...that never occurred to me, but it makes perfect sense. I wish I could give you more stars.

Good eye, I forgot about that one.

The Chinese are the only known manufacturer to produce AKs with fully hooded front sight bases, and they’re the only ones still producing AKs with the original vented gas tube. The entire Eastern Bloc, and everyone else who bought tooling from the Eastern Bloc, build AKM-pattern guns with gas vents in the gas block.…

Looks like the Su-25s and Su-34s are carrying OFAB-250-270 dumb bombs. I’m glad the Russians are concerned about precision and effectiveness in their airstrikes

This looks like an Su-27/30 wearing a football helmet. Yuck.

These look like brand new Chinese AKs. I’m curious who is providing them.

So...what are the odds that Congress is going to find the money to rush upgrades to the F-22 fleet, along with better radar and ECM to the F-15, F-16, and F/A-18 fleet? Basically, everything the USAF has been asking for for the past five years, but hasn’t been able to buy because the F-35 is sucking up the budget. The…

I think your sarcasm will be too subtle for most of the commenters here, but I found it hilarious.

This guy can’t comprehend that constantly having to tune carburetors is a bug, not a feature.

That article, and the decision keep that 3000GT VR4, might be the only things I’ve agreed with Tavarish on.

Big question - what happens when the Model X gets hit. How do you correct the careful alignment of all of those moving pieces on a damaged car, and how expensive will it be to replace all of those sub-surface sensors?

Yeah, but then you, you know, get out of the minivan, close the sliding door, and walk out. Even if the sliding door is motorized, that’s probably faster than the falcon door. And cheaper, probably more reliable, and still doesn’t have the worry about overhead clearance.

Is the screen biased towards the driver, is it an artifact of the fisheye lens?

The updated avionics were a nice improvement - that boardset runs a bit hot, but the functionality is dramatically improved compared to original hardware. Assembly was neater too. The original hardware was thrown together very quickly and showed it, but the purpose design 3.0 hardware was rather nice.

Are 550s selling? I remember hearing about the launch of production, and remember them ordering multiple ship sets of electronics, but I never knew if it was going into new 550s or upgraded 500s.

Well, if they’re smart, they will program each ‘button’ to require more than a gentle touch to activate. This will be slower and more annoying, but harder to screw up.

I’m not fan of touch screens, but this is probably a better solution than scrolling through layers of menus with a rotary knob with push button functionality.

I always wanted to see these things with guns and bombs strapped under the wings, A-1 Skyraider style. Does that make me odd?

Easy answer - buy more F-15s, particularly Strike Eagles. Yes, there aren’t enough F-22s to do what we need, but Boeing is still building F-15s and the Saudis financed the latest round of upgrades. Why not cash in on that? This is especially relevant because the existing Strike Eagle fleet is creeping up in age and…

Considering that might be the only one left in Nevada that hasn’t been turned into a drift machine, I’d say it’s a classic.