which alot of people argue isn’t necessary nor required anymore. Instead of rebasing (which isn’t all that hard, but you know the American government), it just seems more logical that they should bring her home and mothball her.

I still don’t see it happening. Last years’ GDR did, as it has for the past 30+ years, indicate that the USN needed 12 active blue water carriers to function efficiently at the request of the DoD.

However, if they finally decide to take into account the support offered by the LHA/LHDs and their aircraft, i may yet be able to see where they’re coming from. Given the Navy and the Marine Corps force of the future having the F/A-18E/F/Gs, the HV-22s and the F-35B/Cs and the respective ships to carry them, the Marines can really take up some slack from the lack of carriers. It in effect adds 8 more to the carrier fleet. Now, if these aircraft that they’ve been waiting forever for (V-22) come online and get augmented, perhaps ships like JFK and Kitty Hawk may not be needed.

Most of the 60s/70s designed Soviet Naval ships were some of the best looking, because you could actually SEE what was going to punish you if you pissed it off. Also the Battleships. Anybody’s. From any era. Anything that looked mean and could deliver a cruel and brutal vengeance. These new era stealthier/blockier boats with hidden missiles and single stick-like guns just don’t cut it.

Now from a hydrodynamic standpoint, i suppose some of those stealthier/boxier ships do have a nice look.