Hello All,
Here is the bottom line on the fighter pilot story: (This is written from
first person WWII GAMING perspective, but if you talk to a real fighter pilot
he will agree with what I am about to say)
The answer to the question of what is the best fighter plane of WWII is
simple. It's the one I am flying! (I.E. If I am not the best, I am going to
get killed doing this.)
I will always win an air combat if the enemy plays by my rules. (I.E. he tries
to fight inside my performance envelope
He who makes the first mistake, has made the last mistake.
Be agressive, even if outnumbered 10 to one it puts the enemy on the
defensive.
The number of kills I have gotten against aces in superior aircraft is far to
long for me to bore you.
As far as the sonic boom vs WWI aircraft, I think it makes for
a great short story. The presumption that everything will
just fall apart as you go by in your jet or never regain control due to the
shock wave is a bit much. (How do you plan to land this thing and what will
you use for fuel?)
Bad news for someone, the Super Drone fighter is no better than a
standard fighter in a head on pass. The only thing that matters
is holding down the firing button, even a human can do that.
Bye for now,
On Thu, 12 Feb 1998 16:07:25 -0800, John Leary <realjtl@sj.bigger.net>
wrote:
> The number of kills I have gotten against aces in superior
Were these human or computer? And how many times were you shot down? What was
the game?
> As far as the sonic boom vs WWI aircraft, I think it makes for
Ooooooh, no it's not! Until late in the war, no one knew how to pull out of a
spin. It was assumed that a spin was fatal. What's more, it took very little
to throw a WW1 fighter into a spin. In some, just stalling the plane or
turning too tightly would do it. The wake of a twin engine fighter travelling
supersonic should do it, too.
For the record, a friend of mine did write a story (and had it published) on
something similar: a WW1 fighter encountering a UFO. I think the story was
titled "Scout, Experimental."
> Bad news for someone, the Super Drone fighter is no better than a
Except that a Super Drone fighter won't chicken out. No one has mentioned that
even top fighter jocks experience fear.
> Allan Goodall wrote:
There's a short story on this topic that was published years ago. I
read it in one of those short story sci-fi anthologies: Space Fighter
3000
or something like that. (8-)
Also remember that WW1 fighters were fairly fragile compared to modern
counterparts. What was VNE for a Camel? 100knts? Granted, she didn't
stall until 40 or 50 or so, but still... (8-)
J.
> Allan Goodall wrote:
...Snip...(JTL)
> Except that a Super Drone fighter won't chicken out. No one has
Allan, The fighter game was called 'Mustangs and Messerschmetts' by Rocky
Russo. I am going to a game this weekend, expectations are not high, the game
requires constant practice. The game was against real people for fighter vs
fighter and slightly abstract for bomber formations. Rocky was a GREAT fan of
the Me109 series, so much so that it was the greatest thing since the
invention of food.
The best USAAF ace I have has flown 17 of 25 allowed ('44)
missions and has 33 confirmed kills in a P-51C-10. Seven of the
kills were against aces with as many as 35 kills. One aircraft
scrapped due to battle damage. Since the game died out for about 10 years here
I did a summation of the best Luftwaffe pilots in each period (25 missions per
period)
for '40, '41, '42, and '44. The grand total is 230+ kills in 90
missions, several in '44 were aces with more that 25 kills.
This pilot is currently flying an FW190-A9 and does not think
kind thoughts about Spit XIVE or Tempests. On several occasions in '44 I have
gotten more than 10 kills in a single mission. (My
average shooting range is 5-7 inches (100 to 140 yards). I have lost
3 aircraft in '44, have not flown is Russia at all with this pilot. I found it
necessary to completely revise the aircraft stats based on my own research and
formulas.
Change of topic: I beg to differ on the comment "The drone won't chicken
out.".
The programming would include a value/loss statement as well as the
fact that humans do ram high value targets. The drone would consider
itself as a high value target and would try to avoid a crash.
Bye for now,
On Thu, 12 Feb 1998 21:39:59 -0800, John Leary <realjtl@sj.bigger.net>
wrote:
> I beg to differ on the comment "The drone won't chicken out.".
But the drone turned away from the fight because it's programming told it that
it was prudent to do so. Humans often turn away from a fight due to their
fears of dying. It's a lot more difficult to get a human to sacrifice himself
or herself than it is to get a piece of machinery to do so.
> On Thu, 12 Feb 1998, Jerry Han wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Feb 1998 16:07:25 -0800, John Leary
"Hawk among the Sparrows", Dean McLaughlin; Analog, July 1968.:)
In message <34e612df.1133841@smtp1.sympatico.ca>
> agoodall@sympatico.ca (Allan Goodall) wrote:
> But the drone turned away from the fight because it's programming told
Depends on how intelligent the piece of machinary is. AIs may well be as
careful about their continued existance as humans are. If the AI is a neural
net, then programming out that desire for self preservation could be difficult
(the problem with neural nets is, even if they work, you never know exactly
why they work).
Of course, if the AI knows that it has a to-the-second backup
sitting back on the carrier, then it may not worry so much.
Another way to word your example btw, is that: "the drone turned away from the
fight because it valued its life over destroying the enemy." "the human turned
away from the fight because she valued her life over destroying the enemy."
Both can be viewed to be the same.
> Samuel Penn wrote:
...Snip...(JTL)
> Another way to word your example btw, is that:
Sam, I do not intend to be offensive, keep this in mind. I do have an 'intense
dislike' for PC (political correctness).
The default value for 'Human' is masculine in the English, American, Canadian,
Australian, and New Zealand languages. (as well as many not listed here).
Bye for now,
On Sat, 21 Feb 1998 17:00:31 -0800, John Leary <realjtl@sj.bigger.net>
wrote:
> Sam,
Actually, what Sam wrote is grammatically, and sylistically, correct. The
problem is that English doesn't have a neutral gender indefinite pronoun,
while most languages do. If you are not sure of the gender, traditionally you
use the male pronoun. However, use of the female pronoun is not incorrect.
Maybe it's politically correct, but it doesn't bother me. If it helps
to "de-marginalize" women, than I'm for it.
One other thing: it was Sam's example. Sam COULD have been talking about a
female pilot, in which case his example isn't even politically correct, it is
just simply correct. I assumed that he was talking about a female pilot...