Going through customs at Miami-Dade.

Suddenly Liam Neeson's actions at the end of The Grey make sense

I'm really having trouble figuring out the logistics of this accident.

I grew up in the little nub of north Dallas bordered by Plano, Richardson and Carrollton, and yeah, this is pretty much dead on.

When the A-12 program was cancelled they should have moved forward with the A-6F proposal (Super Hornet-esque redesign of the Intruder with state-of-the-art avionics, upgraded engines and so on). I have to imagine the A-6, properly updated, could have been a force to be reckoned with in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I also do branding and marketing! I'm inclined to agree...although I'm going to imagine they probably have complementary efforts going on alongside just having their wrap on a car...in person lead-gen at NASCAR race weekends and other places the car might appear, digital ads, paid social etc all pointing to landing…

Each branch gets to bring its own equipment. Difficulty: must remain on the ground. Homologation for military vehicles, how amazing would that be?

Yeah it did - but it was for different purposes of focusing the compression lift at supersonic speeds. I don't imagine the Valk was ever envisioned to be anything like maneuverable, just crazy fast, so the forces impacting the wing would be fairly predictable.

Interesting idea...sort of similar to variable geometry wings, but in the vertical rather than horizontal plane.

I'd say from 2005ish.

Actually...that's extremely subjective...

"In the end, he says he'd prefer the Cooper S for making him smile more."

This is a great post, and I've been saying more or less the same thing for years.

Don't bring the Mo into this! Iowa-class battleships flaunt very heavy belt armor, since they were designed to dance with Japanese BBs like the Yamato. A ship meant to absorb hits from 17" naval shells is relatively impervious to small boat + bomb attacks. Heck, I remember reading several years back that it could…

I'm a sucker for the Land Rover 88 Lightweight.

And the Countryman is 12" shorter than a Ford Focus 5-door and presumably most other compact hatch-things. Which means, because math, the Clubman will be 7" shorter than your average compact hatch.

How not? It's still smaller than just about every other four-door anything on the market. My Countryman (another HUGE Mini!!!) is something more than a foot shorter than the Focus 5-door I traded in.

Yes. This.

Caveat: I have a Countryman S and love it. Yeah sure it's bloated next to a Cooper S, but it's a full foot or so shorter than the Focus I ditched for it, and it FEELS like a Mini, and it can do kids and carseats without every loading/unloading become a game of "how will dad mangle his back this time?".

Yeah, prequels almost universally suck. But - Rise of the Planet of the Apes was solid. Of course, it also had the benefit of being far removed from the original POTA...