Re: [OFFICIAL] Some FT background stuff (guidelines for writers) - LONG POST!

At 02:15 2/12/98, Jerry Han wrote:
>I hear Chuck Yeager saying: 'It's the Man, not the Machine.'  (8-)
>
>But, on the flip side, pilot skill will only take you so far.	Give me
a
>pilot just out of the USAF Academy, and the Baron von Richtofen, and
give
>the newbie an F15 and Richtofen his Fokker DVII, and see what the hell
>happens.  (Big Hint:  Sonic Boom at Mach 2 (8-) )

Reminds me of a story: some years ago, I was playing Chuck Yeager's
Flight
simulator and for grins dialed up a F16 vs a Yak-something-or-other WWII
era prop plane. I figured I had an easy victory but... that Yak was so
slow, I couldn't hold a bead on it for long before overshooting it and
having to make a *long* loop around for the next pass. With no missiles
(would a Sidewinder lock onto a prop plane anyway?) it took *forever* to
kill the thing.

Admittedly, the model wasn't sophisticated enough to calculate the
effects
of a supersonic flyby on a wood & cloth plane....

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
Jim 'Jiji' Foster / jfoster@kansas.net / Jiji @ AnimeMUCK / TIP #28

"That's the way we all begin," said Tom Platt. "The boys they make
believe
all the time till they've cheated 'emselves into bein' men, an' so till
they die--pretendin' and pretendin'."
    Rudyard Kipling, _Captains Courageous_